Here Today... Gone To Hell!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuEfKAOnQ_C/


May 30th - Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre Of The Living Arts
May 31st - Washington, DC @ City Winery

On sale February 22nd.

---

Duff Mckagan - Tenderness [Official Lyric Video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW6YskfuKyU



/jarmo

cool - might go to the philly show. also Duff only doing 2 shows and Slash being done mid-august gives some hope for late 2019 action for Gn'R

Duff Mckagan - Tenderness [Official Lyric Video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW6YskfuKyU




/jarmo

I like the song :peace: : ok: :beer:
I'm a bit surprised by the genre or the tempo, but its a really nice song...
My first impression is the beginning is awesome, the end is also great, but the first chorus kind of lacks a little something.
Over all very very nice  :beer:

Guns N’ Roses Duff McKagan Releases ‘Tenderness’, The Title Song From His Forthcoming Solo Set

The album ‘Tenderness’, is set for release through UMe on 31 May.

Published on February 22, 2019
By Tim Peacock

Guns N’ Roses bassist and New York Times bestselling author Duff McKagan has released ‘Tenderness,’ the title track from his much-anticipated solo album. Produced by and featuring recent Grammy winner Shooter Jennings, the Tenderness album will be released through UMe on 31 May and you can hear the title song below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW6YskfuKyU

McKagan, backed by Shooter and his band, will celebrate the album’s arrival with two special performances: a pre-release show on 30 May at TLA in Philadelphia, followed by a 31 May day of release performance at City Winery in Washington DC. Tickets for both shows are now on sale.

McKagan and Jennings began recording Tenderness back in March 2018, working out of Station House studios, located in Echo Park, CA, where they wrote and recorded in-between McKagan’s tour with seminal rock band Guns N’ Roses and the release of Jennings’ eponymous album, Shooter.

“Before beginning this project, I was asked more than a few times if I was going to write a book on my experience of the two-and-a-half-year GN’R Not In This Lifetime … tour,” says McKagan. “While, of course, it had been an amazing experience, in the end, I decided the ideas swirling around in my head were better suited for a record. The heartbreak, anger, fear, confusion and divide I have experienced traveling this globe of ours coerced these words into songs that tell my truth, and one that I hope will spread and help us all.”

Looking at the world outside his tour bus window, McKagan saw a landscape filled with disillusion, injustice and fear. Surveying this vista of ruin, its street littered with broken and abandoned promises, he channeled a collective hurt into songs of monolithic power.

“The real point of ‘Tenderness’ is not for me to be some damn politician or some other voice to add to what is already way too much noise,” he says. “This is a song of unity and peace…and I want this record to be a meditation and to bring maybe some healing, if that is not too high-handed or lofty of a goal. I can use what marginal voice I have as an artist, to hopefully help arrest what seems like a fall. As a father, I must say and do something now…because I love my girls and my wife, and I love my country, and I feel I must be strong and use my voice now, do it while I am able, or perhaps never get a chance ever again.”

“From the start of the development of this record, ‘Tenderness’ stood out as a focal point,” says Jennings. “I was almost scared to cut it too early – before we had really mined the sound of the album. I knew we had one shot to do it right with feeling. After it was done and we had a first mix, I wrote Duff and said ‘this song has to come out right now!’ It has a simple message of celebrating life and each other and for everyone to take it easy on one another. It offered an empathetic solution for a divisive time in the world: Tenderness.”

About his collaboration with Jennings, McKagan says, “Fortune shone my way when Shooter and I began to work on the structures of the songs. Shooter has a brilliant mind, and a seemingly endless musical catalogue bouncing around in his head that he’s ready to tap into at any moment.

“He believed in this thing from day one, and that gave me the confidence and energy to forge on. Shooter, seemingly, can play any musical instrument, but instead of that being sort of daunting to me, he works in such an honest way that I never once felt like I was in the company of a guy trying to show me up. The contrary was in fact true. He made me a better acoustic guitar player, and more at ease as a singer. His ability to get real and authentic sounds in the studio are second to none, and making this record was one of the most inspiring musical experiences of my career.”

The upcoming album Tenderness is Duff McKagan’s musical follow-up to 2015’s bestselling book, How To Be A Man (And Other Illusions).

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/news/duff-mckagan-tenderness-solo-set/

---

/jarmo

I'm really impressed. It's been a long time since the "Believe in me" days. Duff's really evolved as a musician.

Obviously having shooter helping out makes everything better. If you guys have never listened to none of his records, check him out!

Really liked the song. Voice is a thousand times better than anything I've ever heard from Duff.

Can't wait to hear the rest of the record.

Well done Duff!

A little david bowie-ish  :hihi: :hihi:

Not sure if I felt the same but now that you mentioned it, it's something like that :peace:

Really into this. A good feeling to it.

It won't please a lot of people, but who cares?

I love it too  :peace:

Sounds cool. :)




/jarmo

Guns N' Roses' Duff McKagan Releases "Chip Away" And Announces May 31st Release For Solo Album "TENDERNESS"

ALBUM PRODUCED BY AND FEATURING GRAMMY® WINNER SHOOTER JENNINGS

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR KICKS OFF MAY 30 IN PHILADELPHIA

TOUR WILL SEE McKAGAN BACKED BY SHOOTER JENNINGS + BAND

FANS IN LOS ANGELES CAN CATCH SPECIAL GRAMMY® MUSEUM PERFORMANCE ON APRIL 4



LOS ANGELES, March 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Guns N' Roses bassist and New York Times bestselling author DUFF McKAGAN has released "Chip Away," a new track from his much-anticipated solo album, TENDERNESS (UME) – click HERE (https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2408826-1&h=22219281&u=https%3A%2F%2Flnk.to%2FTendernessPR&a=HERE) to listen.

