A chat with Duff McKagan, Duff McKagan interview, Guns 'N' Roses, Velvet Revolver, Loaded
Chris Cornell

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You don’t get much more rock ‘n’ roll than Duff McKagan. Between his time as a member of the definitive line-up of Guns ‘N’ Roses, his stint with Velvet Revolver (which, he says, is technically still ongoing), and his brief period as part of the Neurotic Outsiders, he’s lived the lifestyle to the point of excess…which, of course, led to the decline of his health and the subsequent decision to clean up his act. These days, McKagan is fronting Loaded. Whoops, sorry, they’re actually known as Duff McKagan’s Loaded, though when Bullz-Eye had the opportunity to sit down with Duff before his show at the Norva, in Norfolk, VA, he clarified that it’s definitely a democracy. We also asked him about his time in Seattle, where he played with the Fastbacks, the Fartz, and 10 Minute Warning, got a very definitive answer about whether he’d be willing to play with Scott Weiland again, and felt the temperature in the room drop by several degrees when the topic of Axl Rose was broached.

Duff McKagan: (While making a pot of coffee) So what’s this for? I knew you were coming for an interview, but beyond that…

Bullz-Eye: Yeah, it’s for a web magazine, Bullz-Eye.com.

DM: Oh, okay.

BE: Yeah, I appreciate you talking to me now rather than earlier this afternoon. They were trying to pitch me 3:15, but I had a 4:00 phoner, and the thought of getting over here, doing the interview, and then hopping back in the car and rushing home to do the phoner at 4:00…

DM: …wasn’t going to work. Gotcha.

BE: So I appreciate it.

DM: No worries.

BE: Well, I read your Seattle Weekly column this morning and promptly sent my Facebook request.

DM: (Laughs) Oh, good. You know, the funny thing on that Facebook, there’s a friend limit is, either 4,000 or 5,000…

BE: Yeah, I think it’s 5,000.

"I’ve seen those gigs where bands will play and there are only ten people there, and they are pissed off. You can tell the band is pissed off, and it’s always a bummer because, like, I’ve been that kid who goes, “No, but I came to see you play, and I don’t notice there’s only a few people here, because, y’know, I’m here. “"

DM: This company that I was doing something with last summer signed me up for a Facebook account, but, you know, they did it really unbeknownst to me. So anybody on Facebook would go to “Duff McKagan,” and that filled up really quick, with people not only from the US but from Eastern Europe and wherever around the world. So somebody is helping with my Facebook page now, because once you’re at your limit, you can’t have anymore.

BE: Yeah, but beyond that, you can set yourself up to have a fan page, as opposed to just having a personal account. If you do that, then I think your fan count is actually unlimited.

DM: Oh, okay, so you can go above 5,000, then. Well, thanks for promptly signing up as my friend. Now I have to figure out my Twitter account that my 11-year-old daughter set up for me. I’m, like, “Grace, what’s the password?” I don’t remember.

BE: “I got it, Dad, don’t worry about it.”

DM: Yeah, exactly.

BE: While we’re talking about your Seattle Weekly column, I read that you went to see Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson not too long ago. David Allan Coe and Willie Nelson have both played in this venue, so you’re in good company here.

DM: Yeah? Cool. That gig was really great. It was a really great old theater they played at. Kris Kristofferson I really only remember growing up, being a kid and growing up to his music from an older brother or something, so seeing that gig was really great.

