Duff McKagan

In the minds of many rock fans, Duff McKagan will forever be known first and foremost as the bassist for Guns N' Roses. The band’s white-hot reign in the late '80s through the early '90s is the stuff of hedonistic, hard rock legend. And for anyone interested in reading a detailed account of that wild ride, check out Duff’s memoir, “It’s So Easy and Other Lies.”

After turning 30, Duff got sober, eventually left GNR, and then went on to play stints in Alice In Chains and Jane’s Addiction—and he helped form the supergroup, Velvet Revolver. In 2016, he rejoined Guns N' Roses following their induction into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame.

Outside of his contributions to big name rock bands, Duff has also been releasing solo material since the early '90s. His latest album, Lighthouse, signals a new musical direction for Duff—one that focuses on reflective, personal lyrics and stripped-down rootsy-rock.

On today’s episode Leah Rose talks to Duff McKagan about his decision to leave the heroin-infested punk rock scene in his hometown of Seattle for LA. He also shares stories about Axl Rose and Slash while recording Appetite For Destruction. And he reminisces about the time his musical idol Prince was trying to get Duff to reveal the real reason why Guns N' Roses broke up.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Duff McKagan songs HERE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
In the minds of many rock fans, Duff McKagan will
forever be known first and foremost as the basist of
Guns n' Roses. The band's white hot reign in the
late eighties through the early nineties is the stuff of
hedonistic hard rock legend, and for anyone interested in reading
a detailed account of that wild ride maybe the last
in all of rock, check out Duff's memoir It's So

(00:42):
Easy and Other Lies. After turning thirty, Duff got sober,
eventually left GNR, and then went on to play stints
in Alison Chains and Jane's Addiction and helped form the
supergroup Velvet Revolver. Duff also enrolled in college while writing
columns for the Seattle Weekly, Playboy and ESPN on everything
from personal finance to sports. In twenty sixteen, he rejoined

(01:06):
Guns n' Roses following their induction into the rock and
roll holly fame. Outside of his contribution to big name
rock bands and personal finance columns, Duff has also been
releasing solo materials since the early nineties. His latest album, Lighthouse,
signals a new musical direction for Duff, one that focuses
on reflective personal lyrics and stripped down rootsie rock. On

(01:28):
today's episode, Lea Rose talks to Duff mccagan about his
decision to leave the heroin infested punk rock scene in
his hometown of Seattle for Los Angeles. He also shares
stories about Axel Rose and Slash while recording Appetite for Destruction,
and he reminisces about the time his musical idol Prince
was trying to get Duff to reveal the real reason

(01:49):
why Guns n' Roses broke up. This is broken record
liner notes for the digital age.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
I'm justin Ritchman.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Here's Lea Rose's conversation with Duff mccagan.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
I want to talk a little bit about your latest album, Lighthouse,
And since it's been out for a little while now
and you're over sort of like the initial wave of
releasing it, you've had a chance to see how it's
living in the world. What has the reception been, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Because I'm not touring it yet and the record came out,
we had extended the Guns and Roses tour, but we
already had like a release date for my record and
we couldn't push it back. So we were supposed to
end the Guns tour. Three days later my record would
come out. I would be free and open to do,
you know, press or for the things you got to do.

(02:43):
But we extended our tour. So I was in Boise,
Idaho the day my record came out. It was like
having a birthday. I got a cake and my wife
sent me flowers and I'm in the you know, this
hotel room and Boise and it feels like my birthday,
but I'm by myself and you can't really tell how, like, okay,

(03:06):
it's out, what's hey? You know, record reviews already come out,
some pre previews of the record, so and then then
reviews and then you know, I don't really look at
comments on social media. It's not really my my bag.
It's I have a story why that is?

Speaker 3 (03:27):
But you know, is it because they don't feel constructive,
or they don't make you feel good, or they're just
from random people and who cares what they think?

Speaker 1 (03:38):
I don't think anybody's really random, do you know? I
think everybody's got an amazing story. I really do, because
I've just met so many people in an elevator or whatever.
You know, you get in the elevator and you think
you're you're the king of the mountain. And then you
hear some story in elevator. I'm not even the most
interesting person in this elevator, you know. So no back

(04:00):
in Valvary Revolver days, you know, when the like the
fan forms and stuff, we're just getting started, and I
would look. We had a site and there's a fan forum,
and I would look and there was this one guy
and had he had like a screen name, and he
would say things like we were right on, like the
guy knew music, knew about what we were doing. But

(04:21):
then he would be critical about something. You know, he's
kind of right about that. And then I would live
and I would wait for this guy to like post something,
and I would kind of rise and fall a little
bit and not extremely so, but I got caught up
in what this guy was saying and I was doing it.
We played some gig in Europe, like a festival, and

(04:43):
we were doing a signing at the festival and this
kid comes up to me and he's like fifteen years
old and I signed something for him. He's like this
kind of you know, star Trek kind of kid. I
know him. We're friends to this to now and he
said he says the screen name. He goes, I'm him,
I'm like, how old are you? Because I'm fifteen. I'm like, okay,

(05:07):
so I'm done with this. I was like a forty
year old man, you know, I'm like, what am I doing?
But it was all when it was new, you know.
So my point is like when something happens with me,
a gig at Hyde Park or a Lighthouse record comes
out and I'm really proud of it and huh blah,
and I know how I feel about it, and I

(05:27):
know what I went through to get those songs out,
and lyrically what I went through to, you know, carve
those words and throw out words and rewrite it again,
and you know, the music's just being you know, the
perfect like little synthesizer sound there and all this stuff
and the drum sounds and the things you go through.

