Former Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum spoke to Billboard about his time with GN’R and explained how the fans rioted when the band was going late on stage because of Axl Rose.
Sorum was Guns n Roses’ drummer from 1990 to 1997, and he released three studio albums with the band. The albums ‘Use Your Illusion I,’ ‘Use Your Illusion II,’ and ‘The Spaghetti Incident?’ included three of their most known and loved songs ‘Aint It Fun,’ ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door,’ and ‘November Rain.’
The drummer was kicked out of the band in 1997 because of a fight with Axl Rose. The duo remained cross with each other until after nine years when they re-built their friendship.
Recently, Sorum talked about his experiences of performing with Guns N’ Roses. He touched upon the famous issue of Axl Rose being late to live performances of the band. Matt stated that he was feeling frustrated when the band was late almost two hours to start the show which also made their fans furious. However, Sorum also mentioned that it was actually helping the crowd to enjoy the shows even more.
Here is what he said:
“When I talk about being backstage, and we’re two hours late, and I’m frustrated, once we got up there, it was just all-out rock n roll. We were just throwing down because there was a lot of frustration, anger, anxiety but it brought the show to a whole other level. The crowd was fired up because they were angry that we were late. But once we got out there, some nights were just absolutely on fire. I take great pride in that period in my life. It’s just a great gift that I was there at that time with that particular lineup.”
Even though it could have ended their career as a band because of the frustration of the audience, it eventually didn’t. The drummer was mad at Axl Rose because of this situation, but he can now see the good parts of it, and is memorable to him now because he feels lucky to be there in that specific lineup of the band.
