Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: In the minds of many rock fans, Duff McKagan will
Speaker 2: forever be known first and foremost as the basist of
Speaker 2: Guns n' Roses. The band's white hot reign in the
Speaker 2: late eighties through the early nineties is the stuff of
Speaker 2: hedonistic hard rock legend, and for anyone interested in reading
Speaker 2: a detailed account of that wild ride maybe the last
Speaker 2: in all of rock, check out Duff's memoir It's So
Speaker 2: Easy and Other Lies. After turning thirty, Duff got sober,
Speaker 2: eventually left GNR, and then went on to play stints
Speaker 2: in Alison Chains and Jane's Addiction and helped form the
Speaker 2: supergroup Velvet Revolver. Duff also enrolled in college while writing
Speaker 2: columns for the Seattle Weekly, Playboy and ESPN on everything
Speaker 2: from personal finance to sports. In twenty sixteen, he rejoined
Speaker 2: Guns n' Roses following their induction into the rock and
Speaker 2: roll holly fame. Outside of his contribution to big name
Speaker 2: rock bands and personal finance columns, Duff has also been
Speaker 2: releasing solo materials since the early nineties. His latest album, Lighthouse,
Speaker 2: signals a new musical direction for Duff, one that focuses
Speaker 2: on reflective personal lyrics and stripped down rootsie rock. On
Speaker 2: today's episode, Lea Rose talks to Duff mccagan about his
Speaker 2: decision to leave the heroin infested punk rock scene in
Speaker 2: his hometown of Seattle for Los Angeles. He also shares
Speaker 2: stories about Axel Rose and Slash while recording Appetite for Destruction,
Speaker 2: and he reminisces about the time his musical idol Prince
Speaker 2: was trying to get Duff to reveal the real reason
Speaker 2: why Guns n' Roses broke up. This is broken record
Speaker 2: liner notes for the digital age.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Ritchman.
Speaker 2: Here's Lea Rose's conversation with Duff mccagan.
Speaker 3: I want to talk a little bit about your latest album, Lighthouse,
Speaker 3: And since it's been out for a little while now
Speaker 3: and you're over sort of like the initial wave of
Speaker 3: releasing it, you've had a chance to see how it's
Speaker 3: living in the world. What has the reception been, you know.
Speaker 1: Because I'm not touring it yet and the record came out,
Speaker 1: we had extended the Guns and Roses tour, but we
Speaker 1: already had like a release date for my record and
Speaker 1: we couldn't push it back. So we were supposed to
Speaker 1: end the Guns tour. Three days later my record would
Speaker 1: come out. I would be free and open to do,
Speaker 1: you know, press or for the things you got to do.
Speaker 1: But we extended our tour. So I was in Boise,
Speaker 1: Idaho the day my record came out. It was like
Speaker 1: having a birthday. I got a cake and my wife
Speaker 1: sent me flowers and I'm in the you know, this
Speaker 1: hotel room and Boise and it feels like my birthday,
Speaker 1: but I'm by myself and you can't really tell how, like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's out, what's hey? You know, record reviews already come out,
Speaker 1: some pre previews of the record, so and then then
Speaker 1: reviews and then you know, I don't really look at
Speaker 1: comments on social media. It's not really my my bag.
Speaker 1: It's I have a story why that is?
Speaker 3: But you know, is it because they don't feel constructive,
Speaker 3: or they don't make you feel good, or they're just
Speaker 3: from random people and who cares what they think?
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's really random, do you know? I
Speaker 1: think everybody's got an amazing story. I really do, because
Speaker 1: I've just met so many people in an elevator or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, you get in the elevator and you think
Speaker 1: you're you're the king of the mountain. And then you
Speaker 1: hear some story in elevator. I'm not even the most
Speaker 1: interesting person in this elevator, you know. So no back
Speaker 1: in Valvary Revolver days, you know, when the like the
Speaker 1: fan forms and stuff, we're just getting started, and I
Speaker 1: would look. We had a site and there's a fan forum,
Speaker 1: and I would look and there was this one guy
Speaker 1: and had he had like a screen name, and he
Speaker 1: would say things like we were right on, like the
Speaker 1: guy knew music, knew about what we were doing. But
Speaker 1: then he would be critical about something. You know, he's
Speaker 1: kind of right about that. And then I would live
Speaker 1: and I would wait for this guy to like post something,
Speaker 1: and I would kind of rise and fall a little
Speaker 1: bit and not extremely so, but I got caught up
Speaker 1: in what this guy was saying and I was doing it.
Speaker 1: We played some gig in Europe, like a festival, and
Speaker 1: we were doing a signing at the festival and this
Speaker 1: kid comes up to me and he's like fifteen years
Speaker 1: old and I signed something for him. He's like this
Speaker 1: kind of you know, star Trek kind of kid. I
Speaker 1: know him. We're friends to this to now and he
Speaker 1: said he says the screen name. He goes, I'm him,
Speaker 1: I'm like, how old are you? Because I'm fifteen. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm done with this. I was like a forty
Speaker 1: year old man, you know, I'm like, what am I doing?
Speaker 1: But it was all when it was new, you know.
Speaker 1: So my point is like when something happens with me,
Speaker 1: a gig at Hyde Park or a Lighthouse record comes
Speaker 1: out and I'm really proud of it and huh blah,
Speaker 1: and I know how I feel about it, and I
Speaker 1: know what I went through to get those songs out,
Speaker 1: and lyrically what I went through to, you know, carve
Speaker 1: those words and throw out words and rewrite it again,
Speaker 1: and you know, the music's just being you know, the
Speaker 1: perfect like little synthesizer sound there and all this stuff
Speaker 1: and the drum sounds and the things you go through.
Speaker 1: It's probably pretty obvious. You know. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: make commercial pop hits. I'm trying to make things that
Speaker 1: are important to me and hopefully important to other people.
Speaker 1: You know. So when that comes out, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to read social media comments and I won't even look
Speaker 1: for reviews. My manager will say me stuff, he knows
Speaker 1: I don't like to breathe reviews really because again, I
Speaker 1: just like things to sit there. I know when I
Speaker 1: go out, like when I'm out and toured Tenderness, the
Speaker 1: record before this same sort of records some sort of
Speaker 1: like vocal lyric in the same area, you know of
Speaker 1: kind of healing and togetherness, and I know how that
Speaker 1: works for an audience, and it's kind of really amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, you can see people crying and stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: like it really hits. It happens in guns it happens
Speaker 1: in bands. I plan that sense of togetherness for sure,
Speaker 1: but this is a bit more personal for me. So
Speaker 1: the record. The reaction has been great, like the reviews,
Speaker 1: and that this record's done a lot better sales wise
Speaker 1: than Tenderness, which means I'm growing as this kind of
Speaker 1: new solo artist area. I'm going into acoustic ribbon and
Speaker 1: something I wanted to do since I played on mark
Speaker 1: Land against Field Songs in nineteen ninety seven. This is
Speaker 1: what I you know, I want to aim for that,
Speaker 1: and so other than that, I'm going to get some
Speaker 1: tour dates together for the fall somewhere cool.
Speaker 3: And then is Guns N' Roses going back out on tour.
Speaker 1: This year's well, we are taking this year off. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: we played so many shows in the last like whatever
Speaker 1: eight years that we need to We need to give
Speaker 1: the world a break. And you know we play long
Speaker 1: shows too, so we all need like a like a
Speaker 1: physical break. We played those three and a half hour
Speaker 1: shows and kicks one's ass.
Speaker 3: How do you prepare for those three and a half
Speaker 3: hour shows? What are you doing the day of the performance?