(05:50):
It's probably pretty obvious. You know. I'm not trying to
make commercial pop hits. I'm trying to make things that
are important to me and hopefully important to other people.
You know. So when that comes out, I'm not going
to read social media comments and I won't even look
for reviews. My manager will say me stuff, he knows

(06:11):
I don't like to breathe reviews really because again, I
just like things to sit there. I know when I
go out, like when I'm out and toured Tenderness, the
record before this same sort of records some sort of
like vocal lyric in the same area, you know of
kind of healing and togetherness, and I know how that

(06:34):
works for an audience, and it's kind of really amazing.
You know, you can see people crying and stuff, you know,
like it really hits. It happens in guns it happens
in bands. I plan that sense of togetherness for sure,
but this is a bit more personal for me. So
the record. The reaction has been great, like the reviews,

(06:55):
and that this record's done a lot better sales wise
than Tenderness, which means I'm growing as this kind of
new solo artist area. I'm going into acoustic ribbon and
something I wanted to do since I played on mark
Land against Field Songs in nineteen ninety seven. This is

(07:16):
what I you know, I want to aim for that,
and so other than that, I'm going to get some
tour dates together for the fall somewhere cool.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
And then is Guns N' Roses going back out on tour.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
This year's well, we are taking this year off. Okay, yes,
we played so many shows in the last like whatever
eight years that we need to We need to give
the world a break. And you know we play long
shows too, so we all need like a like a
physical break. We played those three and a half hour

(07:48):
shows and kicks one's ass.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
How do you prepare for those three and a half
hour shows? What are you doing the day of the performance?

Speaker 1 (07:57):
I mean I could give you really literal.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Like yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to know what's the
morning routine? What are you eating?

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah? Yeah, lemon water, coffee, lemon water again, banana. Then
I go to the gym. I'll do cardio and then
stretch and then do some sort of like you know,
push ups or you know, like an hour in the gym. Okay,
ending again with a stretch and then shower, eat like

(08:26):
a really healthy lunch, which is whatever I can find,
but usually just some greens with chicken, no carbs, no, no.
The show's very cardio driven. You know, you're round and around,
so you can't have a full stomach. I'll have some
snacks up on stage, like protein bars or something, a

(08:47):
lot of electrolytes and then afterwards I'll eat it pretty
massive dinner, you know, pretty massive shepherd's pie and you know,
or lasagnia or whatever the catering's got. Try not to
do fish because it's kind of late. You know, the
catering has been closed down for a couple hours. Oh,

(09:10):
so we're getting food that's kind of been then sitting there,
it's all right. I'm totally used to it. It's just
fuel at that point, you know. And after showing ice.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
My legs like soak them in an ice bath.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, buckets? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Wow? Is that because you've been standing for so long?

Speaker 1 (09:27):
It's I have to do like yeah, therapy like massage,
guns and ice.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah, it's a very athletic, you know. Feet you get
to go out and sage and be an artist and
play your thing and have all that feeling and stuff.
But in that it's all athletic. You know. You have
to think like an athlete, you know, running across the
stage and then hitting a false set of backup backing vocal.

(09:56):
You have to be fit. You can't. You can't just
like sit in the hotel room then go do an
egg and then go sit And there's no I don't
I mean, I suppose you could, but it would be
really bad for you.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
It's funny like sometimes you hear about like certain golfers
who have like no athletic regime at all, and they
just sort of like there's one golfer who's famous and
he like drinks like five beers and then he goes
he's like one of the best golfers of all time, right,
And then you hear about like Tiger Woods, who's like,
you know, just like a relentless trainer exerciser, and he's

(10:29):
like so smart about what he's putting in his body
and everything.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
I know, Like Robin Zander from Cheap Trick. You know,
he's I don't ho hold he has seventy blank you know. Yeah.
He he's got one of the most amazing rock and
roll voices never was. He smokes cigarettes and has a
glass of wine, doesn't warm up nothing, it goes on stage.
He's one of those guys within the industry. It's like

(10:55):
not everybody's Robin Xander, you know, like he's just gifted, you.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
Know, Yeah, some people are just built different.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Built differently amazing. Yeah, So I mean that's my regime.
It's kind of nerdy. It's it's kind of athletic, but
it's what I gotta. I'm serious about what I do.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it sounds really smart. And then
how do you come down from the adrenaline? Like do
you even get like a big influx of adrenaline at
this point? Are you sort of used to it?

Speaker 1 (11:24):
No? I get nervous and adrenaline every night. I do
a little like a meditation before, like when I get
up on the stage. We have about ten minutes, and
I do a little thing before every gig just to
calm everything down, chill, take it in. But I think
for me after show, coming down from it, my body

(11:45):
is used to like, okay, now we've got to shut down.
You know you're gonna feed yourself and you're gonna shut down.
You're gonna be reading your book in about forty five
minutes as soon as you get back to your room.
So I eat and ice at the venue and then
I'm in my bed. Sometimes I go straight off the
stage to the hotels. It depends on the traffic of

(12:06):
the venue to kind of tell you you gotta go.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Yeah, So, no, nobody's hanging out after there's no life.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
Sometimes we don't unless you want to hang for a
couple hours and let all that traffic go. So and
some people do that. You can do that, but I,
you know, sometimes I get straight back. I'm reading my
book forty five and it is to an hour after
we got off stage.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
I saw Iggy pop is on a song on the
title track, is right, So how was it recording with Iggy?
Did you guys do that together in person?

Speaker 1 (12:38):
Well? No, so I you know, Iggy's like, there's like
three for me. You know, it's Prince, it's Lemmy, and
it's Aggy, you know, and Iggy's still with us. And
it's always been like that since I discovered this. Dude
is said twelve through my old the older punk rock kids.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
You know.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
So I got I got to play on and write
some music on this last record, a song called Frenzy,
a few more songs, and that was just like and
then he's like, can you me and Chad from Chili
Peppers and Andrew Watt and will you guys be my
band for these these five shows? Like yes, we will

(13:20):
be here and you can pick the set list. Holy shit?

Speaker 3 (13:24):
Wow, Okay, so it's like old Stugio stuff.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
You could we just picked whatever we put songs from
the new record, of course, but we yeah, we picked
some killer shit, you know, and we made a set
list and he was like cool, cool, And we got
Jamie from the Kills to play the other guitar, and
Matt Clifford he plays with the Stones, he played the
keys like nightclub and and all that stuff and really

(13:47):
kick ass man. We rehearse. We all had it down
before we went to rehearsal. You know, I was like,
I'm not gonna not know what I'm doing. And we
wanted to be the best Iggy band he'd ever had.
And there was probably a couple of moments on a
couple of the stages we were it was slamming. But
so we did that and and did the did the
shows and that. You know, Iggy knew I was making

(14:11):
a record and he just kind of wanted to return
the favor. It was very sweet and he did it.
He just read the lyrics from.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Lighthouse so cool.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
So we had like five of like him reading it
five different ways. You know. I had the studio in Seattle.
You get your speakers and you put it in his
voice of fucking god, you know, and then we put music.
We put kind of a different version of Lighthouse, the
song behind his spoken word thing. And that's how that happened.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
What about Prince. Did you ever get to meet Prince
or play with Prince?