PHOTO + ALBUM ART HERE (https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2408826-1&h=1903855201&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dropbox.com%2Fsh%2Fyspvftg9y187ft9%2FAAC-g6Fta5KPCF_P67vVSzIGa%3Fdl%3D0&a=HERE%C2%A0)

"'Chip Away' is somewhat of a rail against cable news and divisive agendas...all for the almighty dollar," says McKagan. "The song also highlights the fact that history repeats itself over and over, and that we will all get past this, together."

"Chip Away" follows the recent release of lead track "Tenderness" and both songs are available as instant downloads by clicking HERE to pre-order TENDERNESS ahead of its May 31st release.

The full track listing for TENDERNESS is as follows:

"Tenderness"
"It's Not Too Late"
"Wasted Heart"
"Falling Down"
"Last September"
"Chip Away"
"Cold Outside"
"Feel"
"Breaking Rocks"
"Parkland"
"Don't Look Behind You"

Also available for pre-order is a special limited edition TENDERNESS deluxe book, which includes the album on 180-gram yellow & red starburst vinyl, the CD, and features an exclusive lithograph signed and numbered by McKagan. The hard cover book contains 40-pages of photos from the recording sessions and also presents liner notes written by Duff detailing his experiences with each song and the project as a whole. The vinyl features 10 tracks and a unique sequence carefully selected by McKagan and the album's GRAMMY®-winning producer Shooter Jennings, while the CD includes 11 tracks.

TENDERNESS sees McKagan reflecting on his experiences traveling the globe over two and a half years on Guns N' Roses'  Not In This Lifetime tour.  Encountering heartbreak, anger, fear, confusion and divide on his travels during this tumultuous time in our world history, McKagan channeled a collective hurt into songs of monolithic power.

"We're becoming divided at a time when we need each other most," says McKagan. "When huge industries get replaced because of modernization, it's time to retrain and bolster up those who get swept aside. Homelessness and drug addiction are avoidable in this country if we come together and get private and public cogs turning together in a positive direction. We can at least try to tackle mental illness while we're at it. But alas, we stump and lie, point fingers and divide. We're way better than this. As a father, I must say and do something now because I love my girls and my wife, and I love my country, and I feel I must be strong and use my voice now, do it while I'm able or perhaps never get a chance ever again."

McKagan and Jennings began recording Tenderness a year ago this month, working out of Station House studios, located in Echo Park, CA, where they wrote and recorded in-between McKagan's tour with seminal rock band Guns N' Roses and the release of Jennings' eponymous album, Shooter. TENDERNESS features Jennings and his band along with appearances by The Waters and The Suicide Horn Section (which features Duff's brother Matt McKagan on trombone), amongst others.

Twelve months later, they're gearing up to take these songs on the road for a North American tour that kicks off May 30 at TLA in Philadelphia. Prior to the tour's launch, Los Angeles-based fans can catch McKagan and Jennings discussing the album and giving a special performance at the GRAMMY® Museum in downtown LA.

Don't miss your chance to see Duff McKagan live. Tour dates are as follows:

Date
   

City
   

Venue

Thu, May 30,
   

Philadelphia, PA
   

TLA

Fri, May 31,
   

Washington, DC
   

City Winery

Sat, Jun 01,
   

Boston, MA
   

City Winery

Mon, Jun 03,
   

New York, NY
   

Irving Plaza

Thu, Jun 06,
   

Chicago, IL
   

Thalia Hall

Sat, Jun 08,
   

Nashville, TN
   

The Cannery

Mon, Jun 10,
   

Austin, TX
   

Scoot Inn

Thu, Jun 13,
   

Los Angeles, CA
   

El Rey Theater

Fri, Jun 14,
   

San Francisco, CA
   

Great American Music Hall

Sat, Jun 15,
   

Portland, OR
   

Aladdin

Sun, Jun 16,
   

Seattle, WA
   

The Showbox


https://www.prnewswire.com/

---

/jarmo

I got my tix to the Austin show. Nice, small, intimate, venue. Not to mention, a free CD copy of the new album, with each ticket.   :beer:

I am going to the show in San Francisco.

European Tour Announced! On-Sale Friday!
8/22 - Warsaw - Klub Stodola
8/23 - Berlin - Astra
8/24 - Amsterdam - Once In A Blue Moon Fest
8/26 - Cologne - Gloria
8/27 - Mannheim - Alte Feurwache
8/29 - London - Islington Assembly Hall
8/31 - Dublin - Electric Picnic Fest
9/1 - Manchester - Academy
9/3 - Paris - Le Trabendo
9/4 - Brussels - Ancienne Belgique
9/6 - Zurich - Dynamo
9/8 - Milan - Saneria Club

Info + Music at www.DuffOnline.com

---

/jarmo

Given the venue size, those tickets are astonishingly expensive in the UK. I've honestly never seen any act charge that amount for a venue that size. It's well out of sync. Not sure what's going on there, if the tickets include an album or gift or anything?

Cologne  :peace:

Duff interview by Eddie Trunk: https://www.podcastone.com/episode/ET---Duff-McKagan--Shooter-Jennings (https://www.podcastone.com/episode/ET---Duff-McKagan--Shooter-Jennings)

Fast forward to 14:00 if you want to get straight to the interview.