BE: So what’s your audience like when you play shows like this? Is it…

DM: I don’t know. (Laughs) Really, I don’t know. This is the first time that Loaded has ever put out a record in the United States. In Seattle, we had a pretty great, ferocious audience. We played a couple of gigs there this year that were amazing. Japan’s killer. The UK is amazing. You know, out west, we can play The Viper Room or whatever and sell it out, and people are going off. But we started…Mike and I went off and did FM radio across the country, except for the south. Well, we did Atlanta and Dallas, which is not really the south, but we started this tour in all these markets, and we arrived and didn’t do anything. So we went into Nashville, which was great. It was a radio show, so it was pretty well attended, then they tried to fill in some gigs in between some radio shows. We were playing a radio show, I think, Saturday night, somewhere. So they filled in, like, Jackson, Mississippi; Jacksonville, Florida. And we played literally…it was a restaurant. They emptied out the tables and they bent over backwards. I guess they have had other little shows there. But we were in a little beach town, north of Jacksonville. We went running on the beach in the day and played this gig at night.

BE: Nothing wrong with that.

Chris CornellDM: No. And not very many people came. It wasn’t very big either, but only maybe 60 people came. Nobody knew about it, as far as we could tell. Nobody really knows about the band in the south, so it’s anybody’s guess if there is even going to be anybody here tonight! (Laughs) But the cool thing about Loaded is we don’t…it really doesn’t matter, y’know? We know we’re going to Europe in a month and a half, and we’re playing huge festivals. And it will grow. Given half a chance, it will grow in the States. In the States, it’s always a crap shoot, man, especially for a band like ours, who is a little left of center, I suppose. Yeah, I’m sure we’ll do fine in, like, New York, Detroit, Chicago, maybe here. Maybe D.C. and Boston. See, it’s hard to tell. But we’ll see. But…I’ve seen those gigs where bands will play and there are only ten people there, and they are pissed off. You can tell the band is pissed off, and it’s always a bummer because, like, I’ve been that kid who goes, “No, but I came to see you play, and I don’t notice there’s only a few people here, because, y’know, I’m here. “

BE: “And I’m staring right at you.”

DM: Yeah. So we see the one guy singing every word to every song, and it’s, like, “Okay, I’m fucking playing for you, dude.” And it’s great.

BE: So what’s the set list like? Is it strictly Loaded stuff, or do you have a couple of G’N’R songs?

DM: Yeah, we play some G’N’R stuff. No Velvet Revolver. Nobody screams out for a Velvet Revolver song, though. Have you ever noticed that, Mike?

Mike Squires (guitarist for Loaded): Sure.

DM: I’ve never noticed anybody…that’s a good point. Not that there’s not any good Velvet Revolver songs. There are. I guess maybe it’s just too current or something…? I don’t know. You know, if we started playing “Slither” and people heard about it through YouTube or whatever, then they would probably be, like, “Play ‘Slither,’ or whatever. But people know that we play “It’s So Easy,” and people know we play “Dust and Bones” or “So Fine.”

Mike: I think you could play in almost any band after G’N’R and people would want to hear G N R songs.

DM: No, but I’m saying people don’t yell for Velvet Revolver songs.

Mike: That’s what I’m saying. It’s because you’re standing there on stage and…

DM: …they’re overshadowed by G’N’R, yeah. But people even yell for “Attitude,” which is a Misfits song that G’N’R covered that I sang, so…yeah, I don’t know.

BE: That’s funny, I was actually going to ask you if you played “Attitude.”

DM: We play it, yeah. Right now, we have two records of Loaded songs to pick from. It’s kind of great. We keep our set, but we’ll still play Guns N’ Roses stuff because people want to hear it and we like playing it, so it’s all good.

BE: Well, I interviewed Dave Wakeling the other day, who used to be the lead singer for the English Beat, and he was talking about how it had become an issue for him on occasion, where he’s playing solo but there are signs up that say “Dave Wakeling, the English Beat, and General Public.”

DM: Yeah, but the promoter wants to sell tickets.

BE: Exactly.

DM: Yeah, I think if you’re that guy…and I’m kind of that guy, too…it’s, like, whatever. If you go out trying to be, “No, I’m just Duff from Loaded,” well, okay, but, no, you’re not, really. It’s part of your deal, and it’s totally whatever they’ve got to do to sell their tickets. Man, it’s just commerce, man. They’ve got to sell tickets, and we want people there.