Speaker 1 (14:49):
I never wanted to play with Prince because I've heard
like he just because he's better than everybody at everything.
You know. I met him, Yes, I met him one time.
I was way too drunk. It is when I was
still drinking and I realized I was too drunk. When
it was in Germany. I went it was the Diamonds
and Pearls tour. Guns and Roses were playing you know,

(15:11):
the whatever stadium the next night, and he was playing
the arena and I went went into the back, you know,
Guns and Roses guy, all that stuff, right, got to
get into the back and blah blah blah, and he
heard I was there and I would like to talk
to me. He knew I was a fan, and I
went back and I just I was realized I was

(15:34):
too drunk. Yeah, so fuck, you know, and and that
I don't remember what happened. I remember there's like candles
and stuff, and I'm fucking too drunk, and there's you know, Prince,
and I don't want to be here I don't want
to be here and got out of that one. But so,

(15:54):
you know, and then I there was a documentary that
I was part of. I don't think it ever came out.
It was a bass player's documentary that he was doing.
And some some producer called me, Princess doing this documentary.
Can you can we go through your basis and just
talk about bass playing? Prince is doing it? Sure? Oh yeah, okay,

(16:16):
So these guys came to my house and I had
my bases out and things, and I dressed up a
little bit, you know, and get in texts questions from
Prince in real time like blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah, what did he ask you about your playing?

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, how'd you come up with that thing? At the beginning?
Sweets out of mind?

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, great question.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
But then but then they started getting like why did
guns and Roses break up? He was asking questions like
anybody else for to ask at that time. We don't
get into that. You know, that's something we talk about.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
Prince wants the tea.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
He wants the tea, No, he wanted tea. It was
a bunch of other stuff like yeah, it was very
very kind of sweet, and you know, it was on
Larry Grant. Move was like a oh to Larry Graham,
this this documentary.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, it's interesting. I was watching old you know, interviews
throughout the years, dating all the way back from early
gun stuff through Velvet Revolver through now and there was
an old interview that you did with Kurt Loader in
Paris and Lenny Kravitz was in the room. Okay, and

(17:28):
then Lenny comes and sits down with you. Do you
remember that?

Speaker 1 (17:31):
No, I remember being in Paris and we did that
pay per view and Lenny was, you know, that first
record like we I'm still buddies with him, but you know, yes,
like Slashed, his friend who went to same high school,
middle school together, right, who like made this killer record
like whoa you know that was like the record of

(17:52):
the summer for us, his first record for.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
You and Slash.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, so you're talking about that, and I guess the
night before you had played with Jeff Beck and with Aerosmith.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Oh was it that? So was the interview the day
after that that gig? Yeah? Okay, so Lenny Kravitz would
did Mama said we had special guests and we had
Joe and Steven Erosmith did train after rolling and maybe
Mama cann or something. Yeah, Jeff Beck was supposed to play.
We did a sound check like the day before, and

(18:25):
it was so a lot of he has tonight. He
had tonight and I fucked him up so he couldn't
do the.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Get oh man.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, and we felt so guilty, like were too loud.
But to see, you know, like I can't really watch
that stuff because I see a really sad guy. You know,
I see a guy couldn't get himself out of it.
You know, I tried to stop. I don't, you know,
so what I see is like kind of a and

(18:55):
I'm the same me is then you know, you don't change.
But I'm stuck in this, in this wet court, cardboard box.
I couldn't punch my way out of, you know, to
have to drink first thing you want you wake up
when you sleep that it's like those times that you sleep.
It's not you know, like now I go to bed,

(19:16):
like after we play show, I'm in bed an hour
or later. And it's been that way. I've been sober
a long time, you know, but yeah, it's it's hard
for me to see like there was you can see
like fun drunk like in the late eighties. Then you
see it and you know, you see the blow, you
see the falling out and ship.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you seems a little puffy, but you were
very sweet and you were very nice, and you seemed happy.
But I just think it's interesting when you told the
Prince story that you had the self awareness of, like,
I'm too drunk to be in this situation.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I was never a blackout drunk.
You know, it's never a mean drunk. I was never
like any of that stuff. But I was aware and
aware drunk like I am too. Like suddenly I got
too drunk. I started drinking too early today. My tolerance
was through theop you know. But it's one of those times, Nice,

(20:11):
I can't form a sentence.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
We'll be back with more of le Rose's conversation with
Duff mccagan after this quick break. We're back with Lea
Rose and Duff mccagan.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
I watched your documentary It's So Easy and Other Lies
and which was incredible. I love the music and the
renditions of the songs that you guys played. The Pedal
Steel was beautiful. Nice, oh was it was gorgeous. He's
really really moving. It was really great, and I'm listening

(20:47):
to the audiobook okay, also really great. I was curious though,
in the very start of the book, I think it's
chapter one, maybe it's chapter two, you talk about how
when Guns n' Roses went on the Usuer Illusion Tour,
you traveled in an airplane, like not like a private
jet but like commercial airplane. Yeah, and early on you

(21:13):
and Slash Chris and the airplane by smoking crack and
this is in like chapter two.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yeah, So I was just curious, why did you decide
to put that the hard drug use so soon in
the book.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well, now I start that book. There was a million
different ways you could write that book. And I had
written so many pieces that became that book for The Weekly,
because you know, when you're writing so much. I was
writing for the Weekly, I was writing for Playboy financial columns,
I was writing for ESPN. I was writing all this stuff.