Speaker 1: I mean I could give you really literal.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to know what's the
Speaker 3: morning routine? What are you eating?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, lemon water, coffee, lemon water again, banana. Then
Speaker 1: I go to the gym. I'll do cardio and then
Speaker 1: stretch and then do some sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: push ups or you know, like an hour in the gym. Okay,
Speaker 1: ending again with a stretch and then shower, eat like
Speaker 1: a really healthy lunch, which is whatever I can find,
Speaker 1: but usually just some greens with chicken, no carbs, no, no.
Speaker 1: The show's very cardio driven. You know, you're round and around,
Speaker 1: so you can't have a full stomach. I'll have some
Speaker 1: snacks up on stage, like protein bars or something, a
Speaker 1: lot of electrolytes and then afterwards I'll eat it pretty
Speaker 1: massive dinner, you know, pretty massive shepherd's pie and you know,
Speaker 1: or lasagnia or whatever the catering's got. Try not to
Speaker 1: do fish because it's kind of late. You know, the
Speaker 1: catering has been closed down for a couple hours. Oh,
Speaker 1: so we're getting food that's kind of been then sitting there,
Speaker 1: it's all right. I'm totally used to it. It's just
Speaker 1: fuel at that point, you know. And after showing ice.
Speaker 3: My legs like soak them in an ice bath.
Speaker 1: Yeah, buckets? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Wow? Is that because you've been standing for so long?
Speaker 1: It's I have to do like yeah, therapy like massage,
Speaker 1: guns and ice.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very athletic, you know. Feet you get
Speaker 1: to go out and sage and be an artist and
Speaker 1: play your thing and have all that feeling and stuff.
Speaker 1: But in that it's all athletic. You know. You have
Speaker 1: to think like an athlete, you know, running across the
Speaker 1: stage and then hitting a false set of backup backing vocal.
Speaker 1: You have to be fit. You can't. You can't just
Speaker 1: like sit in the hotel room then go do an
Speaker 1: egg and then go sit And there's no I don't
Speaker 1: I mean, I suppose you could, but it would be
Speaker 1: really bad for you.
Speaker 3: It's funny like sometimes you hear about like certain golfers
Speaker 3: who have like no athletic regime at all, and they
Speaker 3: just sort of like there's one golfer who's famous and
Speaker 3: he like drinks like five beers and then he goes
Speaker 3: he's like one of the best golfers of all time, right,
Speaker 3: And then you hear about like Tiger Woods, who's like,
Speaker 3: you know, just like a relentless trainer exerciser, and he's
Speaker 3: like so smart about what he's putting in his body
Speaker 3: and everything.
Speaker 1: I know, Like Robin Zander from Cheap Trick. You know,
Speaker 1: he's I don't ho hold he has seventy blank you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He he's got one of the most amazing rock and
Speaker 1: roll voices never was. He smokes cigarettes and has a
Speaker 1: glass of wine, doesn't warm up nothing, it goes on stage.
Speaker 1: He's one of those guys within the industry. It's like
Speaker 1: not everybody's Robin Xander, you know, like he's just gifted, you.
Speaker 3: Know, Yeah, some people are just built different.
Speaker 1: Built differently amazing. Yeah, So I mean that's my regime.
Speaker 1: It's kind of nerdy. It's it's kind of athletic, but
Speaker 1: it's what I gotta. I'm serious about what I do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it sounds really smart. And then
Speaker 3: how do you come down from the adrenaline? Like do
Speaker 3: you even get like a big influx of adrenaline at
Speaker 3: this point? Are you sort of used to it?
Speaker 1: No? I get nervous and adrenaline every night. I do
Speaker 1: a little like a meditation before, like when I get
Speaker 1: up on the stage. We have about ten minutes, and
Speaker 1: I do a little thing before every gig just to
Speaker 1: calm everything down, chill, take it in. But I think
Speaker 1: for me after show, coming down from it, my body
Speaker 1: is used to like, okay, now we've got to shut down.
Speaker 1: You know you're gonna feed yourself and you're gonna shut down.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be reading your book in about forty five
Speaker 1: minutes as soon as you get back to your room.
Speaker 1: So I eat and ice at the venue and then
Speaker 1: I'm in my bed. Sometimes I go straight off the
Speaker 1: stage to the hotels. It depends on the traffic of
Speaker 1: the venue to kind of tell you you gotta go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, no, nobody's hanging out after there's no life.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we don't unless you want to hang for a
Speaker 1: couple hours and let all that traffic go. So and
Speaker 1: some people do that. You can do that, but I,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes I get straight back. I'm reading my
Speaker 1: book forty five and it is to an hour after
Speaker 1: we got off stage.
Speaker 3: I saw Iggy pop is on a song on the
Speaker 3: title track, is right, So how was it recording with Iggy?
Speaker 3: Did you guys do that together in person?
Speaker 1: Well? No, so I you know, Iggy's like, there's like
Speaker 1: three for me. You know, it's Prince, it's Lemmy, and
Speaker 1: it's Aggy, you know, and Iggy's still with us. And
Speaker 1: it's always been like that since I discovered this. Dude
Speaker 1: is said twelve through my old the older punk rock kids.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: So I got I got to play on and write
Speaker 1: some music on this last record, a song called Frenzy,
Speaker 1: a few more songs, and that was just like and
Speaker 1: then he's like, can you me and Chad from Chili
Speaker 1: Peppers and Andrew Watt and will you guys be my
Speaker 1: band for these these five shows? Like yes, we will
Speaker 1: be here and you can pick the set list. Holy shit?
Speaker 3: Wow, Okay, so it's like old Stugio stuff.
Speaker 1: You could we just picked whatever we put songs from
Speaker 1: the new record, of course, but we yeah, we picked
Speaker 1: some killer shit, you know, and we made a set
Speaker 1: list and he was like cool, cool, And we got
Speaker 1: Jamie from the Kills to play the other guitar, and
Speaker 1: Matt Clifford he plays with the Stones, he played the
Speaker 1: keys like nightclub and and all that stuff and really
Speaker 1: kick ass man. We rehearse. We all had it down
Speaker 1: before we went to rehearsal. You know, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna not know what I'm doing. And we
Speaker 1: wanted to be the best Iggy band he'd ever had.
Speaker 1: And there was probably a couple of moments on a
Speaker 1: couple of the stages we were it was slamming. But
Speaker 1: so we did that and and did the did the
Speaker 1: shows and that. You know, Iggy knew I was making
Speaker 1: a record and he just kind of wanted to return
Speaker 1: the favor. It was very sweet and he did it.
Speaker 1: He just read the lyrics from.
Speaker 3: Lighthouse so cool.
Speaker 1: So we had like five of like him reading it
Speaker 1: five different ways. You know. I had the studio in Seattle.
Speaker 1: You get your speakers and you put it in his
Speaker 1: voice of fucking god, you know, and then we put music.
Speaker 1: We put kind of a different version of Lighthouse, the
Speaker 1: song behind his spoken word thing. And that's how that happened.
Speaker 3: What about Prince. Did you ever get to meet Prince
Speaker 3: or play with Prince?
Speaker 1: I never wanted to play with Prince because I've heard
Speaker 1: like he just because he's better than everybody at everything.
Speaker 1: You know. I met him, Yes, I met him one time.
Speaker 1: I was way too drunk. It is when I was
Speaker 1: still drinking and I realized I was too drunk. When
Speaker 1: it was in Germany. I went it was the Diamonds
Speaker 1: and Pearls tour. Guns and Roses were playing you know,
Speaker 1: the whatever stadium the next night, and he was playing
Speaker 1: the arena and I went went into the back, you know,
Speaker 1: Guns and Roses guy, all that stuff, right, got to
Speaker 1: get into the back and blah blah blah, and he
Speaker 1: heard I was there and I would like to talk
Speaker 1: to me. He knew I was a fan, and I
Speaker 1: went back and I just I was realized I was
Speaker 1: too drunk. Yeah, so fuck, you know, and and that
Speaker 1: I don't remember what happened. I remember there's like candles
Speaker 1: and stuff, and I'm fucking too drunk, and there's you know, Prince,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to be here I don't want
Speaker 1: to be here and got out of that one. But so,
Speaker 1: you know, and then I there was a documentary that
Speaker 1: I was part of. I don't think it ever came out.
