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- mickronson
- Rep: 118
Re: Duff SW blog Oct 21st.
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2 … oct_21.php
The McKagan Family Business Is Booming, Despite Its Doubters
I have been away to London on business all of this past week. From what I understand, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.
Chris Kornelis posted a story here last Thursday about the fact that my sweet wife is a part of a new reality show on the E! network. I received some e-mails from friends on my Blackberry pertaining to some of the dark and mean-spirited comments that followed Chris' piece in the comments section. I also heard from Chris that a lot of you stood up for Susan and our family. Thank you. The comments were bad enough, though, that the Weekly was forced to take down the comments board.
Let me tell you a little story: Back in 2002, I was living happily in Seattle with Susan and our two babies. I was an ardent student at Seattle University, and our lives were pretty much nerd-filled and stress-free.
I had pulled back from a scary life of excess that had almost killed me, and with the help of my girls (Susan IS one of my girls), I was settling down to a life I thought I could never attain: peace and academia and good friends that I grew up with.
But almost suddenly and out of nowhere, the lure of a great rock band in Los Angeles reared its presence to me. It was a chance to play with Slash and Matt Sorum again, and there was a lot of excitement around what this thing could be. I HAD to try it. I don't ever in this life want to wonder "what if?"
But Susan got worried, and rightfully so. Would old demons haunt me in a city that had more than a pound of my flesh? Would I act on them? And what about the kids? It's a big thing to uproot a family and just go.
Susan had my back, though. She knew that she could not be the one to hold me back if my musical passion called. Our lives changed from the tranquil lakeside setting in Seattle to a constant adapt-to-chaos situation in Los Angeles. Susan kept our household stress-free and steady for our daughters and me the whole time--as things were really starting to get crazy all around us.
When I relapsed on pills after 11 years of sobriety, Susan was the one there for me. She nursed me through my sickness and withdrawal and sought education on addiction, as opposed to being pisse -off and judgmental. She had never known me when I was drinking and using back in the day.
With the rise of Velvet Revolver, Susan began to be approached by a few different TV producers with varying ideas. She was, after all, a top model, and now a top mom and swimwear designer. They thought that there was perhaps a compelling TV story or series in there.
This gave Susan the idea to write and create a scripted show. The things that she had experienced out there with the other wives in VR were just too good and almost juicy . . . and FUNNY. She had caught the TV bug and now wanted to create a show. She had created herself as a model. She had created her own swim line. She had created herself as a kickass mother. Why couldn't she create this show?
Ah, but scripted shows are not the big and easy money-makers for the networks. Reality shows are. The production costs are minimal in comparison to their scripted counterparts. Susan's show idea went from basically a screenplay to a reality show with HER as one of its "stars." Trust me, she doesn't see herself as a "star," and thinks the whole thing is hilarious!
But then there is me. I do not like reality shows. No, I actually despise what little I have seen and think that some of this stuff has really poisoned our perception of reality. But then again, I have a ton of male rock friends who watch this stuff and fucking LOVE it. I don't believe that there is a real place for "rock guys" on an E! show, and Dave Navarro will be the first to tell you that if he could have done it differently, he would have never done the "Carmen and Dave" show. He has had to claw his way back into legit musical circles, as he sees it. (I think Dave is just so good at what he does musically that NOTHING could ever do THAT much damage to him).
So then that day came--the day Susan asked if I would be on her new show "just for one episode, baby. PLEASE! I know that you don't like this stuff, but they want me to ride a motorcycle and I thought we could do it together?" The show IS called "Married to Rock," right?
Since we had both immediately decided that our daughters would NOT be a part of the show (that would go against our ethos of privacy for them and for any "celebrity" that they might come upon, which would be of their choosing AFTER THEY ARE AT LEAST 18! Grace of course was BUMMED--but I digress).
How could I say no to my wife? How DARE I? This woman who has backed ME and taken care of ME and believed in ME? No, baby, whatever you need from me, I will do (of course, within reason).
We both decided that showing me with any band I was in would be fucking tacky and seen as gross commercialism. I suppose Loaded could USE a little gross commercialism, but not of this sort.
People may love this show or hate this show, and likewise Susan's participation in it. I'm in it for a few seconds too, but blink and you will miss me. I am not in this life to judge or react too hard to what people say to me either on fan forums or here at the Weekly.