(21:50):
So that kind of creativity, just like songwriting. Yeah, you're
a writer, so you know this, ye writing your white
two thousand words that begets more, Oh shit, I should
write about this. And so I was writing tons of stuff.
My word document was just full of documents. I'd kind
of name them like so you know, and a lot

(22:11):
of this became like that's I can't put that out
in the Tall Weekly. It's two personal and it's too
like come out of left field, you know. And Tim Moore,
who was my editor at Playboy, I asked him to
edit my book, which was not write it. I had
all these pieces. Can you look at all these pieces?
And it helped me, you know, and he would go, okay,

(22:32):
you know document six, paragraph four? What did that look like?
And feel like it was like a professor. So I'm like,
I don't know, man, okay, well need does anybody else?
So why don't you write what that? You know what
I mean? And then he came to Seattle. We had
all and we printed out all the documents and were like,
how are we going to put this together? Like arranging

(22:54):
a song? You know, you could write it like I'm
in the hospital bed and I'm thinking back about my
life and what I'm going to do for You could
go there and start it that way, but doesn't every
like it's just so typical. So I decided there was
that thing with my daughter's birthday and I'm walking around

(23:16):
the kids, you know, like making sure like no it's
nothing's going on, and blah blah blah, and there's these
this little kid they're they're kissing around the corner, and
I'm like, what am I supposed to do here? And
that was a great vehicle for me to get what
was I doing at that age? How hard should I
be on them? You know, because by that age I

(23:37):
was doing this, that and the other before that. In
sixth grade, I was doing this. So I kind of
bring in the drugs and stuff pretty instantly, surrounded by
the story of my daughter's sixteenth birthday party. So then
that gave me the accessibility, I think, to go in
and you know, bring the crack in. And because that's

(23:58):
like one of the dumbest stories there ever was. You know,
before the plane even took up, it had these this
plane it was a big regular plane, but in the
back of had like these four kind of like sweets
the couches and a curtain, you know, and we went,
maybe it would get on the plane. We got our shit.

(24:19):
You got to get rid of it before you land
wherever we were going to, So you gotta smoke it.
You just started ride away and like this is the
most ridiculous thing. We're smoking crack and playing before it
by sitting at Alix.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
So you thought it was ridiculous at the time, pretty much.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, I knew this was ridiculous, but let's go on ahead,
because we do a lot of ridiculous stuff.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
So yeah, do you have to like clear that with
slash or it's just whatever at this.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Point, Yeah, yeah, I talked to people, you know, and
I really didn't want to write a tell all in
any way. You know, there's plenty of tea, and I
just thought myself as a you know, I was a
writer at that point, and I wanted to really explore,
try to you know, I was reading Cormack McCarthy the
whole time I was writing interesting, which is a high

(25:09):
benchmark of how I like to read. And I really
love that hard like chopping Cadence. He's got and you know,
economy and and I'll never be him ever. But to read,
it's like listen to good music while you're writing. You know,
you're not going to copy it, but you're surrounded by

(25:31):
good you know.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
Yeah, you're it's in the ether.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
It's in the ether. And I and I, you know,
I tried to do my best I could at writing
an interesting book. Without spilling tea. You know, that's kind
of I felt that was a little below what. You know,
I'm a dad. You know they're going to read it
one day. I'm going to tell them about my drug
use when they turned fifteen anyhow, because you got hacked

(25:58):
my DNA. Sorry, but we're going to talk about it. Yeah,
which we did, so the you know, they saw stuff
on YouTube. You know, it's like you can't hide that
dad was a you know, heavy user of stuff.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
Yeah. So yeah, I imagine when you're getting ready to
write the book and you're thinking about how, you know,
putting the puzzle together, when you're working with your editor,
how salacious do you go? You know, there's probably a
certain side of you that knows some people want just
like the sex, drugs, and rock and roll story, but
the story with guns is just so much deeper than that.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
It's so much deeper than Yeah, I didn't you know
in the book, I didn't talk about sex at all.
You know, you hear stories of I think it's more
like business guys in Wall Street, guys who are all
that stuff. You know, that wasn't a thing. Especially you
wouldn't write about it, like, come on, right, So but

(26:59):
Guns was a lot deeper than that, and it was
really a story five guys who found each other like, oh,
we've finally got the perfect guys and to be able
to like write those songs to get to figure it out.
We figured it out, and then nobody saw the world
what happened to us around us like we did nobody,

(27:24):
So there's nobody else you can really talk to who
experienced all of like the plane to two people and
three people and then nine and then you know, then
packing clubs, and then nobody else liked you in the
rest of the world. You know, you go out with
Iron Maiden and people, you know call you all the stuff.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
You know, when did you guys go out with Iron Maiden?
Was that after appetite?

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yes, we went out. So we went out with the cult,
which was great for us. Came across Canada, down the
West Coast, and across over the New Orleans. We did
our own little tours, like of the Southwest, we did
the club tour of the US. We went to Europe
and played clubs and Germany and stuff. But we England
we were picking up. Yeah, we had put the EP

(28:08):
out and so we'd already played the Marquee in one.
So we started really kind of picking up in England
and but then you could come back and play, you know,
some we started to pick up in the northeast Boston
and New York. You know, you knew like when a
cop like said, hey, Gods and roses. You know, you're
walking down the street this cop him, you know, wow,

(28:29):
you know that's like, that's like you're getting into the
meat and potatoes of human mind.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
It must be interesting to see like who it was
first resonating with, like.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Cops, but to see, you know, like for us to
you know, start to break through and really break through
and then then really really break through. It was so crazy.
You know, people thats how has this changed you? And
when we got that when it kind of blew up
and like eighty nine, I remember getting asked questions I'd
never been asking before how does this change? And I

(29:01):
thought about it, How does it change me? It must
change me? Everyone's asked me the same question, right, And
I realized it didn't change me. It's changed how people
respond to me. And all of a sudden, I noticed
I had a lot more friends suddenly, and my jokes
were for funnier, you know, I was suddenly better looking
because you know, I was like I was getting you know,

(29:23):
hit on. I'm like, well, it's kind of probably out
of my league over there. Oh it's because I'm in
this band, you know, and they set us up on
the thing and we're on teep, we're on MTV and
with all that stuff, like it's kind of lonely, you know,
like said, when you realize that, it's kind of like,
oh shit.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
Did you ever ever have a period where you were
like worked it a little bit, like you know, took
advantage of it in any way.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
Not my style. It's not really not my style to
this day, you know, yeah, no, but I I really
kind of went back. I have my best friends I
grew up with and they're still my best friends. We
have our text group. We've been through it, you know,
if one of my body's strung Ona Heroin for you know,
fourteen years and like all of has an interesting story,

(30:12):
you know, and we've been through it together and so
it's it's really nice to have. So I kind of
reverted when all that kind of stuff. I just hung
on to my buddies and like, uh, this is kind
of weird, guys, you know, like so deep. It was
a deep band, you know, like, yeah, listen like Paradise City,

