Discography

GNR Discography

Noteable Appearances

History

Matt Sorum was born Matthew William Sorum (Norwegian spelling Sørum), on November 19th 1960, in Mission Viejo, California. His parents were of English and Norwegian descent. Sorum started out in Mission Viejo as a local musician in 1975. Wearing trademark "Union Flag" shorts and nothing else, he used to pound a huge acrylic drumset and overpower his first band "Prophecy", where he and lead singer / guitarist, Jeff Harris, stood out and the rest of the band just disappeared.

A local songwriter, Stephen Douglas, pulled him from the band and joined him with other talented musicians in the area to form "Chateau", a wall-of-sound band with grandiose themes and sounds in their songs.

Sorum's work with Chateau produced a four song set that was covered by local radio stations for a short time, but the music scene changed from grandiose rock to punk and alternative new wave music. Sorum left and went to Hollywood to play with a series of bands, including "Population Five", with the bassist Prescott Niles from The Knack, . He then left on a tour around the country with a blues guitarist, playing nightclubs and bars.

In 1988, he was recruited to play on the debut album of Y Kant Tori Read, a band fronted by a then unknown Tori Amos. In the wake of that project, he joined The Cult as their live drummer for the 1989 tour in support of Sonic Temple.

In 1989, after Slash saw Sorum live with The Cult on their Sonic Temple tour, he was impressed and shortly after Sorum joined Guns N' Roses in 1990 as Steven Adler's replacement. Sorum featured fully on the lengthy Use Your Illusion Tour, drumming on all of the 192 shows, 8 legs and to over 7 million fans. He can be heard on Use Your Illusion I, Use Your Illusion II (excluding the track "Civil War"), "The Spaghetti Incident?", the 1994 cover of the Rolling Stones track "Sympathy for the Devil" and the majority of Live Era: '87-'93.

In 2002, Sorum reunited with Slash and bassist Duff McKagan for a charity benefit. Realizing that they still had chemistry together, they formed a new band called Velvet Revolver with former STP frontman, Scott Weiland and rhythm guitarist Dave Kushner. After the 2004 release of their debut album Contraband, they embarked on a worldwide tour that continued through December 2005.

In addition Velvet Revolver Sorum released first solo album entitled Hollywood Zen, in 2003. The album, available through his website, was a musical statement about his life, touring, relationships, etc. In the same year, Sorum also began playing with newly formed Camp Freddy.

In 2006, Sorum began guest recording in his studio with a new project, called Circus Diablo. That year, he also launched a clothing line, SorumNoce.

After taking some time off in 2006, Sorum and the rest of the band returned to the studio in December to record Libertad, Velvet Revolver's second album, released July 3, 2007. Sorum toured with the band, until Singer Scott Weiland left the band on April 1, 2008 to reunite with his STP bandmates.

On June 4, 2008, Sorum revealed Camp Freddy was working on an album.

Velvet Revolver plan to unveil their new singer soon (as of August 2008).

Last edited by gnrevolution (850 weeks ago)