Velvet Revolver News

Japan has some of the toughest gun-control and immigration laws on the books, and now, officials there are trying to stop a loaded Revolver.

Velvet Revolver has scuttled its four-city Japanese tour, scheduled to kick off next Monday in Tokyo, after getting dissed for some past bad behavior. This, despite the Grammy-winning rockers having toured the country without incident two years ago.

"Velvet Revolver's request for visas has just been denied," read a statement on the band's Website. "The increasingly tough Japanese immigration officials are taking exception with the backgrounds of various band members, which have included arrests."

The band is appealing the decision, but the results of the appeal won't be known for several months.

It's rare for artists to be denied Japanese visas, and while the reasons for the refusal have not been made public, the county's antidrug policies allow officials to refuse entry to anyone with a drug conviction. Frontman Scott Weiland, originally of Stone Temple Pilots, has had his share of drug-related run-ins with the law. His heroin arrest in 2004—just months after Velvet's first album, Contraband,  topped the charts—derailed the band's first tour. (His record was eventually wiped clean after he completed rehab and probation.)

Meanwhile, lead guitarist Slash chronicled his own drug overdoses in the Guns N' Roses song "Coma." (Ironically, Axl Rose and his current Guns incarnation successfully toured Japan this past summer.)

"We want to apologize to our fans in Japan that we won't be able to perform our scheduled concerts," the band added. "We don't understand why the authorities won't give us visas when they granted them for us in 2005 for what was a successful tour and a great experience. We love Japan and look forward to our return there."

The Japanese tour would have stopped in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Yokohama. Instead, the band's world tour picks up again on Dec. 4 in Australia before returning to the U.S. for a Los Angeles show on Dec. 12. The latter gig is a makeup date for an Oct. 26 show that was postponed due to the SoCal wildfires.

Velvet Revolver is currently supporting its second record, Libertad, which debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 last July.

In other Revolver news, Weiland recently inked a publishing deal with Scribner to write his autobiography. The 40-year-old singer will write the book with David Ritz, a lyricist and author who cowrote memoirs for Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and others. He follows in the footsteps of Slash, 42, whose eponymous memoir hit bookstore shelves last month.