Velvet Revolver guitarist Dave Kushner revealed on Fueled By Death Cast (via Alternative Natiom) that the band came very close to continuing without Scott Weiland, reaching the point where they actually hired someone.
“We had this guy Franky Perez, who is still a good friend of mine, who is a f*cking amazing singer. We actually told him he was in the band, he was the only guy who actually got hired, we kept recording with him.
“It just kind of – the longer we worked f*ckwith him, the less it felt right. There were other factors, I think Slash was getting ready to do a solo record. I think his head was already over there at that point.
“We worked with the singer from Big Wreck (Ian Thornley), we worked with the singer from Spacehog (Royston Langdon). We didn’t work with Lenny Kravitz, but there was some talk of us doing stuff with him. There was a lot of talk, there were a lot of dudes trying to get that job too, like the first time, but obviously at that point people knew. It just didn’t happen.
“So Franky Perez got hired by the band. He moves from Las Vegas to LA, he has no money, then all of a sudden he’s not in the band. I felt horrible for him, because I was always kind of the underdog in the band. I was like, ‘Oh dude, that’s so f*cked up.'”
Other singers that auditioned for VR or were rumored to be joining the gang include Corey Taylor, Myles Kennedy, Chester Bennington, Sebastian Bach, Steve Isaacs, Donovan Leitch, and Jimmy Gnecco. Apart from a one-off reunion in 2012, the band is no more as of 2008.