(30:32):
the Captain America's Got a Broken Heart. You know, it's
like it's deep, it's heavy shit. You know Brownstone about
getting strung out on Heroin, you know, yeah, like it's
not your average you know, hey, rock and roll. You know,
it's like the subject matter is kind of deep.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah. And I always thought it was interesting that so
much was made about guns and roses being so wild
and hell raisers and but it's pretty obvious that you
guys were extremely driven. Yeah, and I know that. You know,
you went back to school, you studied business, and but
even back in the day when you guys were first

(31:10):
offered contracts, you know, before you're even offered full record deals,
you were turning stuff down because you knew, you know that,
like this, this isn't good enough for us, and you
held out, which it must be so hard to do.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we got offered ten thousand bucks for
the rights to switch out of Mind, you know, like
ten thousand dollars when you're starting literally you're not you know,
we're working like phone sales jobs and stuff and paying
for a rehearsal place and had days when you just
couldn't even for top ramen. You know, yeah, ten thousand bucks,

(31:46):
it's like we're rich. But if we just thought if
and it was for the guy was smart. It was
a he knew we welcome to jungle. He saw us
playing in the clubs. He's like, I'll offer you ten
grandpa publishing on that we didn't know what publishing really meant. Yeah,
but if it's worth ten thousand dollars to him, it's

(32:06):
got to be worth that does at least. And then
we got offered a publishing deal and this is after
we got signed two hundred Well, if it's worth two
hundred thousand, I mean that's like five bajillion dollars to
us at that point. Yeah, but if it's worth that
much to them, we don't really know what publishing is
or how it works. It's got to be worth that
to us, you know, why give it to them. So

(32:29):
we were kind of like a little streak gang. And
when we started making money, even like we get got accountants,
you have to get account like, what the fuck is
you know, we're all smart, We're a smart guy.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
And we were like yeah, yeah, but also very driven,
just you know, It's like everyone kind of thinks of
you guys as like hard partying, don't give a fuck
like all that and that. I mean, I'm sure that
that's true too, But you're also very driven.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, nobody rehearsed more than us. No, we worked harder,
you know, like and still like when we we go
out on tour, you know, and we thought we just
didn't We're going to rehearse for six weeks, you know,
six days a week, not just going and fuck around
the talk because we put you put the interns in
and we're playing and we play for hours.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
So in those early sessions, when you in that era
when Guns was looking for a producer and you met
with a bunch of different people trying to find the
right fit, how did those early songwriting sessions work, because
I've heard you say it was pretty collaborative.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Coming up with the music and then
finding a producer later that two different things. We were
done with Appetite plus other songs. By the time we
started looking for a producer, we knew our songs well
enough that we didn't want a producer who would get
into the songs. We didn't want to put somebody touching

(33:56):
a note I'm not going to touch in it. We
wanted to sound like we sound in our little rehearsal
because it sounded fucking great. Yeah. So but we went
to you know like there was there was like Mutt
Lane who'd done back in Black and stuff, and like,
I mean that's a great, dry sounding record, you know,

(34:18):
but he was to get him. He was more than
just a walk in the room with more than We
got two hundred and fifty grand to make our first record. Yeah,
and that would have to pay for you know, that's
an including and advanced to us so we could live
stuff our jobs. It's an amazing day. But we'd written songs.
We had this a lot of times. We ran on

(34:40):
acoustic guitars because that's how we had and The Night
Train was written on acoustic guitar, and we'd go out,
like I remember that in particular, we've drinking in the
Night Train, you know, this cheap booze. It was like,
I don't know, dollar twenty seven cents a bottle, and
we were going to go out and fly her for
a gig that, yeah, which is something we would go

(35:01):
out and do together. You know, at least a couple
of us ago. This night we were going out as
a band. We're going to cover a hole any walk,
you know, got your bucket of paste and you got
flyers in here, and we just kept singing the chorus
for night Train And because we kind of written we
were all got together I think at Izzy's apartment beforehand,

(35:22):
and came up with the genesis of that, and we
were singing it because we didn't have phones and shit
to record stuff. Yeah, I have to remember what you wrote,
so a lot of times you just go around seeing it.
But we landed on some really cool shit, you know.
I remember like landing on the notes for Michelle mounts
Now and it just killed it. We just played that

(35:46):
riff for it hours, you know, and then you have
to come up with other bits and so bits and pieces.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
Who came up with the whistle in Paradise City?

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Axcellent? I think I think you had a whistle. It's
like a necklace, you know, like this cool whistle. You know,
you used the stuff that's around you. If you're making
a record on budget. One of the songs has like
a whatever that thing is really called. But he used
a comb and wax paper for that, Like we need

(36:20):
that sound that's like in seventies cop you know TV shows,
so you use what's around you. And but finding a producer,
you know, we found Mike Clink after you know, we
we sat with Paul Stanley, you know, just because like,
well Paul Stanley can kiss if nothing else, like he
came and roger'son SAT and watched us, you know, you

(36:43):
know that's a dirty show. And then he came to
have a meeting with us about producing the record. It
wasn't the right fit. We could tell. We were talking
about music. His idea of what should be in our
idea was different. But that was fine, you know.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
But yeah, but again it's like another instance where you
guys are confident in your sound, where you can say
no to somebody like that.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
Well, we just knew, and we knew we were at
the age that we should know, right like whatever was
going to be next in rock was going to be
on our shoulders. And somebody who was maybe wasn't with
us through the whole thing, who understood it completely, they
just wouldn't understand it. You know. We just wanted microphones

(37:28):
up against our amps and around the drums and capture axel,
you know. Yeah, and we had these backing vocals that
we wanted to really like. You know, if you listen
to the appetite, backing vocals are like such a big
part of it. You know. We wanted that to do
a thing. But Mike Clink came into where we he

(37:48):
didn't really want to sit down and talk too much.
He said, what why don't I come down and record
you guys. I gotta like eight track reel to reel. Okay,
And he came, set up some mics and then recorded
us and then and played it back for us. You know,
I had a little setup to play it back, and
it sounds fucking killer, right, because well, that's all we