"I mean the thing with Scott (Weiland) started to go south pretty soon after that Libertad Tour started. He got back into his old ways, and it was pretty apparent. Like, you know, we were trying to get him to pull back, saying, “Dude, you can’t even just fuck around.”

BE: So with the latest album, was it something that you were already planning to do before Scott (Weiland) hit the road, or was that the kick in the ass that you needed to go back and do another solo album?

DM: Well, I mean the thing with Scott started to go south pretty soon after that Libertad Tour started. He got back into his old ways, and it was pretty apparent. Like, you know, we were trying to get him to pull back, saying, “Dude, you can’t even just fuck around.” “I’m just drinking.” And then it went from there. It was really sad to watch, but it wasn’t like I was watching that go down, going, “Okay, what am I going to do next? In Loaded, I think we always knew we were going to make another record. I think we played a gig two Christmases ago, and it was, like, “Okay, I’m going to be done touring in spring,” and we started thinking about it. The closer that came, it was, like, “Okay, well, let’s start up a web site.” I think we wanted to go out and play gigs first, but we got in and started MP3ing bits of songs back and forth to one another. I got back to Seattle and we kind of got in a room and started hashing these songs out, then we went into Martin’s and recorded them. We booked a tour right away for the UK and got onto a couple of European Festivals that we did last fall, and we put out the Wasted Heart EP. It was great, a really great reception. People really got the band live. People were coming, and it was great. My point is that, no, it wasn’t like a preconceived, “okay, this thing is falling apart, let’s move on” thing. I don’t know if I’ve ever really done music that way. I don’t really have much forethought. I just kind of roll along.

Chris Cornell

BE: Is Velvet Revolver technically still a going concern? I mean, the word is that you’re going to try to replace Scott, but is that…

DM: It’s technically a going concern. It technically is. I truly believe we will tour again, sometime. I’m in no hurry. If the right singer pops down in August or September or whatever, then great. We have a bunch of shit already written, and it’s killer. We’ve had some guys come really close. One guy, in particular, I thought was the guy, but everybody’s got to have a say in it. So we’ll see.

BE: If Scott came asking, would you…

DM: (Instantly) Oh, no. Fuck, no.

BE It ended that badly?

DM: Well, no. We went through…it was great for the first record. It had all the underpinnings of a Cinderella story, and it was for awhile. But, man, I’m 45, I’ve been through a bunch of shit, I’ve got kids of my own, and…I mean, I started losing sight of what I was doing music for, period. I don’t want to put myself in that situation again. I won’t. If they want to do it, then they can do it without me.

BE: How would you describe the Loaded sound to somebody who isn’t familiar with Loaded?

DM: We’re a little quirky, I think. A song like “Flatline,” that’s as mainstream as we’re ever going to get, and it’s still a little quirky. I don’t know, I think before, like with our last record, Dark Days, it’s always been sort of a dark and melancholy-ness to the band. None of us are dark and melancholy – it’s pretty funny all the time – but I think we’re thoughtful guys and fairly intelligent guys, and we have a lot of conversation. We watch the news and discuss world affairs and stuff. So when you start discussing world affairs, you know, lyrics start to happen. And I read a lot of history myself, and we all talk about that kind of stuff. Being from Seattle, too, you know, being influenced by guys like Mark Lanegan and that kind of thing. Yeah, so I don’t know. Brooding, dark, moody yet quirky, with rock stylings…? (Laughs) I don’t know.

BE: Man, it sounds like you write for Seattle Weekly.

"Playing in a band with John Taylor is great. A lot of pussy every time we played a gig. So many chicks. It was, like, “Wow, John, really? So this is what it was like, huh?” And there would be like a couple guys with mohawks and a guy with, like, a jean jacket coming in to see me and Jonesy"

DM: Yeah, right? (Affects a pretentious voice) Yeah, we’re a mix between UFO and…what else, Mike?