/jarmo

Duff interview on Mohr Stories podcast: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/fake-mustache-studios/mohr-stories-fakemustachecom/e/60228170?autoplay=true (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/fake-mustache-studios/mohr-stories-fakemustachecom/e/60228170?autoplay=true)



/jarmo

https://www.laweekly.com/music/best-crossover-album-duff-mckagans-tenderness-10150276

Best Crossover Album: Duff McKagan’s Tenderness
Brett Callwood | May 15, 2019 | 6:00am

When it was announced in 2016 that bassist Duff McKagan would be rejoining Hollywood rock titans Guns N' Roses 19 years after leaving the band, fans rejoiced. With guitar hero Slash also back in the Gn'R ranks alongside mainstay frontman Axl Rose, three of the five classic lineup players were back together again. And nobody was happier than McKagan himself.

Anybody who has read any of McKagan's books or columns knows that the bassist clearly felt Guns N' Roses was just getting started when the core imploded. As far as he's concerned, and in his own words, Gn'R is what he's meant to do. That said, the mammoth world tour is ongoing, the machine will keep whirring, and it's important that the members do other things to keep themselves refreshed and interested. Slash was on the cover of this publication last year thanks to his solo work, and now it’s Duff’s time to shine.

His new album is called Tenderness and, as the title suggests, it's a far more sedate affair than the wild rock his main gig specializes in. He worked on it with Shooter Jennings, alt-country icon and son of outlaw country artists Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter. McKagan says that he has always wanted to make a rock & roll singer/songwriter album in the vein of the solo work of Screaming Trees man Mark Lanegan. Add that desire to the fact that he had been traveling the world and taking notes about his observations, and the ingredients for something special were all there.

"[Guns N' Roses] played a lot of shows and traveled a ton," McKagan says. "Pre-election, I was absorbed with the debates. I’m getting wrapped up in these panels, looking at Twitter and getting riled up. And I read too much fucking history for me to get riled up about it. I know things are cyclical and they pass. But a funny thing happened. On a stadium tour, we play every third day because the stage takes two days to set up. When I go out and do stuff, I talk to people. WW1 museum, Little Big Horn, whatever. Then we left America, I think [it was] South America first, and the big three news stations aren't on down there. So you're not stuck in your room hyperventilating over news, so I stopped looking at Twitter and the quality of my life got a lot better."

Music is, of course, the great leveler. It can bring people of all different backgrounds together. McKagan says that, while on tour, he simply had conversations with people. Nobody asked who anybody else voted for. The America he knows, he says, is the one that came together after 9/11, after the hurricane in Houston and after the California fires.

"There’s a bubble of unity at our gigs," he says. "We're in Muslim countries, and people have devil horns up rocking the fucking out. Music is a universal language and it brings people together. The news is selling ads and we’re falling for it. This too shall pass. It'll change into something else — we'll be pissed off about something completely different in two years."

So it was all of these observations and thoughts that became the inspiration for Tenderness. The notes he took became lyrics, as the work started to take shape.

"The first song I wrote for the record was 'It's Not Too Late,' " he says. "Acoustic in hand, reading my notes, [sings] 'Everybody's lying, I need some truth.' For a long time, I’d wanted to make a more Mark Lanegan-esque record. I played shitty demos to my manager, and I’ve known Shooter Jennings for a long time, since he moved to L.A. He's been doing a ton of producing — he had just finished Brandi Carlile’s record. My manager suggested Shooter and I thought it was perfect. Shooter fell into it — he understood my Johnny Thunders influence. I went to his house and we started arranging."

In the extensive liner notes that accompany the new album, which were written by McKagan himself, he talks about the fact that we are living in scary times. Much of that stems from the fact that he has daughters, and pays attention to what they are worried about.

"The famous LeBron James comment on social media where he said something political and somebody told him to stay in his lane and play basketball — I laugh at that because it is we the people," McKagan says. "We're the bosses. That's the way the Constitution was written up. When I say it's scary times, I see my daughters, I hear what they're talking about and there's fear. There's fear of fucking guns in school. There's fear that everybody elected is so much older than them — how do they control everything? Fuck this! There's going to be a motivated, educated younger voting force coming in. We've been in very serious times since 9/11. This will pass. I don't say anything politically divisive on this record. I hope it will be a thought-provoking path to healing. I felt like I needed to do it."

For many, McKagan was always the "punk" in Guns N' Roses — he was the guy who sang the Misfits and Johnny Thunders covers, having been in punk bands in his younger days. Post-Guns he formed a punk band called Loaded, and he also recorded with MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer. So what does he think old fans will make of this more sedate album?

"I didn't make a record to continue down those paths," he says. "I just played two and a half years of big, long rock & roll shows, and that is where I thrive the most. But I’ve wanted to make this kind of record for a long time, and as an artist, it's OK to take a left turn here and there. Really challenge yourself. I don't want to do the same thing day after day. People are allowed to change and grow and do different things. If some people come along on the ride with you, great. If you gain new fans, that's cool too. Who would have thought I'd be on country radio. To get a song into that world, talking about flat-Earthers and white supremacy — job done."