(38:10):
need to do is just capture you know. It's like
the mic through the cord and then through the board
onto the tape. That's what all we're trying to do.
He wanted to catch the purest form of that and like, okay, great,
So we we tried some tracks with like Spencer Proffer
and that's actually where we made the live like a
suicide EP. It was at Spencer Proffers studio. Well, we

(38:34):
had a day to ourselves and we just we had
an engineer there. We made the live like a suicide record.
It's not actually live. That's why there's a question mark
and all that stuff. Oh okay, we weren't a big band.
The joke is we weren't big enough to have a
big audience. Our audiences were like twelve people at that point.
Did you hear this roar? They had the Texas Jam audience? Uh,

(38:55):
live from the Texas Jam was like all these huge bands,
We're like, let's use that audience. Oh so you hear
like the loud roars and the firecrackers. We just let
firecrackers off in the studio, you know. But we got
you know, we tried out different producers.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
And then you worked with Dan McCafferty, Dan.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Mccaff from Nazareth. Those records just sound great. I mean, oh,
it's the precursor to ac DC and to that cult
electric record. You know. It's like very dry, just in
your face recording. And they so we tried Dan and
we did get twenty nine songs recorded. Sounds shitty.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
You can hear them. They're on Spotify.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
Yeah, there's a box that we put out. We finally
put those songs out, twenty seven song whatever, it was,
all the covers we did Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis and
all this stuff, but landing on Mike, you know, he
just just did to capture you guys. And when we
got into that Rumbo recorders, he was really good at
like kind of corralling us, like, okay, we do a take.

(40:04):
There's only I mean, I think all of that record
is first second or three it takes. I've every saw
we were, We played all the time. You know, we
didn't need to do nineteen takes of anything. And Steven
was was crushing it then, so we didn't need to
get like we don't got the drum take yet. We'd

(40:25):
have it, you know. So and Mike was really good
at like we had headphones on first time, kind of
using headphones and all that stuff, and he knew it
was all kind of alien to us, and he would
come on the thing you talk to them, all right, guys,
it's time to dig in. This is the one. You know.
He'd let us get one out, you know, and maybe
we use that first one. But he's like, okay, guys,

(40:45):
dig in. And he had this kind of voice in
a way about him, very gentle. Never you never got
out of you know, he was just he's always just
been this general guy. All Right, guys, it's time to
dig in. When Mike you said that you knew like
somebody's fucking around too much or something. All right, we'll
go we'll dig in. We'll dig in for Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:04):
And were you guys doing overdubs and stuff or was
it just all one take?

Speaker 1 (41:09):
Basic drums are pretty much one yeah, one take through
that stuff, Slash understood that he could put his guitars
on again, so he when we were doing they're called
basic tracks, he drank like a fiend. And so I
wish we could get out takes some of that his guitars.
We'd have to turn it off because he was so out.

(41:31):
He was so hammered, you know, like Slash, we're trying
to get basic tracks here, he'd be laughing and stuff,
and like so he did. I think he probably kept
some of his guitars, And is these guitars on on
those basic tracks because everything was isolated. If it was
a good take and it sounded good, like why do
it again?

Speaker 3 (41:51):
So Slash would be like noodling and like jamming and
just like going off the script basically, yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Following the ground, like dude, we're trying to get basic
tracks over here and Axel would sing with us in
all the basic tracks. He had a little booth because
we're used to playing as a band, right, so right,
and we always did that, even with all the user
illusion stuff, you know, played everything as a band and
anything that was good enough for take because you want that,

(42:19):
you know, first take in rock and roll, right if
you can get it?

Speaker 3 (42:24):
And was there more tinkering with the lyrics or were
those kind of locked by then?

Speaker 1 (42:28):
In an appetite there take? Yeah, No, done, Everything was
absolutely done. Slash guitar solos, he had written those. You know,
everything was done. It's just a matter of capturing on tape.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
We're gonna pause one last time for a quick break
and then come back with the rest of Lea's conversation
with Duff mccagan. Here's the rest of Lea Roses conversation
with Duff mccagan.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
You've been in so many bands. Before you even moved
to LA you had been in probably eight bands.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Eight yeah bands. Yeah, I'd been a lot more than that.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
But yeah, I love in the Dot documentary where you're
just naming the names of all the bands you've been in,
like the Farts and.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yeah, yeah, you know, Seattle had a great music scene.
It's just unfortunately, like Heroin came in at about eighty
three and I was left. I didn't want to move someplace.
I was playing with all these great people there was
I was like one person away in every band, like
from the band being really fucking good, you know. As

(43:35):
you know, like Sea scene took off only a couple
of years later, you know, he Soundguarden stuff like that
was all there. It was just in my group. It
was just everybody had strung out and it was time
to go. If I wanted to do this, it was
time to get out.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
Once the Seattle sound was established and did take off,
you know with Pearl Jams, Soundgarden, Nirvana, what did you
think of that sound?

Speaker 1 (44:03):
I was super proud, you know, super proud. I was
on the you know, so Bruce Habit from Subpop, him
and I worked at the same restaurant and he had
sub Pop. The column in this newspaper called called the Rocket,
so it kind of opened. That's how you got information.
You know, you're not old enough to remember any of
this stuff, but Maximum rock and Roll was a fanzine

(44:25):
that would have the scene report. So that's how you
found out what was going on in Chicago, Washington, d C,
dall it whatever. You know, you'd read about it, and
he had sort of that column and that was called
the Rocket in Seattle music newspaper. And then he was
about to pronounce for sub sub pop single like, oh,

(44:46):
that's a good idea. Named after your column. It's credited
and it was the you Man I think was the
first band. But that was right in when I was
getting to leave. So he picked up Steam. And then
my my friend Kim, she from Fastbacks, she went to
go work for subpop like they were hiring employees, you know,
like holy shit, wow. And I was put on the

(45:08):
sub Pop Singles Club. So I got all I had got,
you know, a tad single and you know, all the
early shit, and I was really really happy about it.
Went and saw a sound Garden when they came and
played here in eighty What do.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
You think of Soundgarden?

