Duff McKagan: Winning The War Without GunsWe interview Duff McKagan of GNR, Loaded and Velvet Revolver!
May 28, 2009
While VR twists in the leather-clad winds of their inability to settle on a frontman, Duff is actively doing his own thing, which includes a regular column in Seattle Weekly, another in Playboy (a financial column, no less) and kicking ass with his other band, Loaded. He?s hitting the road with the group to support their second album, Sick, which dropped last month.
We caught up with Duff to talk all things music, including an update on VR?s vocalist search, the state of the music industry today and, oddly enough, President Roosevelt. As an original GNR maniac so many years ago, it was an honor to speak with one of my first childhood heroes.
CraveOnline: Duff! Great to talk to you man - care to describe the scene around you?
Duff McKagan: Cool, I'm actually in Norfolk, Virginia, at a mall of all places. I hate malls. But with a wife and two daughters, that's the hand I've been dealt (laughs). If I'm out on the road, which I am right now, this is the last place I wanna go, but we do what we can for family.
CraveOnline: You're quick to point out that Loaded isn't a side project, that your whole heart is in this...
Duff McKagan: Oh it is, yeah, it's been a band for ten years, and obviously Velvet Revolver has been on the front burner for the past five or six years, but with Loaded we still played. We knew we were gonna make another record. We didn't know it was gonna take us seven fuckin' years, but you know, music happens when it's supposed to happen, and I do realize that. I don't try to force it. This record came at a perfect time for me. I was pretty beat down from all the drama & crap that was circling around with VR...
CraveOnline: The drama being Scott (Weiland)...
Duff McKagan: Right. Right. I was pretty bummed about the way that whole thing went down, so the Loaded record came at a perfect time.
CraveOnline: So what's the Velvet Revolver vocalist update? Where do we stand? Tell me you're not hiring the dude from fuckin' Buckcherry. Please.
Duff McKagan: (laughs) there's no news to share yet, man. Trust me, nobody wants that ball rolling more than I do - but it's gotta be the right guy.
CraveOnline: How are you getting word out about Loaded?
Duff McKagan: We're out on tour now, and we're doing our thing with passion. We're creating new Loaded fans, and we're just a really really cool, fun band to watch. Our record came out a couple weeks ago, and people are coming to our shows and singing the words to our songs. That's always such a cool thing to feel when you're in a band.
CraveOnline: You recently referenced The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, when discussing the economic downturn. With the 24 hour news cycle and constant presidential surveillance, it seems that history's on the side of the fear mongers and shit-talkers. Like you said, everything is cyclical. But things are different.
Duff McKagan: Sure. When Roosevelt was in office, the media that he used at that point was the radio. He would have these weekly fireside chats to really feel people out and let them know what was going on. And it made people feel comfortable, like okay, he's sitting next to a fire, he's talking directly to me. With Obama, the great thing there, I think, is that he's smarter than most people realize. If Bush knew anything, if he read up on anything significant, he'd realize that there's so much more to the world and even the American atmosphere than what his little universe entails. I mean shit, I think it's great that they went out and took out those fucking assholes, Hussein and the rest of 'em, but there's a bunch of warring tribes there... there's always been war there. There's always been strife. It's an antiquity of society there. You can't just go in, kick out the leaders and give the country back. Under a common oppressor, those tribes got along, but once that common oppressor leaves, you're going to get civil war.
CraveOnline: It's absurd to imagine that everybody would just forget their fundamental ethnic & spiritual differences to celebrate the toppling of a tyrant - but that seems to be what happened last November right here.
Duff McKagan: Sure, but if you take all this history, these warring, ancient tribes and put them all in the same city, shit's going to explode. But Obama seems to be a student of history, and that makes me feel good.
CraveOnline: But at the same time, history seems to be on the side of the fear-mongers and shit-talkers.
Duff McKagan: Yup. I'm certainly not a journalist, but I'm just trying to write about what I think. It's just really rewarding to run into somebody who says "hey man, I read your piece on so and so, and it really turned me on to this new thing or exposed me to this new idea, or I'm gonna read that book." It's cool. But back to Forgotten Man real quick - it's all about the stumbles that Roosevelt and what he and his administration went through. How we grabbed some stuff from Communist Russia - how back in the 20s, people really started thinking "hmm, maybe this really could be the way to go." It looked like it was really working for them! And that's why we have Social Security. People can scream "Socialist!" all they want, but...yeah, we borrow from everything to live our lives. We're already a Socialist collective.
http://www.craveonline.com/entertainment/music/article/duff-mckagan-winning-the-war-without-guns-77825
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