Velvet Revolver guitarist Dave Kushner discussed his bandmates’ drug issues from back in the day, saying on Fueled By Death Cast:
“Dude, it’s so stressful watching that. Like Slash sitting there on the phone and he’s playing with that little plastic candy wrapper, and you’re like, ‘Oh, okay. So he’s got the flu?’, which is like every junkie story when they’re sick.
When you’re at that point, you get flu-like symptoms… He was f*cked up, and he got arrested like two weeks into it. He went to jail because he got pulled over with drugs on him.
“I tried to help them as much as I could. It was like a f*cking episode of ‘Behind the Music’ for the whole time. I remember times when [Scott Weiland] was in rehab and was leaving. I was going to a tasting at a caterer for my wedding, my manager called and she’s like, ‘You have to go get Scott. He’s leaving rehab.’ And I’m like, ‘What?! F*ck me…’
“I’m telling my wife – my fiancee – and she’s like, ‘Well, you got to go. What are you going to do? It’s your band.’ Okay, let’s go. So she drops me off and I’m sitting there trying to talk to them. There was a lot of that kind of stuff. There was a lot of craziness and people falling off the wagon, a lot of Scott not showing up to shows and…
“Playing somewhere in Texas – we were like 20 minutes late and we had no clue where he was, and he had gone to score something. The tour manager called him and he actually answered his phone and he’s like, ‘Oh. Hey Pete.’ ‘Dude, where the f*ck are you?!’ He’s like, ‘I’m not really sure.’ ‘Dude, look around you. What buildings do you see?’ He’s putting him on speaker asking the security guard that’s local, ‘Where is he, dude?’ And he’s like, ‘Oh, he’s at the 34th and whatever street.’ ‘Alright. Stay there, we’re going to come get you.’
“His f*cking tooth had fallen out and he was singing with… it was f*cking crazy. So there was a lot of that. But there was a lot of amazing stuff too. We won a Grammy, and we did this thing at the Grammy’s where we played with Brian Wilson and Stevie Wonder and Bono and Steven Tyler…”
