Matt Sorum is known to music fans as one of the best drummers on the rock scene, because he is a former member of Guns N’ Roses and The Cult and he is the drummer for his current band Velvet Revolver. That however only begins to scratch the surface of this multi-instrumentalist and multi-faceted man, who it was our pleasure to interview recently. Matt Sorum as we discovered, plays other instruments and sings, and he is a noted producer, likes to design and he has had and will again in the future have, an exciting fashion line that he developed. Sorum along with his partner Lanny Cordola founded the philanthropic project named Global Sound Lodge and he is also a member of the musical project Camp Freddy. In addition to all of that, he put into place the various pieces of the puzzle, in terms of management, marketing, publicity and development of the band Darling Stilettos, which has as one of its members, Sorum’s girlfriend Ace Harper.  During our interview with Matt Sorum, we discovered a man who is relaxed, at peace with the world, is well spoken, personable and genuinely loves the direction that his life is taking right now.

Matt Sorum agrees that he is enjoying the way his life is unfolding, “Ya’, why not?  The general public, probably want to pigeon hole you more than you want to pigeon hole yourself. I think it is like that for any artist, any actor, painter or otherwise. You get a style that people latch onto and people expect you to come out with that every time. I am lucky, because if I was a singer, I would kind of have to be a certain way, but I am a drummer and I am musician, so I can really do whatever I want and it doesn’t have to be my mainstay, because I will still do Velvet Revolver. I can call that my day job I guess and the rest of it will be all of the stuff that I feel I want to do. That’s the beauty of it.”

On March 19^th  Sourm is taking part in a benefit concert for the David Lynch Foundation. Filmmaker Lynch established the foundation so that children, particularly in the school system can be taught transcendental mediation, because scientific research has demonstrated that this type of meditation can create a state of restful alertness in an individual. On the David Lynch Foundation website the filmmaker expresses his concern that so many children today live in fear and that it impedes their ability to learn. Becoming involved in this benefit concert is far from being merely a photo op for Sorum, but instead it dovetails nicely with his own initiatives, such as Global Sound Lodge 

“We started this project with music for humanitarian efforts. We just released our first song called “Hands Together,” for Haiti, after the earthquake. We are going over to Tibet in about a month to make some music with (the people there). Global Sound Lodge is a worldwide project and we are interested in Burma, Uganda, and Afghanistan. There is a lot of stuff happening in the world. We are going to start a musical project with songs based on different ideas that we have to help with those causes.  Jason Rothberg heard about it and he knew what we were up to, so he thought it would be cool to do some work with his charity and his foundation, then he introduced us to the David Lynch Foundation, which is very much into transcendental meditation. It is trying to get the message out to the world about meditation and they have brought it to prisons, schools and other places around the world. It is a very peaceful movement. They have done concerts before, which have involved Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and Donovan. This event March 19^th at the El Rey Theater is going to benefit the David Lynch Foundation. We are going to come up and play a couple of songs with Donovan; there will be Lanny (Cordola) and myself. I play guitar on this gig, I do play drums but on this particular gig I am going to play guitar and sing. We wrote this song called “Hands Together,” and Donovan wants to do that and then we are going to do one of his songs,” explains Sorum.

As for his own initiative, Global Sound Lodge, Matt Sorum says, “We would like to go around the world, play with different musicians and film it, and do different albums with real musicians, a little bit like Peter Gabriel’s Real World.  What we would like to do with the money is to start schools around the world that teach music to kids. Scientists have said that education number one and musical education as well, down the line will change the entire thought process, so as they (the children) grow up and they become adults it will change the infrastructure of these countries, whether they are political problems or they are war torn (countries). That is what we are interested in, getting to the kids with instruments and giving them a guitar, when they might not even have seen one before. I am in touch with people in Burma and there are kids in these refugee camps. I don’t know if you have heard of Skateistan, but this guy took skateboards over to Afghanistan and he taught boys how to skate. They had never even seen a skateboard and the girls wanted to skate too, but the boys started pushing them around, because that is part of their upbringing that girls aren’t allowed to do much there. The guys from Skateistan were saying don’t do that, let the girls skate too. It is more about equality and education and everyone being treated the same. The whole vibe is anyone from an inner city kid to a kid in Afghanistan. If there is nothing fun or interesting for them to do and if they can’t find something that really shapes their lives, a lot of them go into bad elements. If they are an inner city kid they join a gang or if they are in Afghanistan they join the Taliban. A lot of them are brought into Uganda and a lot of them are taken as slaves. The problem is they get into the wrong situation and the next thing that you know they are in the army or whatever. Read more