Speaker 1: It was a bass player's documentary that he was doing.
Speaker 1: And some some producer called me, Princess doing this documentary.
Speaker 1: Can you can we go through your basis and just
Speaker 1: talk about bass playing? Prince is doing it? Sure? Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So these guys came to my house and I had
Speaker 1: my bases out and things, and I dressed up a
Speaker 1: little bit, you know, and get in texts questions from
Speaker 1: Prince in real time like blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what did he ask you about your playing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, how'd you come up with that thing? At the beginning?
Speaker 1: Sweets out of mind?
Speaker 3: Yeah, great question.
Speaker 1: But then but then they started getting like why did
Speaker 1: guns and Roses break up? He was asking questions like
Speaker 1: anybody else for to ask at that time. We don't
Speaker 1: get into that. You know, that's something we talk about.
Speaker 3: Prince wants the tea.
Speaker 1: He wants the tea, No, he wanted tea. It was
Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff like yeah, it was very
Speaker 1: very kind of sweet, and you know, it was on
Speaker 1: Larry Grant. Move was like a oh to Larry Graham,
Speaker 1: this this documentary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting. I was watching old you know, interviews
Speaker 3: throughout the years, dating all the way back from early
Speaker 3: gun stuff through Velvet Revolver through now and there was
Speaker 3: an old interview that you did with Kurt Loader in
Speaker 3: Paris and Lenny Kravitz was in the room. Okay, and
Speaker 3: then Lenny comes and sits down with you. Do you
Speaker 3: remember that?
Speaker 1: No, I remember being in Paris and we did that
Speaker 1: pay per view and Lenny was, you know, that first
Speaker 1: record like we I'm still buddies with him, but you know, yes,
Speaker 1: like Slashed, his friend who went to same high school,
Speaker 1: middle school together, right, who like made this killer record
Speaker 1: like whoa you know that was like the record of
Speaker 1: the summer for us, his first record for.
Speaker 3: You and Slash.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're talking about that, and I guess the
Speaker 3: night before you had played with Jeff Beck and with Aerosmith.
Speaker 1: Oh was it that? So was the interview the day
Speaker 1: after that that gig? Yeah? Okay, so Lenny Kravitz would
Speaker 1: did Mama said we had special guests and we had
Speaker 1: Joe and Steven Erosmith did train after rolling and maybe
Speaker 1: Mama cann or something. Yeah, Jeff Beck was supposed to play.
Speaker 1: We did a sound check like the day before, and
Speaker 1: it was so a lot of he has tonight. He
Speaker 1: had tonight and I fucked him up so he couldn't
Speaker 1: do the.
Speaker 3: Get oh man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we felt so guilty, like were too loud.
Speaker 1: But to see, you know, like I can't really watch
Speaker 1: that stuff because I see a really sad guy. You know,
Speaker 1: I see a guy couldn't get himself out of it.
Speaker 1: You know, I tried to stop. I don't, you know,
Speaker 1: so what I see is like kind of a and
Speaker 1: I'm the same me is then you know, you don't change.
Speaker 1: But I'm stuck in this, in this wet court, cardboard box.
Speaker 1: I couldn't punch my way out of, you know, to
Speaker 1: have to drink first thing you want you wake up
Speaker 1: when you sleep that it's like those times that you sleep.
Speaker 1: It's not you know, like now I go to bed,
Speaker 1: like after we play show, I'm in bed an hour
Speaker 1: or later. And it's been that way. I've been sober
Speaker 1: a long time, you know, but yeah, it's it's hard
Speaker 1: for me to see like there was you can see
Speaker 1: like fun drunk like in the late eighties. Then you
Speaker 1: see it and you know, you see the blow, you
Speaker 1: see the falling out and ship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you seems a little puffy, but you were
Speaker 3: very sweet and you were very nice, and you seemed happy.
Speaker 3: But I just think it's interesting when you told the
Speaker 3: Prince story that you had the self awareness of, like,
Speaker 3: I'm too drunk to be in this situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I was never a blackout drunk.
Speaker 1: You know, it's never a mean drunk. I was never
Speaker 1: like any of that stuff. But I was aware and
Speaker 1: aware drunk like I am too. Like suddenly I got
Speaker 1: too drunk. I started drinking too early today. My tolerance
Speaker 1: was through theop you know. But it's one of those times, Nice,
Speaker 1: I can't form a sentence.
Speaker 2: We'll be back with more of le Rose's conversation with
Speaker 2: Duff mccagan after this quick break. We're back with Lea
Speaker 2: Rose and Duff mccagan.
Speaker 3: I watched your documentary It's So Easy and Other Lies
Speaker 3: and which was incredible. I love the music and the
Speaker 3: renditions of the songs that you guys played. The Pedal
Speaker 3: Steel was beautiful. Nice, oh was it was gorgeous. He's
Speaker 3: really really moving. It was really great, and I'm listening
Speaker 3: to the audiobook okay, also really great. I was curious though,
Speaker 3: in the very start of the book, I think it's
Speaker 3: chapter one, maybe it's chapter two, you talk about how
Speaker 3: when Guns n' Roses went on the Usuer Illusion Tour,
Speaker 3: you traveled in an airplane, like not like a private
Speaker 3: jet but like commercial airplane. Yeah, and early on you
Speaker 3: and Slash Chris and the airplane by smoking crack and
Speaker 3: this is in like chapter two.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I was just curious, why did you decide
Speaker 3: to put that the hard drug use so soon in
Speaker 3: the book.
Speaker 1: Well, now I start that book. There was a million
Speaker 1: different ways you could write that book. And I had
Speaker 1: written so many pieces that became that book for The Weekly,
Speaker 1: because you know, when you're writing so much. I was
Speaker 1: writing for the Weekly, I was writing for Playboy financial columns,
Speaker 1: I was writing for ESPN. I was writing all this stuff.
Speaker 1: So that kind of creativity, just like songwriting. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: a writer, so you know this, ye writing your white
Speaker 1: two thousand words that begets more, Oh shit, I should
Speaker 1: write about this. And so I was writing tons of stuff.
Speaker 1: My word document was just full of documents. I'd kind
Speaker 1: of name them like so you know, and a lot
Speaker 1: of this became like that's I can't put that out
Speaker 1: in the Tall Weekly. It's two personal and it's too
Speaker 1: like come out of left field, you know. And Tim Moore,
Speaker 1: who was my editor at Playboy, I asked him to
Speaker 1: edit my book, which was not write it. I had
Speaker 1: all these pieces. Can you look at all these pieces?
Speaker 1: And it helped me, you know, and he would go, okay,
Speaker 1: you know document six, paragraph four? What did that look like?
Speaker 1: And feel like it was like a professor. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, okay, well need does anybody else?
Speaker 1: So why don't you write what that? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? And then he came to Seattle. We had
Speaker 1: all and we printed out all the documents and were like,
Speaker 1: how are we going to put this together? Like arranging
Speaker 1: a song? You know, you could write it like I'm
Speaker 1: in the hospital bed and I'm thinking back about my
Speaker 1: life and what I'm going to do for You could
Speaker 1: go there and start it that way, but doesn't every
Speaker 1: like it's just so typical. So I decided there was
Speaker 1: that thing with my daughter's birthday and I'm walking around
Speaker 1: the kids, you know, like making sure like no it's
Speaker 1: nothing's going on, and blah blah blah, and there's these
Speaker 1: this little kid they're they're kissing around the corner, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what am I supposed to do here? And
Speaker 1: that was a great vehicle for me to get what
Speaker 1: was I doing at that age? How hard should I
Speaker 1: be on them? You know, because by that age I
Speaker 1: was doing this, that and the other before that. In
Speaker 1: sixth grade, I was doing this. So I kind of
Speaker 1: bring in the drugs and stuff pretty instantly, surrounded by
Speaker 1: the story of my daughter's sixteenth birthday party. So then
Speaker 1: that gave me the accessibility, I think, to go in
Speaker 1: and you know, bring the crack in. And because that's
Speaker 1: like one of the dumbest stories there ever was. You know,
Speaker 1: before the plane even took up, it had these this
Speaker 1: plane it was a big regular plane, but in the
Speaker 1: back of had like these four kind of like sweets
Speaker 1: the couches and a curtain, you know, and we went,
Speaker 1: maybe it would get on the plane. We got our shit.