Speaker 1 (45:22):
I mean I knew Kim, and I knew Chris and
Ben was around. I knew band a little bit. So
they're right. You know, they're not trying to write pop
radio song. They're doing it for that, you know. I
love those kinds of bands, you know, and Pearl Jam
came down and played the cat House. I knew Stone

(45:43):
and Jeff from before, and I got and played with
them at the cat House. I played drums. We did
Sonic Producer and Nirvan they were on Geffen. I mean that,
you know that never Mind record was like I wore
out the cassette before the record even came out.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
I was so surprised. In your book, you talked about
a little bit you alluded to the the like scuffle
that happened at backstage at the MTV Music Awards between
Nirvan and Guns and Roses, and I imagine you being
the peacemaker because you're from Seattle, but you're the one
who actually got to the fight.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah, because I was just like, well, okay, so that
thing was really a non it's a story because the
band for so bad at the time. But if you
were there, you'd be like, it's really a non story,
you know.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Yeah, But Kurt Loader was around, and Kurt Loader at
a time before there was social media, he loved the
team man and he loved the stir of the pot
and he's the one who really got that thing going,
you know. Interesting as far as it went, it was
all really a Kurt Loader as I see it, because

(46:54):
it was like there was nothing, there was no there there. Well,
you wanted them to go on tour with us, like
all that stuff. You know, we'd had sound guard now
and faith no more. You know, we got bands and
we liked to go tour with us. And seeing Chris Novaselik,
you know, I'm oh God, But seeing Chris, I was like,
I'm so glad I didn't get in a fight with you. Chris.

(47:16):
He's a fucking he's huge.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Yeah, but just because he's tall doesn't mean I know,
but you know, I feel like you could take him.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
So there was no there there. And you know, I
was back to Seattle band I mean, Alison Chains and
everyone was so mother love bone. You know. That was
the first like fuck. And I knew Andy would Greg
Greg Gilmour, the drummer was in my band, Timid Morning,
you know, and the living Ione who found him from
a gig harbor from this ad that he had and

(47:47):
brought him up to Seattle, and so I was like,
it's happening. You know, we knew all the talent was there.
I had to bail.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
Why did you leave?

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Though? Because everybody around me was strung out from my
roommate who was one of my best friends, one of
the guys I told you, strung out, the heroin for
fourteen years, my band tim like we were. We toured
Black Flag, Dead Kennedy's. We were on our way up,
we were on our way there. You know, everyone came

(48:17):
into that band tore it apart, heartbreaking my girlfriend, you know,
like everybody around me. A friend of mine who was
strung how came. He's like the stuff you got to
get out. We're all you know, you're like all our
best hope. I'm like, you're right, I gotta go. And
that was it. I sold gear. I had a job,

(48:40):
you know, like I had like three hundred forty bucks,
you know, after selling me, you know, so it's like, okay,
I'm going to go.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
So was the ambition to go to LA to get
in a successful band or just continue to play music.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
I wanted to find you, Like I said, I'd been
in bands where there's always one missing link. I was
on the search for my band that didn't have a
missing link. How I was going to do it, I
don't know, you know, like it doesn't matter. That was
the department. It's gonna get done and uh you know,
and meeting Slash and steeping through the ad and the
recycler and Easy moving across the street from me and

(49:19):
meeting Axls. You know, like one thing led to another.
I had run rays from Black Flag was it was
my good buddy, you know, he was down here. Yeah,
so I had it, you know, like a friend got
a job right away. One thing led to another. Yeah,
we found the band that had the right guys in

(49:39):
Hey about eight months after I was thinking the first
time the the five of us gotten room together about
eight months after I got here. So and once you
got that right band, like nobody can you know, Like
for me, we're going. It doesn't matter. You starve, you
can do all that shit, but we're going. We got
the right guys.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
You know, when was the first time you heard Axels sing?
What was your impression?

Speaker 1 (50:03):
So yeah, so Izzy and he we're playing with these
two other guys that we're trying it out. It was
another guitar player, great guitar player, another drummer, really good drummer.
And they asked me to come play and it was
out in the valle. They got it, you know, and
by the hour rehearsal plays like four bucks and they

(50:23):
knew they guy to own. This was like four bucks
an hour, and we had it for three hours, you
know what I mean. And drummer had his stuff up there,
and the guitar player had his hands and is he
is he's more like the Thunders guy. So he had
like it, you know, and actually got on to check
out the PA and I'm telling you, it was like,

(50:44):
what the fuck is happening here? And he just kind
of did the scream and there was he has he
still has this thing where it's a double voice because
it's a low and high same time. But I was
just like, holy fuck. Now. The other two guys we
played some gigs as that band, and I'm just like,
he's amazing. That is he cool as fuck? You know,

(51:07):
other two guys. And so we booked a little punk
rock tour. I had all the punk rock clubs I played, right,
and you have the phone numbers and you go to
the phone boots and you book your little tour, and uh,
these other two guys were like, what do you mean,
why are we gonna? How are we gonna? Where are
we gonna stay? Is the unit? Actually? Like you know,
they knew about punk rock houses and stuff. You can
always find a pass crash even at the club. But

(51:30):
it doesn't matter. We have the gigs. We'll figure out
all the rest. And the other two guys you just
were like, we're not you know, what do you mean?
So that's when the Slash and Stephen came in and
the moment of five of center rooms like, oh here
it is, here it is. It was kind of amazing.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah, so you went on that first tour and then
car breaks down. You end up in an onion field,
starving eating raw onions.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
The Onion Fields, like and that book I think had
just come out a few years earlier, that booked the
Onion Fields. You know about that, but the serial Killer
up in Bakersfield. Yeah, the books called I think there
was a movie too, The Onion Fields. Yeah, we're in
the onion fields man, Yeah, but imagine trying to hitchhike,
you know, five guys with the guitars like looking like us.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
First yeah, you know we've opened up for the Fast
Facts and used their gear and we were we were awful.
There were three people there. But now, of course in
Seattle and lore like everybody says they were at their gig,
like that's impossible, you know that because the three people
are there, we're in the fastbacks.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Oh, I want to ask you. So you come from
a big family, you're youngest of eight kids. What was
your house like? Was it a loud house?

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Like? I mean, but if you grow up in it,
you don't realize it is. But fuck it, you know,
I mean there's always something going on, and there was
instruments around, so, you know. The way I learned to
play was like my older brother would say, keep time,
you know, drums. You'd see somebody else do it, one
of the older kids. You wanted to be as cool

(53:13):
as them, so you luckily I had some you know,
musical ability, innately ready to go, you know, so I
was able to keep dying. And my brother showed me
three chords on on on the guitar, played these street
cordes on your feet, you know, first time you're playing,
your fingers are like hurting and bleeding and shipping like.
But you the older kids, you don't want to, you know.

