Former GUNS n' ROSES drummer Matt Sorum's autobiography, "Double Talkin' Jive: True Rock 'N' Roll Stories From The Drummer Of Guns N' Roses, The Cult, And Velvet Revolver", which was previously due in April and was subsequently pushed back to early July, will now arrive in late summer or early fall.
Matt discussed the book's status during an April 13 appearance on We Are Hear's "In A Lonely Place With Matt Pinfield". Saying that writing his autobiography has been "a real cathartic" experience for him, Sorum added (see video below): "I've also edited it for about three years. It was supposed to drop, actually, last week, April 7th, and I was gonna fly to New York and do the Seth Meyers show ['Late Night With Seth Meyers'] and be the guest drummer. They've got all these guest drummers. I've done it before — Chad Smith's done it, all the drummers, Josh Freese, all those guys get up and we play with the band. So I was supposed to go to New York. I was gonna be in New York this week promoting my book, and I was gonna do a whole book tour. And we were just, like, 'Well, that's not gonna happen.' So we pushed the book back, and it's looking like late summer or early fall."
Chicago Review Press's official description of "Double Talkin' Jive: True Rock 'N' Roll Stories From The Drummer Of Guns N' Roses, The Cult, And Velvet Revolver" reads as follows: "Cocaine smuggling, shoot-outs, and never-ending decadent parties: Matt Sorum's 'Double Talkin' Jive' could almost be described as the autobiographical equivalent of the film 'Blow'. But rather than becoming a premier drug smugglers, Matt Sorum becomes a world-famous drummer in GUNS N' ROSES, VELVET REVOLVER, and THE CULT. Sorum drops out of high school to become a drummer, but turns to selling pot to support himself, and later smuggling large quantities of cocaine. When Sorum is given the chance to play in THE CULT, he is finally able to make a living as a drummer. The very next year Slash and Duff McKagan recruit Matt to join GUNS N' ROSES, and with that, Matt's life is transformed. When Axl Rose starts turning up at the recording studio more and more sporadically, sometimes not at all, Matt recounts in keen detail how he and the band stagger toward their downfall. Matt and his GUNS N' ROSES bandmates Slash and Duff form VELVET REVOLVER with Dave Kushner and Scott Weiland. When Weiland suddenly leaves the band, Matt steps in as drummer for MOTÖRHEAD during their U.S. tour, and then starts his own all-star band, KINGS OF CHAOS. During his time as a professional drummer, Matt battles alcohol and coke addictions, but meeting his girlfriend, Ace Harper, helps him manage to go clean. Matt Sorum's autobiography, written with writer duo Leif Eriksson and Martin Svensson, avoids all the usual rock biography clichés."
Back in March 2018, Sorum told the "2 Hours With Matt Pinfield" podcast about his upcoming autobiography: "It's going to be the juiciest of the juiciest of the GN'R books, for sure, plus all the other crap I've done. I'm being really truthful about everything that happened. I'm not a jaded individual; I'm not a bitter guy. There's a lot of bad shit that went down, but I just want to tell the story straightforward, and I don't want to, like, hold back. I will edit some things — my wife's got to look at it. [Laughs] I've had such an amazing life, and I go, 'Wow, man. If I don't write it down now, I don't want to forget.' There's a lot of good shit in the book that doesn't pertain to GN'R."
He continued: "Before I was in a rock band, I was a drug smuggler. I used to smuggle cocaine across borders. I'd fly on airplanes with two kilos strapped around my waist. Most of my deliveries were in Hawaii, because I had a big connection there. I thought about the title 'Rock 'N' Roll Smuggler'. Imagine the movie 'Blow', and then think about coming up in rock 'n' roll, before I got into bands that I was in. My way to pay my way was smuggling, and that's what I did. A lot of the book, there's probably going to be at least a chapter or two on my drug-dealing days. The last time I smuggled two kilos to Hawaii, I remember thinking I was being followed, and it wasn't because I was paranoid on cocaine — I really felt that I was being followed. So, I told the guy that flew this stuff for — I was the mule, and I got, like, a couple grand every time I went — 'I can't do this. I'm being followed.' He's like, 'Oh, man, you're just high.' I'm like, 'No, man. I'm not doing it. I'm going back to L.A.' The guy that took my place got arrested. 20 years in a federal penitentiary [for] international drug smuggling. That would have been me."
Sorum, who replaced Steven Adler in GUNS N' ROSES, recorded the highly successful albums "Use Your Illusion I" and "Use Your Illusion II" (both 1991) and "The Spaghetti Incident" (1994). He also supported the group on the "Use Your Illusion" tour and can be heard on GUNS N' ROSES' "Live Era: '87-'93" (1999) and "Greatest Hits" (2004).
Sorum has said in the past that a GUNS reunion tour should have included both him and Adler, with each playing the songs they recorded with the group. Sorum was inducted as a member of the band into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in April 2012.
Photo credit: Michael Segal