Speaker 1: You got to get rid of it before you land
Speaker 1: wherever we were going to, So you gotta smoke it.
Speaker 1: You just started ride away and like this is the
Speaker 1: most ridiculous thing. We're smoking crack and playing before it
Speaker 1: by sitting at Alix.
Speaker 3: So you thought it was ridiculous at the time, pretty much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I knew this was ridiculous, but let's go on ahead,
Speaker 1: because we do a lot of ridiculous stuff.
Speaker 3: So yeah, do you have to like clear that with
Speaker 3: slash or it's just whatever at this.
Speaker 1: Point, Yeah, yeah, I talked to people, you know, and
Speaker 1: I really didn't want to write a tell all in
Speaker 1: any way. You know, there's plenty of tea, and I
Speaker 1: just thought myself as a you know, I was a
Speaker 1: writer at that point, and I wanted to really explore,
Speaker 1: try to you know, I was reading Cormack McCarthy the
Speaker 1: whole time I was writing interesting, which is a high
Speaker 1: benchmark of how I like to read. And I really
Speaker 1: love that hard like chopping Cadence. He's got and you know,
Speaker 1: economy and and I'll never be him ever. But to read,
Speaker 1: it's like listen to good music while you're writing. You know,
Speaker 1: you're not going to copy it, but you're surrounded by
Speaker 1: good you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're it's in the ether.
Speaker 1: It's in the ether. And I and I, you know,
Speaker 1: I tried to do my best I could at writing
Speaker 1: an interesting book. Without spilling tea. You know, that's kind
Speaker 1: of I felt that was a little below what. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a dad. You know they're going to read it
Speaker 1: one day. I'm going to tell them about my drug
Speaker 1: use when they turned fifteen anyhow, because you got hacked
Speaker 1: my DNA. Sorry, but we're going to talk about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which we did, so the you know, they saw stuff
Speaker 1: on YouTube. You know, it's like you can't hide that
Speaker 1: dad was a you know, heavy user of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So yeah, I imagine when you're getting ready to
Speaker 3: write the book and you're thinking about how, you know,
Speaker 3: putting the puzzle together, when you're working with your editor,
Speaker 3: how salacious do you go? You know, there's probably a
Speaker 3: certain side of you that knows some people want just
Speaker 3: like the sex, drugs, and rock and roll story, but
Speaker 3: the story with guns is just so much deeper than that.
Speaker 1: It's so much deeper than Yeah, I didn't you know
Speaker 1: in the book, I didn't talk about sex at all.
Speaker 1: You know, you hear stories of I think it's more
Speaker 1: like business guys in Wall Street, guys who are all
Speaker 1: that stuff. You know, that wasn't a thing. Especially you
Speaker 1: wouldn't write about it, like, come on, right, So but
Speaker 1: Guns was a lot deeper than that, and it was
Speaker 1: really a story five guys who found each other like, oh,
Speaker 1: we've finally got the perfect guys and to be able
Speaker 1: to like write those songs to get to figure it out.
Speaker 1: We figured it out, and then nobody saw the world
Speaker 1: what happened to us around us like we did nobody,
Speaker 1: So there's nobody else you can really talk to who
Speaker 1: experienced all of like the plane to two people and
Speaker 1: three people and then nine and then you know, then
Speaker 1: packing clubs, and then nobody else liked you in the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. You know, you go out with
Speaker 1: Iron Maiden and people, you know call you all the stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, when did you guys go out with Iron Maiden?
Speaker 3: Was that after appetite?
Speaker 1: Yes, we went out. So we went out with the cult,
Speaker 1: which was great for us. Came across Canada, down the
Speaker 1: West Coast, and across over the New Orleans. We did
Speaker 1: our own little tours, like of the Southwest, we did
Speaker 1: the club tour of the US. We went to Europe
Speaker 1: and played clubs and Germany and stuff. But we England
Speaker 1: we were picking up. Yeah, we had put the EP
Speaker 1: out and so we'd already played the Marquee in one.
Speaker 1: So we started really kind of picking up in England
Speaker 1: and but then you could come back and play, you know,
Speaker 1: some we started to pick up in the northeast Boston
Speaker 1: and New York. You know, you knew like when a
Speaker 1: cop like said, hey, Gods and roses. You know, you're
Speaker 1: walking down the street this cop him, you know, wow,
Speaker 1: you know that's like, that's like you're getting into the
Speaker 1: meat and potatoes of human mind.
Speaker 3: It must be interesting to see like who it was
Speaker 3: first resonating with, like.
Speaker 1: Cops, but to see, you know, like for us to
Speaker 1: you know, start to break through and really break through
Speaker 1: and then then really really break through. It was so crazy.
Speaker 1: You know, people thats how has this changed you? And
Speaker 1: when we got that when it kind of blew up
Speaker 1: and like eighty nine, I remember getting asked questions I'd
Speaker 1: never been asking before how does this change? And I
Speaker 1: thought about it, How does it change me? It must
Speaker 1: change me? Everyone's asked me the same question, right, And
Speaker 1: I realized it didn't change me. It's changed how people
Speaker 1: respond to me. And all of a sudden, I noticed
Speaker 1: I had a lot more friends suddenly, and my jokes
Speaker 1: were for funnier, you know, I was suddenly better looking
Speaker 1: because you know, I was like I was getting you know,
Speaker 1: hit on. I'm like, well, it's kind of probably out
Speaker 1: of my league over there. Oh it's because I'm in
Speaker 1: this band, you know, and they set us up on
Speaker 1: the thing and we're on teep, we're on MTV and
Speaker 1: with all that stuff, like it's kind of lonely, you know,
Speaker 1: like said, when you realize that, it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: oh shit.
Speaker 3: Did you ever ever have a period where you were
Speaker 3: like worked it a little bit, like you know, took
Speaker 3: advantage of it in any way.