(53:36):
And then he taught me, today is your birthday on
the base and we went and played a for some
school kids or something. But du you know, I learned
that and I played it and really that that's the
Blues major scale. So I really learned like the right
ship four or four time, you know, Blues major scale, G,

(53:57):
A and D chords on What more do you need
to know to this day? You know on Lighthouse, I
mean G, G, A, and D is featured pretty preparently
on in my songwriter. You know, you can do a
lot with those cards. But yeah, you know, and then
playing like I played team sports, played baseball, kids, played football,

(54:18):
played basketball, and I kind of I had some good
coaches when I was young, played for the city leagues.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
You know that's cool.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Yeah, And the like I learned a lot about, like
have played your part, like on a team, right, you know,
you're a linebacker, you're lying, You're not the running back,
you're not the safety. You're this is your domain. Be
great at it. You know.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
Speaking of playing your part, have you ever been in
a position or have you ever had the desire to
want to be the front person when you are playing
either like guitar or bass, Like, are you always happy
being in that position or have you ever wanted more attention?

Speaker 1 (55:01):
I think it's because of the way I grew up,
never got into music, like to get chicks to get
the drug, you know, all the stuff they say. It
was all about like I really wanted like that team.
I wanted to find that great band where everybody played
their part in it and like kind of was great
at their place in the band. And that's always ever

(55:24):
looking for it. Like doing my my own records, I
love doing it. It's fun. It's fun being in the singer.
It's more like my gigs are more like book readings,
you know, kind of more like it's I'm telling the
stories in my songs. I'm telling stories. I talk between
a little bit, you know. It's just more of like
this other thing. And I'm not being I'm not trying

(55:44):
to be anything. I'm not.

Speaker 3 (55:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
So no, I never I played with people in bands
that wanted to be the singer and that that's a cancer.
Like this's just like just percolating the whole time. It's
like I never, you know, never had that. I love
when I'm when I'm a bass player, I mean that's

(56:08):
what I do. I play, and I want to see
the best backing vocals. I'm going to be the best
background vocalist there is in my range, you know, So
that's what I strive to do it. I love it,
and I when I have a good gig, it's like
fuck yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
You know, since you've been in so many different bands,
you've seen so many bands play, who, in your opinion,
is the best lead singer of all time? Like checks
every box.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
I mean, you have to put Axel just from what
I've seen him do over all these years, what he
does and how hard he works at it, his hour
and a half warm ups, an hour and a half
warm downs, and where he has to push and we
play a lot of shows. You know, Yeah, he's a master.

(56:59):
I've learned so much from him, seeing so much.

Speaker 3 (57:03):
What are some things that you've learned.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
She's really kind of dynamically, how hard to push, where
to push from in your body? You know how to
tilt when you need an extra vowel and really like
particular shit next you need some more a in your vowel,
you know how to tilt, you know, and just minutia

(57:30):
of how to do it, because it's all minutia, you know,
it's from note to note to note to note. So
people I played with he's you know, I'm in a
bad so of course I'm gonna like he's my guy.
You know, I think he's just a master and just
a fucking hard worker. I mean I've seen Robins Andrews amazing,

(57:52):
you know, you see guys like that or Anne Wilson,
come on, I don't know if you've seen her, Jesus
Lord like, she has to hold the mic this far
away from her, you know, just like okay, just pure,
pure singer William and now and change like Jesus Christ like.
But I also like, you know, Henry a black Flag,

(58:15):
you know. Yeah, I like the real people, you know, yeah,
the real thing.

Speaker 3 (58:21):
Do you find yourself now that you're getting older, that
you're listening to slower music? Could you listen to punk rock?

Speaker 1 (58:26):
So we don't listen to a lot of punk like
we listen New Way Time.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
We have a couple of stations that we we have
like this, it's called tune In, and they play like
a lot of you know, Gang four and Stranglers and
and Uranduran and all this stuff, so that I like
all the instrumentation and a lot of that stuff really
a unique instrumentation, and I'll listen to punk rock. I

(58:53):
mean it depends. I like, you know, some new band
I really like The Garden. They're not that new anymore.
But do you know that band The Garden. No?

Speaker 3 (59:02):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
Oh oh yeah really they Twin Boys and uh, your
dad was ready for X for Everything really really unique
and super cool and great live.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
Oh cool?

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Who else? I always like to ask people what they're
listening to? Who else are you listening to? Or what
else are you loving? Doesn't have to be new?

Speaker 1 (59:21):
Yeah, I mean I can nepotism. I guess it's real.
But my daughter, Grace is fucking amazing, Like she keeps
coming up with another new song. Are we just talking to?
We had Dentity and I was Shooter Jennings, who did
my last record. He's like, man, we have to get
Grace out there somehow.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
I agree, But I'm your dad, you know I can't
really and I'm in guns and Roses, you know, like
I can't. She never asked me for my house, and
I don't want to be like, come check out my
But she's rad. She's rad but young. She's turned us
on to like The Garden and Turnstiles, great young punk.
Have you heard of them?

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Yeah, I've heard of them.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
They're from New Jersey or Baltimore, and they're they're really
they do it right?

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Are you working on new music now? What's next after
you said you're going to go on tour?

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Yeah, I have another eighty two songs.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Good. So the well is still flowing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
It's flowing, man, and I don't want to question it
whether you think the means is good or bad. I
have like songs, they're they're coming. I'm really proud of Lighthouse.
I'm really proud of those songs we chose for that record.
There was a lot more to choose from. We decided
to do this to tell me a little story of

(01:00:34):
like a beginning to end and the hope in the
middle and the you know, I just don't know it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
D En like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that song's very very powerful.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Yeah yeah, thanks for other questions.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Thank you so much for doing this. Yeah it was great,
Okay cool.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Thanks to Duff mccagan for talking to us that Broken
Record about his new album, Lighthouse and about Guns N' Roses.
You can hear a playlist of all of our favorite
songs stuff mccagan's ever played on on a playlist at
Broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel
at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where you
can find all of our new episodes. You can follow

(01:01:13):
us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced
and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric
Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinay. Broken
Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love
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(01:01:36):
and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month.
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