In a recent Interview VELVET REVOLVER bassist DUFF MCKAGAN said that he and SLASH were RELIEVED after they finally fired singer SCOTT WEILAND.

 He said, quote, "It was kind of cool . . . it was kind of cool.  It was the 'step into my office, you're fired' kind of thing.  I have to say.  We went through a lot . . . he put us through a lot of crap [on] that last tour.  So it was kind of that feeling.

"We were getting through the [final] gig . . . our last few songs . . . [and] I started to get, I can't lie . . . a little giddy.  'This is going to be great . . . this is going to be great.'  So we got done, and yeah . . . Slash and I did the 'step into my office' thing."

Duff explained that the rest of the band knew they'd be firing Scott after that last show . . . but it wasn't a rash decision.  He said they'd pretty much settled on dropping Scott FOUR MONTHS earlier . . . but they held it together so they could finish the tour.

He didn't spell out EXACTLY what happened that convinced them they'd have to show Scott the door.  But he hints very strongly that it had to do with substance abuse. He said, quote, "Scott is a great guy . . . but he's just got this other demon that gets in the way of him being a great guy.  And it got in the way of us doing good business.  We were coming on late and he missed a couple of shows.  We had to cancel two tours.

"He's just got so many things.  In saying all this, I can make fun of some things, like saying we went through some B.S. and it felt good to have him step into the office.  But all funning aside, he has the same disease that I have and a lot of us have . . . and that is alcoholism and drug addiction.  He is in a different stage of addiction than I am.  I don't use or drink, and I've done things to help me through life, and I have a great life.  There are some that are just less fortunate."Even though Duff didn't go into any specifics, Scott HAS.  In a separate interview, with MTV News, Scott says he's been off heroin for six years, but he admits that he had, quote, "a very short binge with coke" about a year ago.