Speaker 1: Not my style. It's not really not my style to
Speaker 1: this day, you know, yeah, no, but I I really
Speaker 1: kind of went back. I have my best friends I
Speaker 1: grew up with and they're still my best friends. We
Speaker 1: have our text group. We've been through it, you know,
Speaker 1: if one of my body's strung Ona Heroin for you know,
Speaker 1: fourteen years and like all of has an interesting story,
Speaker 1: you know, and we've been through it together and so
Speaker 1: it's it's really nice to have. So I kind of
Speaker 1: reverted when all that kind of stuff. I just hung
Speaker 1: on to my buddies and like, uh, this is kind
Speaker 1: of weird, guys, you know, like so deep. It was
Speaker 1: a deep band, you know, like, yeah, listen like Paradise City,
Speaker 1: the Captain America's Got a Broken Heart. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like it's deep, it's heavy shit. You know Brownstone about
Speaker 1: getting strung out on Heroin, you know, yeah, like it's
Speaker 1: not your average you know, hey, rock and roll. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like the subject matter is kind of deep.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I always thought it was interesting that so
Speaker 3: much was made about guns and roses being so wild
Speaker 3: and hell raisers and but it's pretty obvious that you
Speaker 3: guys were extremely driven. Yeah, and I know that. You know,
Speaker 3: you went back to school, you studied business, and but
Speaker 3: even back in the day when you guys were first
Speaker 3: offered contracts, you know, before you're even offered full record deals,
Speaker 3: you were turning stuff down because you knew, you know that,
Speaker 3: like this, this isn't good enough for us, and you
Speaker 3: held out, which it must be so hard to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we got offered ten thousand bucks for
Speaker 1: the rights to switch out of Mind, you know, like
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars when you're starting literally you're not you know,
Speaker 1: we're working like phone sales jobs and stuff and paying
Speaker 1: for a rehearsal place and had days when you just
Speaker 1: couldn't even for top ramen. You know, yeah, ten thousand bucks,
Speaker 1: it's like we're rich. But if we just thought if
Speaker 1: and it was for the guy was smart. It was
Speaker 1: a he knew we welcome to jungle. He saw us
Speaker 1: playing in the clubs. He's like, I'll offer you ten
Speaker 1: grandpa publishing on that we didn't know what publishing really meant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but if it's worth ten thousand dollars to him, it's
Speaker 1: got to be worth that does at least. And then
Speaker 1: we got offered a publishing deal and this is after
Speaker 1: we got signed two hundred Well, if it's worth two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand, I mean that's like five bajillion dollars to
Speaker 1: us at that point. Yeah, but if it's worth that
Speaker 1: much to them, we don't really know what publishing is
Speaker 1: or how it works. It's got to be worth that
Speaker 1: to us, you know, why give it to them. So
Speaker 1: we were kind of like a little streak gang. And
Speaker 1: when we started making money, even like we get got accountants,
Speaker 1: you have to get account like, what the fuck is
Speaker 1: you know, we're all smart, We're a smart guy.
Speaker 3: And we were like yeah, yeah, but also very driven,
Speaker 3: just you know, It's like everyone kind of thinks of
Speaker 3: you guys as like hard partying, don't give a fuck
Speaker 3: like all that and that. I mean, I'm sure that
Speaker 3: that's true too, But you're also very driven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nobody rehearsed more than us. No, we worked harder,
Speaker 1: you know, like and still like when we we go
Speaker 1: out on tour, you know, and we thought we just
Speaker 1: didn't We're going to rehearse for six weeks, you know,
Speaker 1: six days a week, not just going and fuck around
Speaker 1: the talk because we put you put the interns in
Speaker 1: and we're playing and we play for hours.
Speaker 3: So in those early sessions, when you in that era
Speaker 3: when Guns was looking for a producer and you met
Speaker 3: with a bunch of different people trying to find the
Speaker 3: right fit, how did those early songwriting sessions work, because
Speaker 3: I've heard you say it was pretty collaborative.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Coming up with the music and then
Speaker 1: finding a producer later that two different things. We were
Speaker 1: done with Appetite plus other songs. By the time we
Speaker 1: started looking for a producer, we knew our songs well
Speaker 1: enough that we didn't want a producer who would get
Speaker 1: into the songs. We didn't want to put somebody touching
Speaker 1: a note I'm not going to touch in it. We
Speaker 1: wanted to sound like we sound in our little rehearsal
Speaker 1: because it sounded fucking great. Yeah. So but we went
Speaker 1: to you know like there was there was like Mutt
Speaker 1: Lane who'd done back in Black and stuff, and like,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a great, dry sounding record, you know,
Speaker 1: but he was to get him. He was more than
Speaker 1: just a walk in the room with more than We
Speaker 1: got two hundred and fifty grand to make our first record. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that would have to pay for you know, that's
Speaker 1: an including and advanced to us so we could live
Speaker 1: stuff our jobs. It's an amazing day. But we'd written songs.
Speaker 1: We had this a lot of times. We ran on
Speaker 1: acoustic guitars because that's how we had and The Night
Speaker 1: Train was written on acoustic guitar, and we'd go out,
Speaker 1: like I remember that in particular, we've drinking in the
Speaker 1: Night Train, you know, this cheap booze. It was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, dollar twenty seven cents a bottle, and
Speaker 1: we were going to go out and fly her for
Speaker 1: a gig that, yeah, which is something we would go
Speaker 1: out and do together. You know, at least a couple
Speaker 1: of us ago. This night we were going out as
Speaker 1: a band. We're going to cover a hole any walk,
Speaker 1: you know, got your bucket of paste and you got
Speaker 1: flyers in here, and we just kept singing the chorus
Speaker 1: for night Train And because we kind of written we
Speaker 1: were all got together I think at Izzy's apartment beforehand,
Speaker 1: and came up with the genesis of that, and we
Speaker 1: were singing it because we didn't have phones and shit
Speaker 1: to record stuff. Yeah, I have to remember what you wrote,
Speaker 1: so a lot of times you just go around seeing it.
Speaker 1: But we landed on some really cool shit, you know.
Speaker 1: I remember like landing on the notes for Michelle mounts
Speaker 1: Now and it just killed it. We just played that
Speaker 1: riff for it hours, you know, and then you have
Speaker 1: to come up with other bits and so bits and pieces.
Speaker 3: Who came up with the whistle in Paradise City?
Speaker 1: Axcellent? I think I think you had a whistle. It's
Speaker 1: like a necklace, you know, like this cool whistle. You know,
Speaker 1: you used the stuff that's around you. If you're making
Speaker 1: a record on budget. One of the songs has like
Speaker 1: a whatever that thing is really called. But he used
Speaker 1: a comb and wax paper for that, Like we need
Speaker 1: that sound that's like in seventies cop you know TV shows,
Speaker 1: so you use what's around you. And but finding a producer,
Speaker 1: you know, we found Mike Clink after you know, we
Speaker 1: we sat with Paul Stanley, you know, just because like,
Speaker 1: well Paul Stanley can kiss if nothing else, like he
Speaker 1: came and roger'son SAT and watched us, you know, you
Speaker 1: know that's a dirty show. And then he came to
Speaker 1: have a meeting with us about producing the record. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the right fit. We could tell. We were talking
Speaker 1: about music. His idea of what should be in our
Speaker 1: idea was different. But that was fine, you know.
Speaker 3: But yeah, but again it's like another instance where you
Speaker 3: guys are confident in your sound, where you can say
Speaker 3: no to somebody like that.
Speaker 1: Well, we just knew, and we knew we were at
Speaker 1: the age that we should know, right like whatever was
Speaker 1: going to be next in rock was going to be
Speaker 1: on our shoulders. And somebody who was maybe wasn't with
Speaker 1: us through the whole thing, who understood it completely, they
Speaker 1: just wouldn't understand it. You know. We just wanted microphones
Speaker 1: up against our amps and around the drums and capture axel,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and we had these backing vocals that
Speaker 1: we wanted to really like. You know, if you listen
Speaker 1: to the appetite, backing vocals are like such a big
Speaker 1: part of it. You know. We wanted that to do
Speaker 1: a thing. But Mike Clink came into where we he
Speaker 1: didn't really want to sit down and talk too much.
Speaker 1: He said, what why don't I come down and record
Speaker 1: you guys. I gotta like eight track reel to reel. Okay,
Speaker 1: And he came, set up some mics and then recorded
Speaker 1: us and then and played it back for us. You know,
Speaker 1: I had a little setup to play it back, and
Speaker 1: it sounds fucking killer, right, because well, that's all we
Speaker 1: need to do is just capture you know. It's like
Speaker 1: the mic through the cord and then through the board
Speaker 1: onto the tape. That's what all we're trying to do.
Speaker 1: He wanted to catch the purest form of that and like, okay, great,
Speaker 1: So we we tried some tracks with like Spencer Proffer
Speaker 1: and that's actually where we made the live like a
Speaker 1: suicide EP. It was at Spencer Proffers studio. Well, we
Speaker 1: had a day to ourselves and we just we had
Speaker 1: an engineer there. We made the live like a suicide record.