Mike: Oh, uh…

DM: You don’t want to answer, I think.

Mike: I don’t really want to. Um…post-grunge, hardcore…

DM: Post-grunge, hardcore folk, with some…

BE: With some pop crunch.

DM: And new wave sensibilities.

Mike: Wait, pop crunch…?

BE: I think there’s a little there.

Mike: Okay, so post-grunge, pop crunch…

DM: …hardcore folk, with new wave sensibilities.

BE: If “Post-Grunge Pop Crunch Hardcore Folk with New Wave Sensibilities” ends up being the next Loaded album title, I’d just like to have a thank-you in the liner notes, at least.

DM: (Laughs) Yeah, okay. Do you know our song “No More”?

BE: I think so, yeah.

DM: We made a video for that for the EP, and…have you seen any of our webisodes? If not, you’ve got to see those. Look at some of the webisodes, and you’ll go, “Oh, okay, I get it.” Mike made a Eurodisco version of “No More” for one of the webisodes. They’rea all up on YouTube.

BE: You actually kind of touched on this a second ago, but as far as the grassroots affair of promoting music nowadays, do you do predominantly online promotion with your stuff now? Do you pitch it to radio at all, or is there even any radio to pitch it to?

DM: No, there is radio to pitch it to. The single “Flatline” is being spun somewhat on radio. To get an add to radio these days is…you know, back even ten years ago, they would add new songs all the time. Now, they add, like, one song a quarter or something ridiculous like that. (To Mike) Classic rock adds like only one current song every quarter, right…? (Mike shrugs) I heard it’s all, like, this crazy formula. So, yeah, radio is definitely still a great way if you can get on it. If you’re the Foo Fighters, radio is your best friend. If you’re not, if you’re a band like us, then you’ve got to just go out and play. It’s old-school ways. It’s almost like back in the punk rock days, but there is internet now. But in the early punk rock days, bands would just go out and play. It was all word of mouth…in the States that is.

BE: Right. And, of course the States have always been notoriously hard to break, anyway, just because there’s such a wide space.

DM: Yeah, I think we’ll do just fine in larger cities here. Larger cities like Chicago play our record a bunch. Detroit does, too. Seattle does, that’s our home town. L.A, there isn’t rock radio, but people will come see us play in L.A.

BE: I would think there’s a lot of word of mouth in L.A.

DM: Sort of. I don’t know what it is in L.A. I don’t know if it’s word of mouth or what the fuck.

BE: How was it returning to the studio to basically be the only one you had to answer to?

DM: Oh, that’s not true.

BE: It’s not? (Looks over at Mike and laughs) Is it very much a democracy within the group, then?

Chris CornellDM: I’m pretty much the last guy a lot of times included in on what’s going on.

Mike: Duff’s very graceful, but he probably catches more shit than anyone else.

DM: Yeah, I definitely catch more shit than anybody else.

Mike: And he takes it very gracefully. (Laughs)

 DM: You know, I know my name is at the top of the thing, but we were just called Loaded. It’s Duff McKagan’s Loaded for now, but that in no way indicates that I’m the predominant song writer or predominant anything in this band. I’m probably more predominant in Velvet Revolver than I am in this band, I bet.

BE: Oh, I just remembered: our music editor, David Medsker, wanted me to tell you that his ears are still ringing from the version of “Planet Earth” that you played.

DM: Oh, the Neurotic Outsiders?.

BE: Yeah, he says that, every once in awhile, his ears will ring and he’s sure that it’s a residual effect of seeing you at the Double Door in Chicago.

DM: Oh. Yeah, “Planet Earth.” Playing in a band with John Taylor is great. A lot of pussy every time we played a gig. So many chicks. It was, like, “Wow, John, really? So this is what it was like, huh?” And there would be like a couple guys with mohawks and a guy with, like, a jean jacket coming in to see me and Jonesy!

