An all-star musical celebration will take place to raise funds for a local music program.
Adopt the Arts, a nonprofit that provides music education at elementary schools in the Coachella Valley and Los Angeles areas, is hosting the Sound and Vision Awards. Part award show, part concert and part charity event, the show will honor rock icons Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath) and Paul Rodgers (Bad Company, Free) with an all-star backing band, a silent auction and more! All proceeds will go to Adopt the Arts.
The Sound and Vision Awards will take place Monday, March 2, at the Plaza Theatre in Palm Springs.
During a recent interview with Matt Sorum, drummer extraordinaire best known for his time in Guns N’ Roses, is the co-founder of Adopt the Arts. He explained how the program arrived in local schools.
“My wife and I got married here about 12 years ago, and we moved here permanently during the pandemic. That’s when I really plugged into charity out here,” he said. “I was like, ‘Well, I’m close to the schools. I can go visit, and I’m available to be there and stuff.’ When I partnered with Palm Springs Unified School District, it was just great, and we’ve been able to get into six schools now in a little less than two years, so we’re serving almost 3,000 kids out here. … I really feel like it’s a community thing. It’s about people understanding that public schools are the backbone of the community. These kids who go to these public schools, their parents are hard-working, and people in all different sorts of demographics, and that’s really what my charity is all about—lifting people up and gaining community eyeballs on important matters, which is music and art for kids.”
Sorum said he loves the more laid-back nature of the Coachella Valley.
“I’m a big fish in a small pond out here,” he said. “When I lived in L.A., it’s a fairly crowded space, and everyone’s got stuff going on. There are always a lot of events. In Palm Springs, I’ve always felt a great sense of creativity here. … There’s a different mindset living out here. I feel a lot of people drop their airs of stuff that they’ve been accomplished in, and the people who I meet come here to have that quiet time or that sanctuary, so my goal now is to plug in that community and find donorship for the charity and build it even more. The idea is to do more schools here, if not all of them—and then our next plan is to start to head across the United States.”
Adopt the Arts combined students from Los Angeles and the desert into a choir named The Changels, which has performed at local events and big concerts in Los Angeles. The students have even collaborated on songs with Paul Rodgers and Ringo Starr.
“I want to build The Changels choir into a national choir,” he said. “Right now, we have Los Angeles kids and Palm Springs kids combined. They all learn the same songs—the curriculum, if you will—and then I’m going to continue that series of these kids meeting some of my contemporaries. … I’m working with Fleetwood Mac next. I’m just educating these kids on classic, great music.”
Sorum’s passion for music education has gotten stronger since he became a father.
“I have a 4 1/2-year-old daughter now. When I started this, I didn’t have any kids,” he said. “Now, I’ve got my kid, and I just look at the world, what’s going on around us, and we’ve got to build these young kids up and inspire them more than ever to get them to be powerful in their own right.”
The beauty of the Adopt the Arts program is that it benefits and showcases students from a wide variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.
“People think of Palm Springs as we’re eating bonbons and playing golf out here, but in the schools I’m in, a lot of these kids’ parents are working two jobs,” Sorum said. “It’s under the poverty line in some of my schools. … People don’t look at Palm Springs like that. They don’t know the demographics, the Hispanic community, the African-American community. We have a large community of people who are working in landscaping and housekeeping—hard, hard labor—and all they want is a good education for their kids. Of course, we’ve got the other demographic of people who come out here and play tennis and play golf and have their swimming pool, and I’ve just always been like, ‘Look, this is all us together.’ It’s not a division–this is our community. Everyone’s in it together, and that just makes for a better future for these kids.”
“I just look at the world, what’s going on around us, and we’ve got to build these young kids up and inspire them more than ever to get them to be powerful in their own right.”
Matt Sorum
The Sound and Vision Awards is able to honor two rock icons and feature a long list of all-star musicians thanks to Sorum’s place in rock-music history.
“Luckily, I’ve got a pretty big Rolodex over the years of me touring in bands and running around,” he said. “I’ve been in a lot of bands—of course my biggest being Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver—and the music community is pretty connected, especially when it comes to a rock ’n’ roll show.”
Both of the Sound and Vision Awards honorees are Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members.
“A lot of people don’t know this about Geezer (Butler), but he wrote all the lyrics to Black Sabbath,” Sorum said. “He was the lyricist and primary founder and bassist of Black Sabbath, and when I grew up, Black Sabbath was my band over Led Zeppelin. Everyone liked Led Zeppelin. When I was a kid, Led Zeppelin was like Britney Spears. I don’t know if people are going to get pissed at me for saying that, but they were the mainstream. … Of course, I love Led Zeppelin, but in the ’70s, when I was a kid, it was cooler to like Black Sabbath or Deep Purple. Now I’ve got two of those guys on my bill.”
Paul Rodgers is a part-time Coachella Valley resident.
“He is one of the greatest rock ’n’ roll singers of all time, in my opinion,” Sorum said. “Any singer will tell you that. Sammy Hagar would say Paul Rodgers is the goat; Steven Tyler would even say Paul Rodgers is the goat. Paul’s coming, and he just got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and he’s going to sing.”
A who’s-who of rock musicians will pay tribute to the two icons throughout the night. Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple), Lzzy Hale (Halestorm), Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme), Robert DeLeo (Stone Temple Pilots), Phil X (Bon Jovi), Steve Stevens (Billy Idol), Charlie Starr (Blackberry Smoke), Stevie Salas (Mick Jagger), Tanya O’Callaghan (Whitesnake), Mike Mangan (The Cult) and, of course, Sorum are all set to perform.
The show will also feature a stacked silent auction.
“I’ve got some incredible items,” Sorum said. “I’ve got trips to Napa, wine tastings, a couple of trips to Mexico, golf trips, incredible music memorabilia, and a lot of art. There are going to be a lot of cool items for people to pick up, hopefully at a reasonable price for them, and get something cool and give back.”
Proceeds will go toward covering costs for teachers, instruments, uniforms and buses, allowing more opportunities for the children involved in Adopt the Arts.
“When we have these experiences for them, that’s something that they’ll never forget,” Sorum said. “They performed for the firefighters last year at the USS Iowa; they’ve done the Festival of Lights with me. We try to get them at least one experience once a month. … I go to the grocery store and people walk up to me, and I think they’re going to talk to me about Guns N’ Roses, and they’ll tell me their kids are in the choir, or they’re in the school, and they’re so happy, and it’s really formed the kids and made them feel more confident. That just gives me a lot of joy, and I know that we’re doing the right thing. The work is worth it.”
The Sound and Vision Awards will take place at 7 p.m., Monday, March 2, at the Plaza Theatre, at 128 S. Palm Canyon Drive, in Palm Springs. Remaining tickets start at $122.30. For tickets and more information, visit www.palmspringsplazatheatre.com.