IN: Matthew William Sorum (born November 19, 1960) is an American drummer and percussionist. He is best known as both a former member of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he recorded three studio albums, and as a member of the supergroup Velvet Revolver. Sorum is currently a member of the touring project, Kings of Chaos, and is a former member of both The Cult and Y Kant Tori Read. Sorum was also a member of Guns N' Roses side-projects, Slash's Snakepit and Neurotic Outsiders, and released a solo album, Hollywood Zen, in 2004.

Sorum was born Matthew William Sorum on November 19, 1960, in an unincorporated area of Orange County, California that later became the city of Mission Viejo. He started to play drums after watching Ringo Starr with The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Later he was mainly influenced by Ian Paice, Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, John Bonham, Roger Taylor, Buddy Rich and Bill Ward. In his first couple of years in high school, Sorum was part of the Mission Viejo Marching Bands drum section. Sorum started out in Mission Viejo as a local hot musician in 1975. Wearing trademark "Union Flag" shorts and nothing else, he used to pound a huge acrylic drumset and overpower his first band "Prophecy," which consisted of him and lead singer / guitarist Jeff Harris (guitarist for the J. Harris Band and later guitarist for funk band Slapbak), and bass player David Pagan. Prophecy played many gigs ranging from high schools to concerts, all the way to the Hollywood scene, where they played clubs like Gazzarri's in 1977. A local songwriter, Stephen Douglas, pulled Sorum from the band and joined him with other talented musicians, Scott Andrews on guitar and Jay Fullmer on bass, in the area to form Chateau, a wall-of-sound band with grandiose themes and sounds in their songs. They recorded their first tracks at the Doug Moody's Mystic Studios in Hollywood, once famous for Led Zeppelins 'Lemon Song'. Chateau played the Hollywood circuit, appearing at Gazzarri's and almost getting into a fight with the original members of the band Ratt, which at the time was known as Mickey Ratt. Sorum's work with Chateau produced a four-song set that was covered by local radio stations for a short time, but the music scene changed from grandiose rock to punk and alternative new wave music. Sorum left and went to Hollywood to play with a series of bands, including Population Five, with the bassist Prescott Niles from The Knack. He then left on a tour around the country with a blues guitarist, playing nightclubs and bars. In 1988, he was recruited to play on the debut album of Y Kant Tori Read, a band fronted by a then unknown Tori Amos. In the wake of that project, he joined The Cult as their live drummer for the 1989 tour in support of Sonic Temple.
QUESTION: what year did this career start
IN: Roberts was born in Warrington, Lancashire, England, the son of Benjamin Roberts, an alcoholic blacksmith and ship plater, and Ann Everington, a seamstress. In the year of his birth both parents converted to the LDS Church. Benjamin Roberts then abandoned his family. Roberts later wrote, "My childhood was a nightmare; my boyhood a tragedy."

Roberts wrote two biographies, a novel, eight historical narratives and compilations, and another dozen books about Mormon theology. In the late 1890s, he also helped establish the Improvement Era and became the de facto editor of this official periodical of the LDS Church. Roberts's six-volume History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Period I, History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet by Himself featured "critical notes, new documents, sidebar headings for most paragraphs, and extensive interpretive essays that introduced each volume. Unfortunately, Roberts continued the confusing structure of the original, where various documents were spliced together and inaccurately attributed to Joseph Smith." Roberts served as Assistant Church Historian from 1902 until his death in 1933. Roberts wrote a novel Corianton (1889), published serially in The Contributor, and based on the story of Corianton, the son of Alma as told in the Book of Mormon. Though melodramatic and overly didactic, the novel has also been regarded as providing deep and useful portrayals of some of the characters. It was later adapted, along with Julia A. MacDonald's A Ship of Hagoth, into a play by Orestes Utah Bean, and it was the inspiration for the 1931 film Corianton: A Story of Unholy Love. Roberts's most important work was a comprehensive treatment of Mormon history, which he began in 1909 as a series of monthly articles for a non-Mormon magazine. Roberts repeatedly (and for many years, unsuccessfully) asked church leaders to republish the articles as a multi-volume set. Finally, in 1930 the church agreed to publish it during its centennial celebration. The six-volume Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Century I (3,459 pages) covered for the first time many late-19th- and early-20th-century developments. Further, although its viewpoint was "unabashedly Mormon", Roberts "disdained ... faith promoting myths" and "was a partisan, not an unquestioning apologist." Roberts "frequently took a broader view" of the place of the LDS Church "in the heavenly scheme of things than did some of his colleagues. In 1902 he told the Saints that 'while the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is given a prominent part in this great drama of the last days, it is not the only force nor the only means that the Lord has employed to bring to pass those things of which His prophets in ancient times have testified.'" Roberts' theology included belief in "the modern liberal doctrine of man and the optimism of the nineteenth century, and it required a bold, rebellious and spacious mind to grasp its full implication." Roberts hoped that the church would publish his most elaborate theological treatise "The Truth, The Way, The Life", but his attempt to use contemporary scientific theory to bolster Mormon doctrine led, in 1930, to a conflict with Mormon apostle Joseph Fielding Smith, who had been influenced by the writings of young earth creationist George McCready Price. Smith publicly opposed Roberts's quasi-evolutionary views in deference to a literal reading of both the Bible and the Mormon scriptures. The controversy was debated before the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and it "declared a draw: Neither the existence nor the nonexistence of pre-Adamites would constitute church doctrine." "The Truth, The Way, The Life" was not published until 1994.
QUESTION:
Is there anything else notable about his career as a writer?