BE: So how was that band, as far as recording and touring as the Neurotic Outsiders?

"You have those payoff gigs where there’s 10,000 people there, fucking losing their shit, and then these gigs that you play on a small stage or someplace where you’re getting tighter and closer as a band. It’s all worth it. Suddenly you forget about all the road miles you’ve put on and stinky clothes."

DM: Yeah, well, we didn’t tour that much, but it was really great. It reminds me of this band, actually, because there was always a lot of levity to the situation. We didn’t take it too fucking seriously. You can rock just as hard…or harder…and not be fucking so hardcore about the whole thing the whole time. But I played in a band with some people that just don’t have fun in life, period, and so everybody is going to get included. We all know people like that. We all probably work with people like that, or whatever. My situation was just no different than anybody else’s.

BE: When the Seattle grunge scene finally broke, did you at any point think, “I can’t believe I didn’t stick it out”?

DM: Well, when I saw Soundgarden in ’88 in Seattle, yeah, I was, like, “Fuck, I didn’t have to move down here!” When I left in ’84, there was just a ton of dope, heroin, and the clubs were closing down in a recession. The early 80’s hit Seattle especially hard. I was 19 and, like, “Okay, if I don’t make a move now, I’ll be stuck here.” And a couple of years later, the scene turned around and the economy there turned around. Heroin didn’t stop flowing in, though, and it still hasn’t. But, yeah, Soundgarden, it was, like, “God, that’s the band I could have been in! Fuck!” And then Alice in Chains. “Fuck!” But Guns N’ Roses did fine by me.

BE: Oh, I would say they did.

DM: Yeah.

BE: How long were you actually in the Fastbacks?

DM: Probably a year. The first year. I was the first drummer.

BE: Do you still keep in touch with those guys?

DM: Yeah. Kurt (Bloch) got up and played with us at our record release party in Seattle. We hired him to be the DJ for the night. And then at the end, we do like this long jam…I don’t know if you’re staying for the gig tonight?

BE: I’m going to try.

DM: Well, we do this long thing, and it starts with “I Wanna be Your Dog,” then we start playing all these other songs in the middle of it: AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, ZZ Top, whatever. Kurt was at the front of the pack at the place, and I’m, like, “Kurt, come on, you want to come up and play?” “Yeah!” So yeah, Kurt and Kim (Warnick)…Kim’s been my musical mentor since I was thirteen. She just turned 50 a couple of weeks ago. (Shakes his head) So yeah, I totally do keep in touch with them.

BE: How do you look back at your time with the Fartz?

Chris CornellDM: My stint in The Fartz was pretty short-lived. We did a few tours, but it was relatively short, maybe six months, and then we turned into 10 Minute Warning, and I went to guitar. 10 Minute Warning, to me, was a much cooler band. We were starting to explore, because punk rock, for me, had really died. Punk rock was dead for me in 1982. It was over. It was just jocks from the suburbs coming in and beating up people, you know. It was, like, “This is not the spirit of how this thing started.” So that’s when you saw bands like Black Flag, and then when Henry Rollins came into Black Flag, and they started growing their hair out and wearing shorts on stage. But they were killer. You know, Dez went to second guitar…I saw many different inceptions of Black Flag. I saw them with Ron Reyes. My first gig ever was opening…my band, The Vains, we opened for Black Flag in Seattle with Ron Reyes. And I’ve seen them with Dez. But that first tour they did with Henry was unstoppable.

BE: I’ve got his book (“Get in the Van”) where he talks about touring with them. It’s great.

DM: We opened for them that gig, and he called 10 Minute Warning…it was something like, “They’re like the new Hawkwind.” He really was into 10 Minute Warning. (Laughs) “They’re like Hawkwind!”

BE: And if you’re being compared to Hawkwind, you know you’ve got a future in the States.

DM: (Laughs) Yeah.

