Matt Sorum’s book - WTF?

[HueyRamone]

There's something really off about some rando who's never done anything joining a band with the biggest superstars in rock and having the balls to call himself "Huge".

He didn't even really want to join the band. Initially he only agreed to help Axl write. Axl & Paul had a similar dynamic to Axl & Izzy in their songwriting process and Axl believed putting Paul in that role was what was best for the music. But with so much ego and money at stake, I understand why Slash thought he should be the one to take over the songwriting. It was certainly a weird situation. Axl really didn't write many songs by himself. In the early days he liked to sit with Izzy, or Paul, or West, have them strum an acoustic guitar and just jam out ideas together.

Axl never really had that comfort level with Slash.

I bet when Axl decided he wanted to be Elton John, Trent Raznor, or anyone else he was inspired by, Slash would come in with Buckcherry-esque riffs and Axl would be like "wtf, we've moved on from that."

[veritas]

someone asked what Sorum said about the Cult in the book, it was basically this over and over:

-- the Cult could have been huge if Ian hadn't been such a fuck-up (apparently insecure, so drank / partied too much and didn't pander to American audiences)
-- no one but Ian and Billy could write songs for the Cult (great loss, given Sorum's huge songwriting repertoire)
-- the Cult were a great band (he writes more fondly of them than GnR or Velvet Revolver)

The book is remarkably light on the UYI days, especially the recording. He really sticks it to Slash (which surprised me a bit) - maybe Axl had a point?

Overall, he comes off like an arrogant moron. Extremely unlikable.