Speaker 1: It's not actually live. That's why there's a question mark
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Oh okay, we weren't a big band.
Speaker 1: The joke is we weren't big enough to have a
Speaker 1: big audience. Our audiences were like twelve people at that point.
Speaker 1: Did you hear this roar? They had the Texas Jam audience? Uh,
Speaker 1: live from the Texas Jam was like all these huge bands,
Speaker 1: We're like, let's use that audience. Oh so you hear
Speaker 1: like the loud roars and the firecrackers. We just let
Speaker 1: firecrackers off in the studio, you know. But we got
Speaker 1: you know, we tried out different producers.
Speaker 3: And then you worked with Dan McCafferty, Dan.
Speaker 1: Mccaff from Nazareth. Those records just sound great. I mean, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the precursor to ac DC and to that cult
Speaker 1: electric record. You know. It's like very dry, just in
Speaker 1: your face recording. And they so we tried Dan and
Speaker 1: we did get twenty nine songs recorded. Sounds shitty.
Speaker 3: You can hear them. They're on Spotify.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a box that we put out. We finally
Speaker 1: put those songs out, twenty seven song whatever, it was,
Speaker 1: all the covers we did Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis and
Speaker 1: all this stuff, but landing on Mike, you know, he
Speaker 1: just just did to capture you guys. And when we
Speaker 1: got into that Rumbo recorders, he was really good at
Speaker 1: like kind of corralling us, like, okay, we do a take.
Speaker 1: There's only I mean, I think all of that record
Speaker 1: is first second or three it takes. I've every saw
Speaker 1: we were, We played all the time. You know, we
Speaker 1: didn't need to do nineteen takes of anything. And Steven
Speaker 1: was was crushing it then, so we didn't need to
Speaker 1: get like we don't got the drum take yet. We'd
Speaker 1: have it, you know. So and Mike was really good
Speaker 1: at like we had headphones on first time, kind of
Speaker 1: using headphones and all that stuff, and he knew it
Speaker 1: was all kind of alien to us, and he would
Speaker 1: come on the thing you talk to them, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: it's time to dig in. This is the one. You know.
Speaker 1: He'd let us get one out, you know, and maybe
Speaker 1: we use that first one. But he's like, okay, guys,
Speaker 1: dig in. And he had this kind of voice in
Speaker 1: a way about him, very gentle. Never you never got
Speaker 1: out of you know, he was just he's always just
Speaker 1: been this general guy. All Right, guys, it's time to
Speaker 1: dig in. When Mike you said that you knew like
Speaker 1: somebody's fucking around too much or something. All right, we'll
Speaker 1: go we'll dig in. We'll dig in for Yeah.
Speaker 3: And were you guys doing overdubs and stuff or was
Speaker 3: it just all one take?
Speaker 1: Basic drums are pretty much one yeah, one take through
Speaker 1: that stuff, Slash understood that he could put his guitars
Speaker 1: on again, so he when we were doing they're called
Speaker 1: basic tracks, he drank like a fiend. And so I
Speaker 1: wish we could get out takes some of that his guitars.
Speaker 1: We'd have to turn it off because he was so out.
Speaker 1: He was so hammered, you know, like Slash, we're trying
Speaker 1: to get basic tracks here, he'd be laughing and stuff,
Speaker 1: and like so he did. I think he probably kept
Speaker 1: some of his guitars, And is these guitars on on
Speaker 1: those basic tracks because everything was isolated. If it was
Speaker 1: a good take and it sounded good, like why do
Speaker 1: it again?
Speaker 3: So Slash would be like noodling and like jamming and
Speaker 3: just like going off the script basically, yeah.
Speaker 1: Following the ground, like dude, we're trying to get basic
Speaker 1: tracks over here and Axel would sing with us in
Speaker 1: all the basic tracks. He had a little booth because
Speaker 1: we're used to playing as a band, right, so right,
Speaker 1: and we always did that, even with all the user
Speaker 1: illusion stuff, you know, played everything as a band and
Speaker 1: anything that was good enough for take because you want that,
Speaker 1: you know, first take in rock and roll, right if
Speaker 1: you can get it?
Speaker 3: And was there more tinkering with the lyrics or were
Speaker 3: those kind of locked by then?
Speaker 1: In an appetite there take? Yeah, No, done, Everything was
Speaker 1: absolutely done. Slash guitar solos, he had written those. You know,
Speaker 1: everything was done. It's just a matter of capturing on tape.
Speaker 2: We're gonna pause one last time for a quick break
Speaker 2: and then come back with the rest of Lea's conversation
Speaker 2: with Duff mccagan. Here's the rest of Lea Roses conversation
Speaker 2: with Duff mccagan.
Speaker 3: You've been in so many bands. Before you even moved
Speaker 3: to LA you had been in probably eight bands.
Speaker 1: Eight yeah bands. Yeah, I'd been a lot more than that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I love in the Dot documentary where you're
Speaker 3: just naming the names of all the bands you've been in,
Speaker 3: like the Farts and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, Seattle had a great music scene.
Speaker 1: It's just unfortunately, like Heroin came in at about eighty
Speaker 1: three and I was left. I didn't want to move someplace.
Speaker 1: I was playing with all these great people there was
Speaker 1: I was like one person away in every band, like
Speaker 1: from the band being really fucking good, you know. As
Speaker 1: you know, like Sea scene took off only a couple
Speaker 1: of years later, you know, he Soundguarden stuff like that
Speaker 1: was all there. It was just in my group. It
Speaker 1: was just everybody had strung out and it was time
Speaker 1: to go. If I wanted to do this, it was
Speaker 1: time to get out.
Speaker 3: Once the Seattle sound was established and did take off,
Speaker 3: you know with Pearl Jams, Soundgarden, Nirvana, what did you
Speaker 3: think of that sound?
Speaker 1: I was super proud, you know, super proud. I was
Speaker 1: on the you know, so Bruce Habit from Subpop, him
Speaker 1: and I worked at the same restaurant and he had
Speaker 1: sub Pop. The column in this newspaper called called the Rocket,
Speaker 1: so it kind of opened. That's how you got information.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not old enough to remember any of
Speaker 1: this stuff, but Maximum rock and Roll was a fanzine
Speaker 1: that would have the scene report. So that's how you
Speaker 1: found out what was going on in Chicago, Washington, d C,
Speaker 1: dall it whatever. You know, you'd read about it, and
Speaker 1: he had sort of that column and that was called
Speaker 1: the Rocket in Seattle music newspaper. And then he was
Speaker 1: about to pronounce for sub sub pop single like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a good idea. Named after your column. It's credited
Speaker 1: and it was the you Man I think was the
Speaker 1: first band. But that was right in when I was
Speaker 1: getting to leave. So he picked up Steam. And then
Speaker 1: my my friend Kim, she from Fastbacks, she went to
Speaker 1: go work for subpop like they were hiring employees, you know,
Speaker 1: like holy shit, wow. And I was put on the
Speaker 1: sub Pop Singles Club. So I got all I had got,
Speaker 1: you know, a tad single and you know, all the
Speaker 1: early shit, and I was really really happy about it.
Speaker 1: Went and saw a sound Garden when they came and
Speaker 1: played here in eighty What do.
Speaker 3: You think of Soundgarden?
Speaker 1: I mean I knew Kim, and I knew Chris and
Speaker 1: Ben was around. I knew band a little bit. So
Speaker 1: they're right. You know, they're not trying to write pop
Speaker 1: radio song. They're doing it for that, you know. I
Speaker 1: love those kinds of bands, you know, and Pearl Jam
Speaker 1: came down and played the cat House. I knew Stone
Speaker 1: and Jeff from before, and I got and played with
Speaker 1: them at the cat House. I played drums. We did
Speaker 1: Sonic Producer and Nirvan they were on Geffen. I mean that,
Speaker 1: you know that never Mind record was like I wore
Speaker 1: out the cassette before the record even came out.