---

/jarmo

Interview with Duff McKagan in Bass Magazine issue two:
https://issuu.com/bassmagazine/docs/bass_magazine_issue2_issuu_v2_6d3cb9409e27a3/66 (https://issuu.com/bassmagazine/docs/bass_magazine_issue2_issuu_v2_6d3cb9409e27a3/66)




/jarmo

Duff McKagan Gets Woke and It Works on New Solo Album ‘Tenderness’

Guns N’ Roses bassist tackles school shootings, the opioid epidemic, domestic assault and more with help from an ace group of country-rock musicians

3 1/2 / 5 stars

By Kory Grow

Duff McKagan, Guns N’ Roses’ second-best singer (or is it third-best? where’s Izzy?), gets woke on his mellow new solo album. Amid twanging steel guitars, gospel backup singers and fiddle filigrees, he variously addresses America’s opioid epidemic, school shootings, sexual assault, homelessness and his own transgressions, but it never feels too corny or cloying since there’s always sincerity in his voice. It’s music of conscience, heavy songs with a light touch.

His secret weapon here is producer Shooter Jennings (son of Waylon), who helped him assemble a murderer’s row of studio musicians. There’s authenticity in the country-leaning arrangements and the mood always matches McKagan’s message. When he sings “a little tenderness is what we need” on the title track, there’s a low church organ hum buttressing his hope. When he asks, “Do we have to watch another mother cry?” on “Parkland” — a song that also namechecks the Columbine, Charleston, Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech shootings — his backing band plays swelling slide guitar as that same organ sizzles in the background, giving way to stomping and chains clanging for the chorus, “Oh, shit, have you heard about Parkland? Yeah, it happened once again.” It’s both raw and sobering.

The one solution McKagan offers for all the world’s ills is that people communicate better. On slow-drawling “It’s Not Too Late,” he pleads, “Take a long walk and meet your fellow man” as steel guitar fades in and out around his nasal whine. It’s a far cry from the scabrous (albeit tongue-in-cheek) tunes like “It’s So Easy” and “Used to Love Her” that he once co-wrote with GN’R; in fact, Tenderness is very much an exact 180 from the band’s “One in a Million,” the homophobic, racist, xenophobic screed they recently removed from the track list on their Appetite for Destruction anniversary box set. This is his absolution.

Although some of the songs are a bit heavy-handed — “Parkland” offers no solutions even though the answer is obvious, and “Last September,” about domestic abuse, sort of lets the assailant off the hook by saying “his mama didn’t raise a man” — this is an album full of beauty and heart. It’s not all bleak, the catchy rocker “Chip Away” and Jennings duet “Breaking Rocks” both revel in the rough journey to redemption, and it ends with “Don’t Look Behind You,” which promises “the light is coming through.” Tenderness is a grand gesture that works. Woke looks good on Duff.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/review-duff-mckagan-tenderness-837551/

---

/jarmo

Im enjoying this record, way to go Duff!  : ok:

It’s so cool he played Dead Horse, You Ain’t the First and one of my favourites, Dust N Bones!
But the arrangement they did on YATF is amazing. Hats off to the band.
Great job, they work perfectly with the Tenderness material.

Duff McKagan's track-by-track guide to Tenderness

By Fraser Lewry (Classic Rock) 7 hours ago Classic Rock 

Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan guides us through his solo album Tenderness

If there's one thing to learn from Duff McKagan's new album Tenderness – and from talking to Duff about the album – it's that we should all probably get out more.

In an age where people rarely look up from their timelines, where arguments only have binary solutions, where friends and families are divided over Brexit or Trump or whatever and no one ever, ever changes their minds, McKagan used the Guns N' Roses tour as an opportunity to write an album about the subjects that inspire so much friction. And rather than sit in a hotel room, isolated from reality, he took a different approach.

"I got out, and I talked to people," says Duff. "And I stopped watching the fucking news. And the quality of my life got a lot better. The news will make you think we're all divided, and that everyone hates each other, and if you turn on Twitter it'll magnify that."

Tenderness is a political album - songs about mass shootings and opioid addiction and sexual violence ensure that – but it's not an album that hectors or preaches.

"There is a secondary plan for these songs," says Duff, "which is to bring awareness without judgement. Awareness and a little helping hand where I can. I hope to do something with Cold Outside for a mission in Seattle, and I hope to do something for the coal miners and opioid addiction."

It's a curiously hopeful album about often devastating subject matter, and it's only natural to wonder what chance he has of making any kind of dent. But Duff has found that talking to people the world over, from Kuala Lumpur to Minnesota, has given him more hope. "Humanity is still very much alive," he says. "I know that for sure."

Below, Duff takes us through Tenderness, track by track.


Tenderness

"I started with an A major with an F over it and an E, and this gave me a very sad chorus, but then the chorus opens up into this this hopeful place.

"When I say, 'Darkest days, the deals we’ve made / On temple grounds, that empty sound, God’s not around', it's because I've read so much history, and every war has been fought with 'God on our side'. But when you're killing each other, or when you're driving a van onto a city street in Paris for God, I don't think God's around for that. I have the strong feeling that God is on neither side when you're killing each other.

"Or your religious organisation will tell everybody to vote a certain way. I don't think God told you to vote that way. You know what I mean? So I think tenderness is the thing we have to rely on here."

It's Not Too Late

"This is a commentary on watching the news. I just wrote down 'Everyone's lying, I need some truth' and that was from watching the news.

"I had a realisation about going out and meeting people on tour, turning off the TV, shutting the screen down and going out to talk to your fellow man. And I think if enough of us do that, things will change."

