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But what would have happened if Duff stayed in Jane's Addiction? I imagine that would have complicated matters for Velvet Revolver.

"If he had stayed in Jane's Addiction, which I don't think was his plan in the first place, but if he did…I wouldn't continue Velvet Revolver without him. It would have been on indefinite hiatus."

What was the situation with Myles' name being floated around as a new singer for the band?

"Apparently, it happened twice, once before Scott was in the band. Myles was still in The Mayfield Four - Matt had mentioned him, and I didn't know who he was. I guess we had sent him some music, but Myles never responded - he got cold feet. More recently, his name came up again. There was a lot of talk in the press because of the Zeppelin thing, so that's when I really became aware of him, and it prompted me to want to check him out. I looked him up on YouTube. But he wasn't interested in leaving Alter Bridge, which would have been the only way he could have pursued a future with Velvet Revolver.

"A year later, I called him up about doing two songs on the solo record. I thought, Hey, what about that Alter Bridge guy? [laughs] It was a shot in the dark. And then it all developed into a whole relationship. Myles is one of the most phenomenally gifted lead vocalists that I've heard from anywhere in the last 10 years."

Did you ever ask him outright to be in VR?

"No. I know a lot of people talk about it. But I don't think that people really consider that he's already in a band."

I know things are in a very embryonic stage, but musically, can you think of how you want this next record to differ from past Velvet Revolver albums?

"Velvet Revolver with Scott was very cool and interesting. Recently, I had to listen to one of the records to relearn one of the songs. I'm very proud of what we did, and of working with Scott in a lot of instances. But it was never heavy enough; that was my big issue with it. The band had to kind of acclimate to Scott's style, which was cool. But the one thing that was lacking, in my mind, was a certain Matt-Slash-Duff approach, and that got sidelined when we started working with Scott. The new songs we've written are us doing our natural thing, and they sound really good. I'm looking to maintain that spirit, and we're looking for a singer to fit on top of that."

Let me ask you about opening for Ozzy. Does it feel weird not to be a headliner? You haven't been second on a bill for years and years.

"Well, yeah, I have. [laughs] All things considered, we're doing these shows with Ozzy, and then between those gigs we're doing our own shows on the side. But opening for Ozzy is something I really wanted to do. We're good friends, it's a good bill, and it's something I've never done before. It sounds like fun! [laughs] I've never opened for Ozzy before. I've played a lot of gigs with him, so I'm really looking forward to this."

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