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DRUGS N’ DRUMS … Matt Sorum on his old Side Job Smuggling Cocaine: “I’d Fly on Airplanes with Two Kilos Strapped around My Waist”

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Blabbermouth — During a recent appearance on the “Stop! Drop & Talk” podcast, former GUNS N’ ROSES drummer Matt Sorum spoke about his upcoming autobiography, “Double Talkin’ Jive: True Rock ‘N’ Roll Stories From The Drummer Of Guns N’ Roses, The Cult, And Velvet Revolver”, which will now arrive in April 2021 after being delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I named it after a GUNS N’ ROSES song, ‘Double Talkin’ Jive’,” Matt said (see video below). “[Then-GUNS N’ ROSES guitarist] Izzy Stradlin wrote that song. We played it together — on the [‘Use Your Illusion I’] album, me and Izzy tracked that in one take. And the premise of the lyric was based around the kind of pitfalls of the music business and success. There’s this undercurrent that’s not pretty. And I talk very truthfully about things that I went through, from my perspective.

“I didn’t wanna come off jaded,” Matt continued. “I have to tell the story the way it went for me, and I hope that people don’t take it as I sound jaded or something. I just wanted to be as truthful and honest as possible, from my perspective, if that makes sense.

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.”


Read more of this story at Blabbermouth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He2CU7NP8EM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He2CU7NP8EM
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