Wasted Heart

"This was a song I originally recorded with Loaded back in 2008. Shooter Jennings produced this record – he's obviously the secret key to this whole record, instrumentally and sound-wise – and he wanted me to do that song again.

"We did was this whole record with Shooter's band, and he wanted them to get a crack at doing that song. It's kind of a hopeful answer to the song Falling Down.

"It's the most personal song on the record, and is the only time I'm talking about myself on the record. It's about recovering from the drugs and somebody being there to help me through it. That somebody, of course, is my wife,"

Falling Down

"There's a book by J D Vance called Hillbilly Elegy that came out in 2016. He's a guy who grew up in the rust belt of Southern Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia, and he made it out. He got himself to Ohio State University and then into Yale Law, but his roots are still in this community where coal mining jobs are going away and opioids are taking their place.

"So Falling Down is a commentary. I've been there. I've been through addiction. And yes, it's a sad song, but it's the truth. And I hope that any Guns N' Roses or Loaded or Velvet Revolver fan might listen to this and think, 'You know what? Maybe we can do something.'"

Last September

"On the last Loaded record [2011's The Taking] I wrote a song called Follow Me To Hell. That was a response to a guy who raped and killed a 15-year-old girl in San Diego. I have two daughters and a wife, and this kind of thing pisses us all off, makes us all sick to our stomachs. Follow Me To Hell was what I would do if I got the same room with one of those guys.

"With Last September, I'd read some stories when #metoo was happening – I hate calling it that – of some real bad motherfuckers doing some bad shit, so I fictionalised a story. I swear that song and the lyrics wrote themselves in five minutes, and Shooter really loved the tune.

"It's just a commentary and reaction to the #metoo movement. It is a sad story. But with the refrain of the end I hope to bring a little hope to the female in the story."

Chip Away

"Another song in the vein of It's Not Too Late. Watching the news and thinking, 'oh yeah, they're gonna try all that shit again.' Like with trickle-down economics, which might sound familiar to you.

"In the 90s with Reagan and Thatcher it was trickle-down economics: drop taxes on the very rich, and the money will trickle down. But it doesn't really work. We've seen this all before. In the song it says, 'this too shall pass, if we keep our heads on,' and again, it's about us coming together.

"I know humanity will overcome. There's always a backlash. We've had to be serious since 9/11, and I think there's going to be a point like when punk rock and disco both came out at the same time. People were done with Vietnam War and with the recessive 70s and gas lines and union strikes, and at some point people just said, 'Fuck this. Let's party! Bring it on!'"

Cold Outside

"I just visited a homeless camp in Seattle called The Jungle. It's one of the worst in America, and it's not the kind of place you or I could just walk up into. But I went with a gentleman who used to live there, but is now sober and in an outreach program.

"So a dude who lives up in The Jungle walks past me real fast and he says, 'that guy who walked by? He didn't want you to see him – his eyelid was eaten by a rat when he was nodded out on heroin.' I talked to some people living up there. They fell through a hole and they can't get out.

"I've seen homelessness all over the planet, and I don't make eye contact. I do what we all do. You keep your keys in your hand in case you got to swing. You fucking walk faster. You get in your car and get the fuck out of that. Right?

"I hope to do something with this song bring some awareness and to lessen the stigma. I don't know if I have an answer. I'm not saying I'm a fucking politician. I just hope to do something positive with that song."

Feel

"Feel is a reaction to Scott Weiland, Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington and Prince, and the band did a beautiful job. I hope to do something with the song and Chester's wife's 320 Changes Direction foundation, which works with suicide prevention and drug addiction.

"It's a homage to those people, and to many more who've gone out the same way. These are just the four most recent, and three of them were friends of mine. I was a super fan of Prince, and I cried when he died."

Breaking Rocks

"It's about doing the hard work. We all fuck up, and we all try as hard as we can. You've got to fucking hustle to make a living doing what you do.

"You know, I've worked as a musician – which is basically a 24-hour-a-day job – since I was 15, and when I was first able to live off what I do, I realised my passion and my work were the same thing, and I'm really fucking fortunate.

"No matter what you do, there are still sacrifices you make to put food on the table, and that's very American. And I think it's the most American song on the record."

Parkland

"A funeral dirge. It's a droning commentary on a pretty sickening topic. And I hope it pays respect to the kids of Parkland to the congregation in Charleston, to Columbine and Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech, and that's just to name a few. A very few of a long list."

Don't Look Behind You

"We knew Tenderness be the first song on the record, and when I wrote Don't Look Behind You Shooter said, 'that's has to be the last song on the record. We have it: the beginning and the end.'

"It's the most hopeful song on the record. If you notice, I use some other titles from the record, and it kind of sums up the record, with the last stop being, 'You know what? We're gonna get through this together.'

"Just don't look behind you, don't dwell on the past. Just look forward, and we're gonna be okay."

https://www.loudersound.com/features/duff-mckagans-track-by-track-guide-to-tenderness





/jarmo

How Duff McKagan Got Woke

The Guns N’ Roses bassist on making a “healing” statement with new solo LP ‘Tenderness’ and moving on from “One in a Million”
By Kory Grow

Duff McKagan doesn’t consider himself much of an activist. “I give to charity,” he says, “but I do it in a silent way that I think is righteous.” Lately, he’s starting to feel more comfortable talking openly about how he makes a difference in the world.

