New Velvet Revolver songs online

Velvet Revolver has begun streaming four songs from its upcoming new album, Libertad, at BestBuy.com. The tracks include "The Last Fight," "She Mine," "Spay" and the CD's first single, "She Build Quick Machines." Bassist Duff McKagan told us that he feels the new material represents a lot of personal and musical growth from the band's 2004 debut, Contraband: [ Click to listen if you have a backstage pass] "Just the songwriting-manship was upped a notch for us, and maybe a bit more thought out, you know. We really didn't discover what the chemistry of our band was until about four or five months into the Contraband tour. Once we started to figure out kind of where our boundaries weren't, we were able to kind of take more musical risks within ourselves."

Libertad arrives in stores on July 3rd. A limited edition of the disc sold through Best Buy comes with a bonus DVD.

Velvet Revolver will perform Thursday night (June 28th) on NBC-TV's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The group is also scheduled to appear on the July 12th/13th edition of ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live.

The band will begin a North American tour with Alice In Chains on August 5th in Baltimore.

Meanwhile, singer Scott Weiland told Spin magazine that a March 2007 incident in which his wife Mary was arrested after trashing a hotel room and setting Scott's clothes on fire was blown out of proportion by the press. Weiland claimed that an imbalance in the medication Mary takes for a bipolar disorder led to her meltdown. He explained, "Every married couple has bad days -- only with most people, it doesn't end up in the news." Weiland added that he and his wife "love each other more than anything else in the world."