Speaker 3: I was so surprised. In your book, you talked about
Speaker 3: a little bit you alluded to the the like scuffle
Speaker 3: that happened at backstage at the MTV Music Awards between
Speaker 3: Nirvan and Guns and Roses, and I imagine you being
Speaker 3: the peacemaker because you're from Seattle, but you're the one
Speaker 3: who actually got to the fight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I was just like, well, okay, so that
Speaker 1: thing was really a non it's a story because the
Speaker 1: band for so bad at the time. But if you
Speaker 1: were there, you'd be like, it's really a non story,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But Kurt Loader was around, and Kurt Loader at
Speaker 1: a time before there was social media, he loved the
Speaker 1: team man and he loved the stir of the pot
Speaker 1: and he's the one who really got that thing going,
Speaker 1: you know. Interesting as far as it went, it was
Speaker 1: all really a Kurt Loader as I see it, because
Speaker 1: it was like there was nothing, there was no there there. Well,
Speaker 1: you wanted them to go on tour with us, like
Speaker 1: all that stuff. You know, we'd had sound guard now
Speaker 1: and faith no more. You know, we got bands and
Speaker 1: we liked to go tour with us. And seeing Chris Novaselik,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm oh God, But seeing Chris, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I didn't get in a fight with you. Chris.
Speaker 1: He's a fucking he's huge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but just because he's tall doesn't mean I know,
Speaker 3: but you know, I feel like you could take him.
Speaker 1: So there was no there there. And you know, I
Speaker 1: was back to Seattle band I mean, Alison Chains and
Speaker 1: everyone was so mother love bone. You know. That was
Speaker 1: the first like fuck. And I knew Andy would Greg
Speaker 1: Greg Gilmour, the drummer was in my band, Timid Morning,
Speaker 1: you know, and the living Ione who found him from
Speaker 1: a gig harbor from this ad that he had and
Speaker 1: brought him up to Seattle, and so I was like,
Speaker 1: it's happening. You know, we knew all the talent was there.
Speaker 1: I had to bail.
Speaker 3: Why did you leave?
Speaker 1: Though? Because everybody around me was strung out from my
Speaker 1: roommate who was one of my best friends, one of
Speaker 1: the guys I told you, strung out, the heroin for
Speaker 1: fourteen years, my band tim like we were. We toured
Speaker 1: Black Flag, Dead Kennedy's. We were on our way up,
Speaker 1: we were on our way there. You know, everyone came
Speaker 1: into that band tore it apart, heartbreaking my girlfriend, you know,
Speaker 1: like everybody around me. A friend of mine who was
Speaker 1: strung how came. He's like the stuff you got to
Speaker 1: get out. We're all you know, you're like all our
Speaker 1: best hope. I'm like, you're right, I gotta go. And
Speaker 1: that was it. I sold gear. I had a job,
Speaker 1: you know, like I had like three hundred forty bucks,
Speaker 1: you know, after selling me, you know, so it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go.
Speaker 3: So was the ambition to go to LA to get
Speaker 3: in a successful band or just continue to play music.
Speaker 1: I wanted to find you, Like I said, I'd been
Speaker 1: in bands where there's always one missing link. I was
Speaker 1: on the search for my band that didn't have a
Speaker 1: missing link. How I was going to do it, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, like it doesn't matter. That was
Speaker 1: the department. It's gonna get done and uh you know,
Speaker 1: and meeting Slash and steeping through the ad and the
Speaker 1: recycler and Easy moving across the street from me and
Speaker 1: meeting Axls. You know, like one thing led to another.
Speaker 1: I had run rays from Black Flag was it was
Speaker 1: my good buddy, you know, he was down here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I had it, you know, like a friend got
Speaker 1: a job right away. One thing led to another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we found the band that had the right guys in
Speaker 1: Hey about eight months after I was thinking the first
Speaker 1: time the the five of us gotten room together about
Speaker 1: eight months after I got here. So and once you
Speaker 1: got that right band, like nobody can you know, Like
Speaker 1: for me, we're going. It doesn't matter. You starve, you
Speaker 1: can do all that shit, but we're going. We got
Speaker 1: the right guys.
Speaker 3: You know, when was the first time you heard Axels sing?
Speaker 3: What was your impression?
Speaker 1: So yeah, so Izzy and he we're playing with these
Speaker 1: two other guys that we're trying it out. It was
Speaker 1: another guitar player, great guitar player, another drummer, really good drummer.
Speaker 1: And they asked me to come play and it was
Speaker 1: out in the valle. They got it, you know, and
Speaker 1: by the hour rehearsal plays like four bucks and they
Speaker 1: knew they guy to own. This was like four bucks
Speaker 1: an hour, and we had it for three hours, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And drummer had his stuff up there,
Speaker 1: and the guitar player had his hands and is he
Speaker 1: is he's more like the Thunders guy. So he had
Speaker 1: like it, you know, and actually got on to check
Speaker 1: out the PA and I'm telling you, it was like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is happening here? And he just kind
Speaker 1: of did the scream and there was he has he
Speaker 1: still has this thing where it's a double voice because
Speaker 1: it's a low and high same time. But I was
Speaker 1: just like, holy fuck. Now. The other two guys we
Speaker 1: played some gigs as that band, and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: he's amazing. That is he cool as fuck? You know,
Speaker 1: other two guys. And so we booked a little punk
Speaker 1: rock tour. I had all the punk rock clubs I played, right,
Speaker 1: and you have the phone numbers and you go to
Speaker 1: the phone boots and you book your little tour, and uh,
Speaker 1: these other two guys were like, what do you mean,
Speaker 1: why are we gonna? How are we gonna? Where are
Speaker 1: we gonna stay? Is the unit? Actually? Like you know,
Speaker 1: they knew about punk rock houses and stuff. You can
Speaker 1: always find a pass crash even at the club. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. We have the gigs. We'll figure out
Speaker 1: all the rest. And the other two guys you just
Speaker 1: were like, we're not you know, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: So that's when the Slash and Stephen came in and
Speaker 1: the moment of five of center rooms like, oh here
Speaker 1: it is, here it is. It was kind of amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you went on that first tour and then
Speaker 3: car breaks down. You end up in an onion field,
Speaker 3: starving eating raw onions.
Speaker 1: The Onion Fields, like and that book I think had
Speaker 1: just come out a few years earlier, that booked the
Speaker 1: Onion Fields. You know about that, but the serial Killer
Speaker 1: up in Bakersfield. Yeah, the books called I think there
Speaker 1: was a movie too, The Onion Fields. Yeah, we're in
Speaker 1: the onion fields man, Yeah, but imagine trying to hitchhike,
Speaker 1: you know, five guys with the guitars like looking like us.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: First yeah, you know we've opened up for the Fast
Speaker 1: Facts and used their gear and we were we were awful.
Speaker 1: There were three people there. But now, of course in
Speaker 1: Seattle and lore like everybody says they were at their gig,
Speaker 1: like that's impossible, you know that because the three people
Speaker 1: are there, we're in the fastbacks.
Speaker 3: Oh, I want to ask you. So you come from
Speaker 3: a big family, you're youngest of eight kids. What was
Speaker 3: your house like? Was it a loud house?
Speaker 1: Like? I mean, but if you grow up in it,
Speaker 1: you don't realize it is. But fuck it, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean there's always something going on, and there was
Speaker 1: instruments around, so, you know. The way I learned to
Speaker 1: play was like my older brother would say, keep time,
Speaker 1: you know, drums. You'd see somebody else do it, one
Speaker 1: of the older kids. You wanted to be as cool
Speaker 1: as them, so you luckily I had some you know,
Speaker 1: musical ability, innately ready to go, you know, so I
Speaker 1: was able to keep dying. And my brother showed me
Speaker 1: three chords on on on the guitar, played these street
Speaker 1: cordes on your feet, you know, first time you're playing,
Speaker 1: your fingers are like hurting and bleeding and shipping like.