First and foremost, I am in the McKagan family business, and doing right to those whom have done right by me and stayed with me through it all. And business is booming.
--
yeah, his wife is gonna be on tv in a reality thing called Married to Rock, btw.
- mickronson
- Rep: 118
Re: Duff SW blog Oct 21st.
Never seen it, as I couldnt care less about Sixx. Yeah, no gnr mention yet.. does he think it was all a dream..someone need to tell him it wasnt..
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: Duff SW blog Oct 21st.
Former GUNS N' ROSES bassist Duff McKagan was interviewed on this morning's (Thursday, October 21) edition of "The BJ Shea Morning Experience" show on the Seattle radio station KISW 99.9 FM and about his surprise guest appearance last week with the band's current lineup at London, England's O2 arena. The chat can now be streamed using the audio player below.
On his appearance with GUNS N' ROSES in London came about:
"Things happen, in life, pretty crazy at times you least expect things to happen.
"I haven't talked to anybody publicly about it. And really, it's kind of... I know we're public figures, or whatever you wanna say, but it was kind of a private matter even though we played together on stage in front of 14,000 people or something.
"Over the years, especially in business and what-not, if you have a fracture in business, you start to demonize each other and if it's a public fracture in business, other people help you demonize...
"It was kind of goofy... As soon as I played last Thursday, my e-mail was just going crazy... It was Rolling Stone [magazine] and whatever or what-not. 'Can we get a quote or statement?' And I don't have a statement.
"It's really not that big of a story. It was really kind of... It was great.
"I got to London last Thursday. I was there on separate business — a separate business even from music. I checked into the hotel in London I stay at all the time. And the hotel manager came, 'Hey, Duff, we'll show you up to your room.' He goes, 'So you're playing tonight?' And I said, 'No, no, I'm here on just business this time — I'm not playing this time around.' And he looks at me strangely. 'What? You're not playing tonight?' I had no idea Axl [Rose] and GUNS N' ROSES were in London — I had no idea. So we're going up the elevator and he said, 'You know, Axl is in the room next to us.' And I had to go straight into meetings. All the meetings were... I was staying in sort of a conference room and bedroom — it was a conference room on one side of the wall and the bedroom on the other. And I went straight into these meetings and these were with sort of Wall Street people. So it was very serious meetings I was into, something I had worked on for a year. So I'm in these meetings and my phone starts ringing later on in the day in my hotel room; it was kind of managers and tour managers. The word [was] out I [was] in the hotel. And it came down to the simple fact... Axl and I just sort of met up, we saw each other and we hugged. I went down to the gig with him. There were a couple of guys hanging out. There was a lot of, sort of... Like what I was saying, you go through a lot of stuff in business and there's some fractures and demonizing of each other and I think, if nothing else, a couple of old friends maybe got over some of those hurdles and had a nice talk. And I don't want to do anything here to cheapen that by saying anything to you guys, but we had a nice dinner the day after the show, and that was it."
On hanging out with his old buddy again:
"Yeah, I missed it. I did. I missed it. And it couldn't have happened in a more odd way, really."
On the actual performance:
"The show is going on and I'm watching it. And somebody comes over with a bass... 'Now, I haven't played 'You Could Be Mine' since 1993. A lot of the other songs, like 'Paradise City' and 'Mr. Brownstone' and 'It's So Easy', I've played with VELVET REVOLVER or [longtime project] LOADED, but 'You Could Be Mine', I was, like, 'Oh, God. OK, I can play it. I think I remember it.' There's a bridge there. I'd forgotten the second part of the bridge, and I had to look at [current GUNS N' ROSES guitarist] Bumblefoot [chuckles], his guitar neck, to see where the next guitar chord was. But, yeah, it was fun. I had a great time."
"It was a little but heavy. When people saw it... It wasn't heavy for me so much. I was kind of more concerned about the band that he's put together — great, great players [and] great guys. I've gotten to know Bumblefoot and Tommy [Stinson, bass] and Frank [Ferrer], the drummer. And, of course, there's Dizzy [Reed, keyboards]. It's a great band and I didn't wanna do anything to lessen what they were doing."