BE: How did your column for playboy.com come about?

Chris CornellDM: Through the Seattle Weekly column. Tim Morris, one of the editors at Playboy, is an old punker guy. He’s really in tune with everybody who’s doing the columns for all the weeklies, you know, the L.A. Weekly, Seattle Weekly. They are all sister papers. The Nashville Scene, and Denver’s is something else. So he’s really abreast with who is writing. And he liked my writing style, he says, and knew that I had gone to school for finance. He was kind of put in charge…I don’t know if you’ve gone to the playboy.com site, but they’re trying to make it like FHM. Like, younger and hipper. I think Playboy is getting this thing, like, they are the old guard and they are trying to make it so that they have the entertainment guy now, and they have a sports guy. You know, just like FHM or Maxim. So he asked if I would try it. I wrote the one article for Playboy, for the magazine, and that was my tryout, I guess. It’s a good gig. They pay me good, and it’s pretty cool.

BE: Next question: how did you come to play on Iggy Pop’s “Brick by Brick”?

DM: Because I’m great. (Laughs)

BE: Is there a follow up reason to that?

DM: I don’t know, man. I think it’s just because…

BE: I didn’t know if Iggy called you, or somebody else did, or...

DM: No, he did. He called my house. He got my home number, and it completely freaked me out. I was totally speechless, because I knew it was him. I knew it wasn’t somebody fucking with me, I could tell. He asked if I could come play on his record, Don Was was producing it. Guns was at the top of our game, and I don’t know if that was a new record deal for him, but he was getting a new push.

BE: I think it was, actually. I think it was his first album for Virgin.

DM: Yeah. So he knew that the record was going to get a push, and he was just calling out favors. You know, really calling people, like Kate from B-52’s. It really was just like him and Don Was going, “Okay, who can we get?” They got Kenny Aronoff to play drums. So it was Kenny and Iggy and Don Was, saying, “Okay, let’s make a record.” He called me, and then I called Slash. It was probably the biggest honor in my life.

BE: Is your album Beautiful Disease actually available?

DM: No.

BE: Okay, because I did a search for it the other day, and it actually has an Amazon page. But, apparently, it’s just people talking about how awesome it is and how they wish it would officially come out.

DM: Yeah, no, it never came out. It was supposed to come out, and then they called it Black Monday…or Black Friday. Whichever, it was when Universal came in and bought Geffen and A&M, and everything shut down in L.A. I mean, it was up on Tower Records, everywhere. We had the band rehearsed and we were ready to go. (Sighs) They should just give me the record. Universal probably doesn’t even know they have it, you know? They probably don’t.

BE: I know another artist who was signed to Geffen around the same time, and he got lost in that same shuffle.

DM: Oh, yeah, a lot of people just got…yeah, careers just ended then, just done. They tried to figure out a new way to do it, but, yeah, a lot of people got shut down. A lot of records that were supposed to come out never did.

BE: Have you ever re-recorded anything from it?

DM: Yes. I can’t think of what songs there were, though. “Seattle Head” I did. And “Then And Now,” and “Superman.”

BE: If you had not had the medical problems that you did, do you think you still would have changed your lifestyle eventually and cleaned up?

DM: That’s impossible to say. I had been trying to, with absolutely no success. (Pauses) No, I would have died. Just straight up. Without the thing that happened to me, something else would have happened, and it probably wouldn’t have been any better than what did happen to me.

BE: Was it liver failure?

DM: Pancreatic. Acute pancreatitis. They’re all organs, they’re not supposed to fail you, so when they do fail you, that’s usually pretty bad. Heart, liver, kidneys.

BE: When you see that clip of you and Slash at the American Music Awards, does it make you laugh?

DM: Yeah, but I’ve only actually seen the clip one time. I never go on YouTube. I haven’t even looked at my own Wikipedia or anything.

BE: It’s quite long and detailed, I can tell you that. They’ve got pretty much everything you have ever done for anybody, ever.

