Velvet Revolver’s search to find a replacement for singer Scott Weiland hasn’t been easy for the hard rock supergroup. Internet reports about rumored vocalists who have been offered the job have been debunked daily, but today we learned about an unlikely country music star who confirms he was offered the job, but turned it down more than once: Shooter Jennings.
“They’ve asked me twice, dude,” Jennings told Classic Rock magazine. “And it pained my heart not to say yes, because those guys are the best players in the world. They’re literally one of the best bands I’ve ever heard and to be able to sing with them has been amazing.”
Jennings said that his main reason for not accepting the coveted frontman role for Velvet Revolver was that he was working on his own record, but he also wasn’t crazy about singing Scott Weiland songs. “I didn’t feel like my next step should to be to go from feeling like my back was broken by Nashville to stepping into the shoes of Scott Weiland and singing that stuff,” he added. “I kinda said, if you wanna get together and do some stuff, that’d be fine, but I don’t know about me going out and singing those songs, and being the replacement for Scott Weiland, after Axl.”
Despite that apparent Axl Rose snub, Jennings goes on about how much of a Guns N’ Roses fan he is, adding, “I was six years old when Appetite For Destruction came out and it was the coolest thing. I never liked Bon Jovi. I never liked hair metal. I never liked any of that. When I heard Guns N’ Roses, it was dangerous and it was mean, and that was why I wanted to move to LA. I wanted to be Axl stepping off the bus with the hayseed in his mouth.”
Shooter Jennings is the only child of country music legend Waylon Jennings and has a one-year-old baby with Sopranos actress Drea De Matteo.