On whether this increases the chances of a reunion of the classic GUNS N' ROSES lineup:
"I have nothing to say about it. It's not... I don't know. It's not anything that I worked or planned for. I work and plan for my kids next year in school, or my business, or indeed LOADED. But that kind of thing, it's not something I sit there and go, 'OK, one day this is gonna happen.' Last thing happened, and it was very serendipitous, and the blood was in the water, no doubt. After that show in London, I could have gotten a free dinner and free car service everywhere I went every night I was in London after that. And I had to kind of hide. I went and saw Ronnie Wood play Tuesday night, and I had to kind of watch out for the sharks running about, even at that gig — it was kind of a private gig, and there were the manager types and the agent types. All of a sudden I was a little more handsome than I'd been before I came to London because everybody was complimenting me. 'Hey, Duff, you look great.'"
On whether he thinks the fact that he has done a lot of work on himself in the last few years has helped make the meeting go more smoothly:
"Well, for me, the big thing is, what's my part in it? We can all look back at our pasts and go, 'Well, he did this to me and...?' [And you have to step back] and take a look in the mirror. What was my part in it? And that's what I've been working on for the last 10 or 15 years, but really in the last five years, and it's a work in the progress. You always paint yourself a little glossier in your own past in your life. I could have done things different — probably sometimes a lot better; sometimes I could have done things worse. But I look at my part and my accountability. I'm a grown-up; I take accountability for myself and my actions these days. I've got nothing to fear and I've got nothing to be ashamed of. What I've done is what I've done; what I'm gonna do is what I'm gonna do. I have fun while I do it now. Every day I wake and go, 'OK, let's go.' Joke time. I'm lucky to be here, and I don't forget that every day."
Video footage of McKagan performing the songs "You Could Be Mine", "Patience", "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" (BOB DYLAN cover) and "Nice Boys" (ROSE TATTOO cover) with the band's current lineup during last the October 14 GN'R concert at London, England's O2 arena can be viewed below. Duff played bass on "You Could Be Mine", rhythm guitar on the tracks "Nice Boys" (ROSE TATTOO cover), "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" and tambourine on "Patience", and he took a bow at the end of the concert with the rest of the band.
Original GN'R guitarist Izzy Stradlin jammed with the current version of GUNS N' ROSES at a number of shows in 2006.
During a 2009 interview with Billboard, Rose insisted that he will never share a stage with former GN'R guitarist Slash again. "One of the two of us will die before a reunion," Rose said. "However sad, ugly or unfortunate anyone views it, it is how it is." He also said, "I could see doing a song or so on the side with Izzy or having him out [on tour] again. I'm not so comfortable with doing anything having more than one of the alumni. Maybe something with Duff, but that's it."
Last year McKagan told Rolling Stone magazine that he's open to the idea of working with Rose again. "I'm not going to be one of those guys who's like 'fuck that, that'll never happen.' he said. "It could very well happen. I love Axl. We've been through a lot of shit together that nobody can take that away from us."
In addition to Rose, the current lineup of GUNS N' ROSES includes guitarists DJ Ashba, Ron Thal and Richard Fortus, bassist Tommy Stinson, keyboardists Dizzy Reed and Chris Pitman and drummer Frank Ferrer.
"Chinese Democracy" was a commercial disappointment, selling less than one million copies in the U.S. (according to Nielsen SoundScan) despite the long wait.
Re: Duff SW blog Oct 21st.
I went down to the gig with him. There were a couple of guys hanging out. There was a lot of, sort of... Like what I was saying, you go through a lot of stuff in business and there's some fractures and demonizing of each other and I think, if nothing else, a couple of old friends maybe got over some of those hurdles and had a nice talk. And I don't want to do anything here to cheapen that by saying anything to you guys, but we had a nice dinner the day after the show, and that was it."
Great read thanks for posting Smoking Guns.
Do we guess and suggest that perhaps he is referring to Del and maybe even Dizzy in that above quote?
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: Duff SW blog Oct 21st.
Could be Beta and Fernando for all I know, but Duff got some alone time with Axl.... Hmmmmm, okay, I will read into this, cause unlike Izzy, Axl talking to Duff is as close as we have gotten to Axl talking to Slash... Duff and Slash are brothers for life.. Sounds like if anything, a back channel of dialogue has been created. And for that, I am happy. this is a start, a good start!
