Velvet Revolver May Support Led Zeppelin on Tour
Duff McKagan has revealed that VELVET REVOLVER is in pole position to support LED ZEPPELIN if the legendary rock act decides to go ahead with a full-blown reunion tour.
"I understand that we have it, although I imagine there will be plenty of bands prepared to kick and punch us out of the way for the privilege!" said McKagan. "I would so love to have been at their London gig before Christmas, but we had dates of our own that obviously took precedence.
"What made up for it was running into Jimmy Page at an awards ceremony and him not only knowing who I was, but also saying he'd caught a couple of VELVET REVOLVER shows. No way did I think in 1977 when I saw LED ZEP in Seattle that one day I'd be hanging out with the guitarist. Things like that I still pinch myself!"
LED ZEPPELIN bassist John Paul Jones said at BBC Radio 2's annual Folk Awards in London on February 4 that the band has "no idea" about its future plans yet, according to Gigwise.com. When asked if the group members had spoken with each other since their acclaimed reunion show in December, Jones told the BBC, "I am obliged to say we have and we have absolutely no idea of what we are going to be doing."
Jones had said shortly after the reunion concert that the band would meet in January to discuss its future.
Guitarist Jimmy Page said at a press conference in Japan in January that the band was "musically ready" to go on a world tour, although the earliest that was likely to happen was September. The delay seems mainly due to the schedule of singer Robert Plant, who will be touring with singer Alison Krauss to support "Raising Sand".
When asked recently in New York about the chances of a full-blown ZEPPELIN tour, Plant said, "You never know what is around the corner."
New DUFF MCKAGAN Interview
VELVET REVOLVER singer Scott Weiland's latest battle to get clean led to the cancellation of VR gigs Down Under and there are no assurances the UK leg of the tour will finish as planned. At least not from the group's bassist Duff McKagan. "Scott is OK as far as I know but I can't say he'll be fine when the tour kicks off or when it finishes," McKagan told UK's JournalLive. "You just never know. Addiction is crazy and I should know. I can't be cagey and say, 'Oh no, we're going to be fine and everything's going to go without a hitch.' The truth is I just don't know what will happen. I don’t want to read this interview where I've said there'll be no problems and then for us not to finish the tour. I don't want to have to eat my words. All I can say is that right now I'm confident it will happen and we've never sounded better as a band."
McKagan added, "VELVET REVOLVER is something that's going to be around for a long while yet. Because of the individuals involved, there are always going to be things going on around the band that will confuse fans once in a while but we're here to stay. Slash and I have been doing this job for 20 years and nothing is going to get in the way of what we're doing now.
"This band is the main thing in my life. It's the thing that I need to fulfil myself mentally. It's the perfect way for me to express myself musically and artistically. It's not something that I look at in a commercial sense at all. That's what will guarantee its longevity."
Read the entire interview at JournalLive.