Matt Sorum (b. November 19, 1960, in Long Beach, California) is a hard rock drummer and percussionist. Sorum has played in such hard rock bands as Hawk and The Cult. He also played drums on a couple of songs with Johnny Crash in 1989 with their one and only album Neighbourhood Threat.

Matt Sorum started out in Mission Viejo, California as a local hot musician. Wearing trademark "Union Jack" shorts and nothing else, he used to pound a huge acrylic drumset and overpower his first band "Prophecy", where he stood out and the rest of the band just disappeared. A local songwriter, Stephen Douglas, pulled him from the band and joined him with other talented musicians in the area to form "Chateau", a wall-of-sound band with grandiose themes and sounds in their songs. Matt endured several scrapes with danger during that time, owing to his illicit drug usage, mainly cocaine. Chateau played the Hollywood circuit, appearing at Gazzarri's and almost getting into a fight with the original members of the band "Ratt", which at the time was known as "Mickey Ratt".

Matt's work with Chateau and Stephen Douglas produced a four song set that was covered by local radio stations for a short time, but the music scene changed from grandiose rock to punk and alternative (New Wave) music. Matt left to Hollywood to play with a series of bands, including "Population Five", with the bassist from the Knack ("My Sharona"). He then left on a tour around the country with a blues guitarist, playing dingy nightclubs and bars, and drinking heavily.

In 1988, he was recruited to play on the debut album of Y Kant Tori Read, a band fronted by a then unknown Tori Amos. In the wake of that project, he joined The Cult as their live drummer for the 1989 tour in support of Sonic Temple.

In 1989 Slash saw Sorum live with The Cult on their Sonic Temple tour and, shortly after, Sorum joined Guns N' Roses as Steven Adler's replacement.

Sorum with Guns N' Roses can be heard on Use Your Illusion I, Use Your Illusion II (excluding the track "Civil War"), "The Spaghetti Incident?", the 1994 cover of the Rolling Stones track "Sympathy for the Devil" and the majority of Live Era: '87-'93. Sorum featured fully on the lengthy Use Your Illusion Tour, drumming on all of the 192 shows, 8 legs and to over 7 million fans.

In 1995 with Slash and Gilby Clarke he formed Slash's Snakepit and drummed on their debut album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere. Sorum also lent his drumming skills in the theme song for the 1995 20th Century Fox film, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. In the same year Matt formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders, which featured fellow bandmate Duff McKagan where they released their only album, self titled Neurotic Outsiders. John Taylor (Duran Duran) and Steve Jones (Sex Pistols) also participated on this album, and toured. Early performances featured guest spots by Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran), Slash, and Billy Idol.

In 1997 he was fired from Guns N' Roses by Axl Rose after defending departed lead guitarist Slash in an argument with Rose and Paul Tobias. In 1998, he released his first and only drum instructional video (Drum Licks and Tricks from the Rock n Roll Jungle) demonstrating his techniques. In 2001 Matt joined The Cult once again and featured on their album, Beyond Good And Evil, which he spent most of 2001 touring in support of the album.

In April 2006, nine years after leaving Guns N' Roses, Sorum re-established his friendship with the band's frontman Axl Rose.

User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.