Recently, the Guns N’ Roses bassist visited “the Jungle,” a homeless encampment in his hometown of Seattle that he describes as “postapocalyptic.” It was estimated in 2016 that nearly 400 people live in some 200 tents under and around I-5 near the city’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. “A guy walked past, he was high, lit up,” McKagan recalls. “And he nodded at me and then he nodded off. It’s just needles everywhere.” His voice drops and he looks somber as he recalls the state of things.

“If I’m going to write about homelessness, I have to go there first, right?” he says. After the visit, he penned a twangy, country rocker, “Cold Outside,” about homelessness, and sang, “I should have known that this could be me on the street, lost, wet, hungry.” He very well could have headed in that direction himself — if GN’R hadn’t taken off. It was only 25 years ago that he suffered a scary bout of acute pancreatitis, brought on by years of excessive drinking, forcing him to sober up. Since his recent visit to the Jungle, he has partnered with Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, among other charities, to try to encourage his fans to help the less fortunate. “I’ve realized I’m going to get somewhat active now, active in a way that’s people helping other people,” he says.

It’s late April, and McKagan is sitting at a table in midtown Manhattan’s tony, five-star St. Regis Hotel, located two blocks from Tiffany & Co. and Trump Tower. The bassist sticks out like a sore thumb amid the velvet couches and posh clientele dressed in the restaurant’s prescribed “smart casual” attire, thanks to his long, stringy blond hair, black jeans and cut-off Shooter Jennings muscle tee. “I’m the type of guy who’ll get a shirt, and that’s my shirt for the next two weeks,” he says. His demeanor is a far cry from the wild rocker image Guns N’ Roses cultivated three decades ago; he’s genuine, easy tempered and the type of person to offer you half of his lunch. When he wants to make a point, he nudges you gently with his hand. He’s the picture of sincerity.

Although he laughs at being called “woke” — “I’m hip to the lingo, man,” he says — McKagan has drawn from experiences, like his trip to the homeless camp, to make an album with a conscience. Tenderness, his second official solo offering, contains songs that rail against a litany of social ills: school shootings, domestic violence and opioid addiction, among others. Overall, the album feels like the antithesis of “One in a Million,” the GN’R song that got him and his bandmates branded as racist, xenophobic bigots 30 years ago, and the shift in perspective suits McKagan, now age 55, well. The gentle, country-rock arrangements of Tenderness — made with producer Shooter Jennings, the son of country legend Waylon who records his own country-rock and has worked with rockers like Tom Morello and Marilyn Manson — allow him to show a more mature side, as well as a little grit. The album’s sound is a good fit for McKagan’s rough, nasally voice, which remains largely underused in Guns N’ Roses other than on deep cuts like “So Fine” and some Spaghetti Incident covers. But mostly, Tenderness is a platform for him to preach togetherness as a solution to what he sees as a fractured nation.

“Do I need to put more noise out there? No,” he says. “I’m playing in a big fucking rock band, the best rock band in the world, right? I didn’t need to make a record at all, but I chose to. I want to do something that’s healing.”

The roots of Tenderness begin in 2016, around when McKagan reunited with Guns N’ Roses and became obsessed with the presidential election. “We’d rehearse for eight hours and then talk about politics,” he says. “Then I’d go home and watch cable news. For the three months we were doing rehearsals, I was checking my Twitter and getting really fired up. My wife’s like, ‘Fucking chill out. Turn off the news.'” Eventually he decided he’d been suckered and unfollowed all the political accounts he’d discovered. “The reason I got on Twitter in the first place was the Seahawks and sports stuff,” he says with a laugh.

When the band got out on the road, McKagan started trying to see the world firsthand. He ventured onto swamp boats and took tours of cities in carriages. As he met people all around the U.S., he gained what he feels was a deeper understanding of the state of things. “I’m sure I was in places that people call ‘Red States,’ but I didn’t talk about politics to anybody,” he says. “We talked about how alligators like marshmallows.”

In his time away from Guns N’ Roses and in between stints with Velvet Revolver, McKagan had gone back to school and eventually started moonlighting as a columnist for Seattle Weekly and Playboy. As he met new people and got fresh perspectives, he considered writing columns or a book about his life on the road. So he started writing the beginnings of essays about everything from homelessness to the #MeToo movement. But that changed when he picked up an acoustic guitar he travels with and sang the words, “Everybody’s lyin’, I need some truth,” over an E-major chord. “It was kind of a Porter Wagoner song,” he says, referring to the late country hitmaker who often teamed with Dolly Parton. He ended up writing the rest of Tenderness’ “It’s Not Too Late,” which pleads that people should “meet your fellow man,” and the experience of writing that song inspired him to write music instead of musings.

He sings about the opioid epidemic on “Falling Down” and his own addictions on “Wasted Heart,” a song he previously recorded with his band Loaded, presenting both from a compassionate perspective. On the gospel-tinged “Feel,” though, he sings about his friends and people he looked up to, including his onetime Velvet Revolver bandmate Scott Weiland, Prince and Chris Cornell, who have died in recent years. McKagan had been close to Cornell. Since his wife and Cornell’s widow had both given birth around the same time, the two new dads grew closer. “I had this hangover still from Scott, not processing it,” he says. “I went to two different funerals for him, both quiet, and I just didn’t know how to process it. It was one of those things, like, you could see it coming, but when it happens, it still fucking hurts. That sense of loss.”