Speaker 1: But you the older kids, you don't want to, you know.
Speaker 1: And then he taught me, today is your birthday on
Speaker 1: the base and we went and played a for some
Speaker 1: school kids or something. But du you know, I learned
Speaker 1: that and I played it and really that that's the
Speaker 1: Blues major scale. So I really learned like the right
Speaker 1: ship four or four time, you know, Blues major scale, G,
Speaker 1: A and D chords on What more do you need
Speaker 1: to know to this day? You know on Lighthouse, I
Speaker 1: mean G, G, A, and D is featured pretty preparently
Speaker 1: on in my songwriter. You know, you can do a
Speaker 1: lot with those cards. But yeah, you know, and then
Speaker 1: playing like I played team sports, played baseball, kids, played football,
Speaker 1: played basketball, and I kind of I had some good
Speaker 1: coaches when I was young, played for the city leagues.
Speaker 3: You know that's cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the like I learned a lot about, like
Speaker 1: have played your part, like on a team, right, you know,
Speaker 1: you're a linebacker, you're lying, You're not the running back,
Speaker 1: you're not the safety. You're this is your domain. Be
Speaker 1: great at it. You know.
Speaker 3: Speaking of playing your part, have you ever been in
Speaker 3: a position or have you ever had the desire to
Speaker 3: want to be the front person when you are playing
Speaker 3: either like guitar or bass, Like, are you always happy
Speaker 3: being in that position or have you ever wanted more attention?
Speaker 1: I think it's because of the way I grew up,
Speaker 1: never got into music, like to get chicks to get
Speaker 1: the drug, you know, all the stuff they say. It
Speaker 1: was all about like I really wanted like that team.
Speaker 1: I wanted to find that great band where everybody played
Speaker 1: their part in it and like kind of was great
Speaker 1: at their place in the band. And that's always ever
Speaker 1: looking for it. Like doing my my own records, I
Speaker 1: love doing it. It's fun. It's fun being in the singer.
Speaker 1: It's more like my gigs are more like book readings,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of more like it's I'm telling the
Speaker 1: stories in my songs. I'm telling stories. I talk between
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know. It's just more of like
Speaker 1: this other thing. And I'm not being I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to be anything. I'm not.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So no, I never I played with people in bands
Speaker 1: that wanted to be the singer and that that's a cancer.
Speaker 1: Like this's just like just percolating the whole time. It's
Speaker 1: like I never, you know, never had that. I love
Speaker 1: when I'm when I'm a bass player, I mean that's
Speaker 1: what I do. I play, and I want to see
Speaker 1: the best backing vocals. I'm going to be the best
Speaker 1: background vocalist there is in my range, you know, So
Speaker 1: that's what I strive to do it. I love it,
Speaker 1: and I when I have a good gig, it's like
Speaker 1: fuck yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, since you've been in so many different bands,
Speaker 3: you've seen so many bands play, who, in your opinion,
Speaker 3: is the best lead singer of all time? Like checks
Speaker 3: every box.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have to put Axel just from what
Speaker 1: I've seen him do over all these years, what he
Speaker 1: does and how hard he works at it, his hour
Speaker 1: and a half warm ups, an hour and a half
Speaker 1: warm downs, and where he has to push and we
Speaker 1: play a lot of shows. You know, Yeah, he's a master.
Speaker 1: I've learned so much from him, seeing so much.
Speaker 3: What are some things that you've learned.
Speaker 1: She's really kind of dynamically, how hard to push, where
Speaker 1: to push from in your body? You know how to
Speaker 1: tilt when you need an extra vowel and really like
Speaker 1: particular shit next you need some more a in your vowel,
Speaker 1: you know how to tilt, you know, and just minutia
Speaker 1: of how to do it, because it's all minutia, you know,
Speaker 1: it's from note to note to note to note. So
Speaker 1: people I played with he's you know, I'm in a
Speaker 1: bad so of course I'm gonna like he's my guy.
Speaker 1: You know, I think he's just a master and just
Speaker 1: a fucking hard worker. I mean I've seen Robins Andrews amazing,
Speaker 1: you know, you see guys like that or Anne Wilson,
Speaker 1: come on, I don't know if you've seen her, Jesus
Speaker 1: Lord like, she has to hold the mic this far
Speaker 1: away from her, you know, just like okay, just pure,
Speaker 1: pure singer William and now and change like Jesus Christ like.
Speaker 1: But I also like, you know, Henry a black Flag,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I like the real people, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: the real thing.
Speaker 3: Do you find yourself now that you're getting older, that
Speaker 3: you're listening to slower music? Could you listen to punk rock?
Speaker 1: So we don't listen to a lot of punk like
Speaker 1: we listen New Way Time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We have a couple of stations that we we have
Speaker 1: like this, it's called tune In, and they play like
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, Gang four and Stranglers and
Speaker 1: and Uranduran and all this stuff, so that I like
Speaker 1: all the instrumentation and a lot of that stuff really
Speaker 1: a unique instrumentation, and I'll listen to punk rock. I
Speaker 1: mean it depends. I like, you know, some new band
Speaker 1: I really like The Garden. They're not that new anymore.
Speaker 1: But do you know that band The Garden. No?
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: Oh oh yeah really they Twin Boys and uh, your
Speaker 1: dad was ready for X for Everything really really unique
Speaker 1: and super cool and great live.
Speaker 3: Oh cool?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Who else? I always like to ask people what they're
Speaker 3: listening to? Who else are you listening to? Or what
Speaker 3: else are you loving? Doesn't have to be new?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I can nepotism. I guess it's real.
Speaker 1: But my daughter, Grace is fucking amazing, Like she keeps
Speaker 1: coming up with another new song. Are we just talking to?
Speaker 1: We had Dentity and I was Shooter Jennings, who did
Speaker 1: my last record. He's like, man, we have to get
Speaker 1: Grace out there somehow.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: I agree, But I'm your dad, you know I can't
Speaker 1: really and I'm in guns and Roses, you know, like
Speaker 1: I can't. She never asked me for my house, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to be like, come check out my
Speaker 1: But she's rad. She's rad but young. She's turned us
Speaker 1: on to like The Garden and Turnstiles, great young punk.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of them?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've heard of them.
Speaker 1: They're from New Jersey or Baltimore, and they're they're really
Speaker 1: they do it right?
Speaker 3: Are you working on new music now? What's next after
Speaker 3: you said you're going to go on tour?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have another eighty two songs.
Speaker 3: Good. So the well is still flowing.
Speaker 1: It's flowing, man, and I don't want to question it
Speaker 1: whether you think the means is good or bad. I
Speaker 1: have like songs, they're they're coming. I'm really proud of Lighthouse.
Speaker 1: I'm really proud of those songs we chose for that record.
Speaker 1: There was a lot more to choose from. We decided
Speaker 1: to do this to tell me a little story of
Speaker 1: like a beginning to end and the hope in the
Speaker 1: middle and the you know, I just don't know it.
Speaker 3: D En like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that song's very very powerful.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, thanks for other questions.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for doing this. Yeah it was great,
Speaker 3: Okay cool.
Speaker 2: Thanks to Duff mccagan for talking to us that Broken
Speaker 2: Record about his new album, Lighthouse and about Guns N' Roses.
Speaker 2: You can hear a playlist of all of our favorite
Speaker 2: songs stuff mccagan's ever played on on a playlist at
Speaker 2: Broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Speaker 2: at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where you
Speaker 2: can find all of our new episodes. You can follow
Speaker 2: us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced
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