DM: It’s probably pretty informative.

BE: It is. It may not be all accurate, but it’s very informative.

DM: (Laughs) Probably, yeah. Maybe I should look at it.

BE: Well, what I was going to say was that the clip for the American Music Awards still makes me laugh, mostly just because of your giggle.

DM: Yeah, we had no idea what was going on. We knew we were up for an award, but, you know, it was all new. “What, we’re up for an award?” No way did we ever even dream that we were going to win the award. So we were just going down for free drinks, really. And to cause trouble.

BE: Have you heard the latest G’N’R album?

DM: Yeah.

BE: What do you think of it?

DM: (Stiffens but remains smiling) Doesn’t really matter.

BE: What you think of it doesn’t matter, or the album doesn’t matter?

DM: What I think about it doesn’t matter. I’ve been asked that probably 1,000 times…

BE: I’m sure that you have.

DM: …and now it’s 1,001 times. It just doesn’t matter. There are songs I like, songs I don’t like, but it’s just like any other record. I’m not a part of it, and my opinion…to me, it just really doesn’t… (Trails off, then shrugs) I don’t know.

BE: Are you amazed or totally unsurprised that Axl decided to keep the G’N’R name, even though it’s really just him?

DM: (Matter-of-factly) Oh, we’re not here to talk about G’N’R, dude.

BE: No, we’re not, and I totally haven’t asked you about G’N’R until now. If you’re not into it, that’s cool.

DM: Yeah.

BE: So where do you see Loaded going from here? Are you still going to keep doing the grass roots route?

DM: Well, we don’t want to…

BE: Obviously you don’t want to, but, I mean, do you have a plan…

DM: If we can play places like this and they’re sold out and there’s a line around the corner, that would be a goal. Playing 800 seaters and selling them out, that would be killer. You know, I’m sure we’ll get on some tours in the States. Opening, hopefully, for some bigger bands. That’ll really help this band get through the threshold here in the States. Us doing it on our own is another way to do it. You know, we’re playing every single night, living on the bus and doing that thing. It’s tough when only 60 people show up, but these are the sorts of things that bring out the character in the band. Are you men or are you mice? At the end of the night, we’re always fucking so glad we played the gig, it doesn’t matter where. And you have those payoff gigs where there’s 10,000 people there, fucking losing their shit, and then these gigs that you play on a small stage or someplace where you’re getting tighter and closer as a band. It’s all worth it. Suddenly you forget about all the road miles you’ve put on and stinky clothes. Although they have laundry here, which is pretty killer. (Laughs)

BE: Yeah, this is a crazy place, what with the basketball court and the hot tub. (Looks at notebook) Actually, I do have another G’N’R question, but it’s not a controversial one: what’s your favorite song from the era that doesn’t get cited a lot but that you’re particularly partial to?

Chris CornellDM: I like “Shotgun Blues.”

BE: Any particular reason why?

DM: It’s just a killer punk rock song.

BE: And on that note, what’s your favorite punk rock album? Actually, you don’t necessarily have to narrow it down to just one.

DM: Good, ‘cause, my God, that’s impossible. Fear, the self-titled album, for pure, for that sort of California punk rock. The Germs’ records are pretty ultimate. Of course, the Pistols. The Clash’s first record, to me, is timeless. I saw that tour in Seattle in ’79.

BE: Given how much you love the Pistols, how crazy was it playing with Jonesy in the Neurotic Outsiders?

DM: It was so great. My guitar stylings, I learned by copying him and Johnny Thunder. You know, to be able to play in band with him and actually be able to watch how he did it, it was just so great.

BE: He seems like just a real ordinary guy.

DM: Yep. He’s a really good guy.

BE: Well, I think I’m good here.

DM: Cool, man, because I’m going to jump in the shower before the show.

BE: Thanks again for doing this, Duff.

DM: Thank you, man!

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