Chris Cornell’s death, though, resonated with him in a different way. “We had rehearsed that night, and Axl came into rehearsal and goes, ‘What do you guys think about doing “Black Hole Sun”? I’ve just been singing it for the last two weeks.’ Axl has a fucking sixth sense like that,” he says. “I don’t know if we tried it that night, but we talked about it. I drove home and [GN’R guitarist Richard] Fortis calls me at, like, 2 a.m. and is like, ‘Turn on the radio. Cornell’s dead.’ Axl was pretty freaked out by it. But then Prince died a few months later, and to me, Prince was everything. I fucking cried. And then Chester [Bennington].”

Bennington’s death reminds McKagan of how he too dealt with what doctors first told him was depression but he later learned was a chemical imbalance. After suffering a panic attack at the movies with his wife (“I couldn’t move,” he says) he sought help and got medications. “I call it brain vitamins,” he says. “It keeps everything moving and it’s not an addictive drug and thank fucking God for that. But for Chester and Chris, experiencing addiction and depression, I know that if it’s depression like I had, when you can’t breathe and there’s no way out, then all bets are kind of off.”

“Duff made a record that people can relate to and find meaning in their own experiences,” producer Shooter Jennings says on a call from Angels Camp, California, about a week before the album’s release. “He only wants people to be happy, and that is what comes across to me. So if you take a risk, it’s different if you’re preaching. He’s offering a solution, and I think that’s the difference.”

What makes Tenderness interesting is how many of the problems McKagan addresses are left with open-ended solutions. The message throughout is that people should try to make more of an effort to get to understand one another, and McKagan is never too preachy. That’s because he’s hyper self-aware. At one point in our interview, he says he was surprised when a buddy told him that he was a “coastal elite.” “We live in Seattle, we make over $200,000 a year and we read books,” the friend said. And he also recognized his privilege, saying that the only way the Trump administration was affecting him was by making it harder for him to get some Italian marble to remodel his house because it had passed through China. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to look beyond his front porch. Since the record is more about the world at large, he hopes people can feel a shared empathy about the problems he presents on Tenderness.

One day, when he was writing songs, a recording engineer burst into his room and said, “Oh, shit. Have you heard about Parkland?” It was February 14th of last year and a shooter had killed 17 students and staffers at a high school in Parkland, Florida. McKagan turned on the TV, guitar still in hand and started playing plodding chord changes. He repeated what the engineer said and turned it into a mantra — “Oh shit. Have you heard about Parkland?” — calling out Columbine, Charleston, Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech along the way. “Do we have to watch another mother cry once again?” he asks in the song “Parkland.” “Do we gotta watch another school kid die? No, not again.”

“That song is really trying to pay respect, but it’s a funeral dirge,” he says. “And I don’t come to a conclusion in the song, if you notice. I privately have my own solutions; there’s too many voices out there right now saying what is what. But you could be the hardest-core gun advocate or Second Amendment advocate or NRA member — nobody like school shootings across the board. So instead of saying ‘Here’s my solution, ban all guns forever,’ there is no solution. It’s a prayer. It’s just meditation. If somebody hears that song and reaches out to a Columbine foundation or family, it would be good. There are no macro answers right now; there are one-on-one answers.”

McKagan isn’t the only Guns N’ Roses member to get pegged as “woke” lately. Since even before the reunion, Axl Rose has supported a number of left-wing causes on Twitter and in the occasional open letter. He tweeted about how the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi appeared to be covered up, gave his take on Trump’s statements about forest fires and, last year, he tweeted, “We have an individual in the WH that will say n’ do anything w/no regard for truth, ethics, morals or empathy of any kind, who says what’s real is fake n’ what’s fake is real.” At the St. Regis, between bites of his oversized wrap, McKagan laughs at the notion of “woke Axl.”

“I love that,” he says. “I’m going to talk about that with him when I get back home. ‘Are you aware that you’re being called “Woke Axl?” He probably is.

“But don’t get it twisted,” he continues, “if he says something on Twitter, he’s thought about it. He knows the backup stories from every angle, and if somebody chose to debate him, I don’t care who it is, you’re going to be fucked. He’s a well-spoken and well-read dude who has experienced a lot. I believe he’s concerned about his country, so ‘Woke Axl’ it is.”

He defends Rose, too, when the subject of “One in a Million” comes up. In the song, which closed out the group’s Lies EP, the singer rails against police, African Americans, immigrants, gays and Middle Easterners, using slurs and dismissive language. When the band reissued their Appetite for Destruction album last year and included the Lies tracks on it, “One in a Million” didn’t make the cut. McKagan insists the song was misinterpreted, but his head is still spinning from the fallout associated with that song.

“We got kicked off an AIDS benefit,” he recalls. “I remember taking a plane and an African American flight attendant sees the seat next to me was open, so she sat down. ‘Are you with Guns N’ Roses? Are you really racist about black people?’ And then there’s what Slash [who is biracial] went through, and part of my family is African American. I had to explain it to them.

“One thing about Axl is if you’re going to try to compete with him intellectually, you’ve lost, because he’s a super smart guy,” he continues. “He’s a super sensitive dude who does his studies. When we did that song, I was still drinking but he was way ahead of us with his vision of, ‘Something’s gotta be said.’ That was the most hardcore way to say it. So flash-forward to now. So many people have misinterpreted that song that song that we [removed it]. … Nobody got it.”

He likens the track now to Appetite’s “It’s So Easy,” a song with lyrics bragging about driving drunk and the band’s womanizing. “It was a piss-take,” McKagan says. “Our audience was, like, three people when we wrote it. It was a joke on how it was really the opposite of that. And when we played it, with the people there around us, it was fun.”

