Guns N’ Roses are no strangers to those crazy stories of rock and roll excess, but a new interview with former drummer Matt Sorum seems to have upped the ante on these stories completely.
In a recent interview with the 2 Hours With Matt Pinfield podcast, drummer Matt Sorum has opened up about the times when he was living life as an international drug smuggler prior to joining famous bands such as The Cult and Guns N’ Roses.
“I used to smuggle cocaine across borders,” Sorum admitted to Pinfield. “I’d fly on airplanes with two kilos strapped around my waist. Most of my deliveries were [to] Hawaii, because I had a big connection there, but I would smuggle.”
“Imagine the movie Blow, and then think about coming up in rock and roll, before I got in the bands that I was in. My way to pay my way was smuggling, and that’s what I did.”
These tales come as somewhat of a teaser for the new autobiography that Matt Sorum is apparently working on. Noted as being “the juiciest of the juiciest of the G N’ R books,” the new tell-all tome is set to feature even more information in regards to his time working with an international drug ring.
“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,” Sorum recalled.
“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.”
Matt Sorum rose to fame in 1989 as the drummer for The Cult, before being spotted by Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, who asked him to join the group following the departure of Steven Adler. Sorum remained with the group for seven years, performing on some of the group’s best-known woks, including their 1991 Use Your Illusion albums.
While Matt Sorum is yet to settle on a name for his new book, he’s reportedly toyed with the idea of calling it Rock ‘N’ Roll Smuggler. Let’s be fair, if there was ever a more fitting name for the story he just told us, we’d love to hear it.
Check out Matt Sorum performing with Guns N’ Roses on ‘You Could Be Mine’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U5IhEAFGwQ
