GNR alumni help pilot Velvet Revolver to No. 1

Just weeks after a Guns N’ Roses greatest hits album stormed onto the national pop charts at No. 3, some former Guns members have captured the No. 1 spot with their new band, Velvet Revolver.

That’s all the more impressive when you consider that Guns leader Axl Rose isn’t in this new band.

While Rose continues to work on his ages-in-the-making “Chinese Democracy” album, Guns alums Slash, Matt Sorum and Duff McKagan have teamed up with former Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland for a new hard-rock assault.

The band’s “Contraband” album on RCA sold 256,000 copies in its first week in the stores to easily top the 171,000 sales last week of Usher’s “Confessions,” which had topped the chart for nine of the previous 11 weeks. That album now has now sold more than 4.1 million copies, the most of any 2004 release.

The only other new releases to break into the Top 10 this week are two compilations. A greatest hits package by rock group 311 debuts at No. 7 after first-week sales of 63,000, Nielsen SoundScan reports. And the “2004 Warped Tour” double CD enters at No. 8 after selling 61,000 copies, helped by being priced as low as $6 at discount retailers for the 52-song set.

Among other new releases in the top 30: SHeDAISY, No. 16; Marc Anthony, No. 26, and PJ Harvey, No. 29.