Things are different now. The band is at its biggest point in decades, and only time will tell if Rose and McKagan’s wokeness will spill over into new GN’R music. The group has lined up several festival headlining slots for the fall and McKagan won’t rule out the possibility of a new album. “There’s things happening, some of it positive,” he says. “Everything is moving in a great direction. So I am really looking forward to phase two of this thing. I’d hate to say something in the press to fuck it up, so I just have to say, ‘It’s going great.’ In true Guns N’ Roses fashion, people are in the dark, and that’s kind of cool. It’ll happen when it happens.”

For now, McKagan is touring solo with a little help from Shooter Jennings. At a recent New York City gig, Jennings’ band played about an hour’s worth of country music, capped with a David Bowie cover, after which McKagan joined them. Dressed fully in black, like a skinny Johnny Cash, McKagan opened with Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion deep cut “You Ain’t the First” and played the entirety of Tenderness with some added fiddle, steel guitar and organ. Even though McKagan’s music was a little more country than what the crowd of middle-aged GN’R fans would likely see on a Monday night, the audience cheered on the musicianship.

“Some of the shows aren’t selling out,” Jennings says. “People don’t know what to fucking expect from this. I know that the people at the shows are gonna leave there and be like, ‘Fuck, dude. I’m so glad we saw that, because it’s such a cool gift.’ … And I feel like that in the back with the keys the whole time.”

McKagan and Jennings have known each other for years. Jennings is a GN’R superfan and found himself playing in a band on some of the same bills as Loaded nearly 20 years ago when he moved to L.A. “Duff has always been really, really nice to me, and I was a dumbass 20-something–year-old when he first met me,” Jennings says. But the pair didn’t realize they could work together until McKagan auditioned the country scion to be his producer on Tenderness. They clicked immediately when they got in the room together; Jennings wrote new turnarounds in McKagan’s songs and dug into their shared reference points, including the late New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders and an uncirculated version of Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli’s “Deepest Shade” — the latter of which, McKagan says, made Jennings teary-eyed. They’re now closing their shows with the song. Meanwhile, Jennings turned McKagan on to Willie Nelson’s Phases and Stages concept album as inspiration for how to pace Tenderness. “Shooter is just a perfect guy, and he’s kind of like a Phil Spector without the cocaine and the guns in the studio,” McKagan says. “He directs the band.”

Jennings, ever deferential, sees their partnership differently. “My favorite shit is when Bowie produced ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ and Transformer for Lou Reed,” he says. “Lou Reed was very resistant but once he got in there and Bowie has this clear vision and path, I think it’s one of the coolest records of all time. I felt my job was like that a little bit. I had to be the Bowie to his Lou Reed.” (Similarly, he says that when they play live, he feels like Bowie playing keys for Iggy Pop on The Idiot tour; he really likes Bowie.)

Regardless of how people take to the record, though, Jennings is excited to work with McKagan again on another album. “He has already sent me, like, a record’s worth of material,” Jennings says. “He and I are invested in our musical legacy with these records.”

McKagan, too, is dedicated to staying the course. At the New York show, he spelled out the themes of the album. When introducing “Parkland,” he dedicated it to the victims of the recent Virginia Beach mass shooting, and during the domestic-violence–themed “It Happened Last September,” he raised a middle finger while singing “His mama didn’t raise a man” to cheers from the crowd.

Ultimately, McKagan is unconcerned if he upsets or loses fans for speaking his mind on the album. “If someone on social media named ‘Al1234’ says something, is it going to affect me? Am I actually going to read it? No,” he says. “I don’t care about social media. I learned that from my experience of getting all caught up in it. I fell into the trap; Twitter is not very punk rock.

“So my music is pure art in its purest form,” he says. “I’ll know [how people receive it] if they come to my shows or don’t.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/duff-mckagan-tenderness-guns-n-roses-interview-837548/






/jarmo

You gotta love these bits of figurative language. Rolling Stone always does the best Gunner interviews IMO.

This reminds me of a great illustrative interview with Slash during the first Snakepit tour. Now I have to go find it... and would you look at that, it was also Rolling Stone:

http://www.slashparadise.com/media/interviews-slash/coiled-and-ready-rolling-stone-april-1995.pdf

Great show in San Francisco.  The bands bus broke down in Bakersfield.  They had to get insults and suv’s To get to the show.

Uhauls for the gear

There’s a great new interview with Duff on the latest Rolling Stone Music Now podcast!

Kyle Meredith with... Duff McKagan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-WMHCfDGjo





/jarmo

Duff McKagan: 'I was lucky to get a second chance at life'
By Paul Henderson
12 August 2019

Bass player with Guns N' Roses, best-selling author, social commentator, and fitness fiend Duff McKagan on his essential 'Life Lessons'

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/duff-mckagan-interview





/jarmo

I´m counting the days.....going to Cologne and Mannheim (Germany)  :peace:

Duff McKagan talks to Henry Rollins about Guns N’ Roses and writing his solo album, ‘Tenderness’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtbggQp-FOg





/jarmo

Funny timeline, because Henry Rollins told a story about Duff @ Wacken Open Air in Germany early August 2019. The stage Henry did his "Spoken Words" was called "Welcome To The Jungle". Because of that Henry said he had to talk about GN'R!

What did he say?




/jarmo

Will do a summary, gimme 1-2 weeks.