Guns N\u2019 Roses bass player Duff McKagan (Image: Getty)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n As one of the most glamorous bands in music history, Guns N\u2019 Roses epitomised cool, both through their long hair and flamboyant dress sense, and making rock classics such as Paradise City, Sweet Child O\u2019 Mine and Welcome To The Jungle. They were a classic gang with swagger to match \u2013 but now the band are more likely to be enjoying personal tours of historical landmarks than partying hard.<\/p>\n The LA legends, who have sold more than 100 million records, reformed their classic line-up in 2016 after over 20 years apart. Since then, they\u2019ve been bigger than ever, headlining Glastonbury this summer and stadiums throughout the world.<\/p>\n But their geeky off-stage love of history will surprise fans who still associate Guns N\u2019 Roses with the mayhem they portrayed on classic albums Appetite For Destruction and Use Your Illusion I & II.<\/p>\n Bassist Duff McKagan has been a history buff since he overcame drug addiction 30 years ago, and is good friends with leading British historian Dan Jones.<\/p>\n Guitarist Slash is also a fan of the writer and presenter, who is in turn a Guns N\u2019 Roses devotee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n READ MORE <\/strong> David Stewart: Still living with those Sweet Dreams <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n McKagan tells the Daily Express: \u201cHaving Dan as a friend means I have my own damned personal historian.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause Dan is a fan of the band, we\u2019ve done some really cool things in some countries when we\u2019ve been on tour. I\u2019ve studied battles between the Christians and Moors in Spain with Dan after a festival in Seville, and he took us round landmarks in Acre when we played Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n The day before our interview over Zoom, Guns N\u2019 Roses played a stadium in San Antonio, Texas, near the site of the Alamo battle of 1836.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m such a nerd,\u201d laughs McKagan, showing off the Alamo Rangers hat he bought the morning after the concert.<\/p>\n He also happily displays a tattoo on his forearm stating \u201cProvidence\u201d \u2013 which the bassist had inked when he got sober, inspired by British \u00a7explorer Ernest Shackleton\u2019s belief that he was being guided by providence during his 1914 expedition to the Antarctic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Duff with British author and friend Dan Jones (Image: )<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n \u201cI had the tattoo done early in my sobriety,\u201d explains McKagan, 59. \u201cI\u2019d do martial arts twice a day, then I\u2019d read and read about history. Learning what people like Shackleton endured, I thought, \u2018If those guys could get through so much s***, the least I can do is to stay clean\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Although McKagan kept his partying under control during the early years of Guns N\u2019 Roses\u2019 fame, when Appetite For Destruction became a multi-platinum phenomenon on its release in 1987, he casually says that \u201cI got a little foggy\u201d during 1992.<\/p>\n Throughout the following 18 months, he was hooked on cocaine and Valium, and drinking \u201ca gallon\u201d of vodka a day. He got clean when his pancreas \u201cexploded\u201d in May 1994 and doctors told him he\u2019d be dead within a month if he didn\u2019t stop drinking.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I got into was so dangerous,\u201d McKagan admits. \u201cI wake up every morning and recognise that my addictions are sat right there, waiting for me to screw up. I know I won\u2019t screw up today, so I can get on with my day.<\/p>\n “I don\u2019t think about sobriety all day, but what I went through was so stark for a couple of years. I felt dark and hopeless, in a place I never thought I\u2019d be as a young man.\u201d Thankfully, McKagan\u2019s memory was largely unaffected by his addiction.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s Guns N\u2019 Roses singer Axl Rose who is the band\u2019s main historian, as McKagan reveals: \u201cIf me or Slash forget a particular detail from our past, we go to Axl. He has an incredible memory. He\u2019ll remember a conversation from years ago with a detail that\u2019s mind-blowing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The rockers have been on tour virtually full-time since they reformed seven years ago. They\u2019ve released just two new songs, Hard Skool and Perhaps, but McKagan reassures fans a new album will happen eventually, promising: \u201cDon\u2019t worry, we\u2019ve got this.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, McKagan is releasing his fourth solo album, Lighthouse. The title track is an unabashed love song to his wife Susan, whom he met in 1996, two years after getting clean. \u201cI don\u2019t think my wife wants the attention of being written about,\u201d McKagan smiles.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s tough luck. I love my wife, so I\u2019m going to write songs about her. That\u2019s the deal when you\u2019re married to a songwriter. I still fall for Susan every day. I\u2019m so grateful that I\u2019ve got someone who, when she walks into a room, I think, \u2018Woah! I\u2019d better get this right, because she is hot.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The couple have two daughters, 26-year-old Grace and Mae, 23.<\/p>\n McKagan believes his attitude to marriage and fatherhood was shaped by his parents, Mac and Marie, divorcing when he was a youngster. He writes movingly about their bitter arguments in new song I Just Don\u2019t Know, which features the line: \u201cI heard the yelling from the living room.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy parents\u2019 divorce was a million years ago and I don\u2019t blame them for anything,\u201d he insists. \u201cBut the way I grew up still influences how I think about how to behave.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Guns N\u2019 Roses\u2019 stars Steven Adler, Axl Rose, Slash and Izzy Stradlin (Image: Getty)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n \u201cI have three sisters, so I grew up with the right attitude around women. I had to, else I would have got my ass kicked. Seeing what my parents went through, that also made me have the feeling of: \u2018Honey, I\u2019ll never be unfaithful\u2019 when I met Susan. She\u2019d had some bad boyfriends before me and being in a rock band gives you a certain image, so my wife was, \u2018Okay, sure. We\u2019ll see.\u2019 But I think I\u2019ve finally convinced her after 27 years that I\u2019m on the level.\u201d<\/p>\n I Just Don\u2019t Know also describes how McKagan quit school in Seattle when he was 15 in 1979 to pursue his dreams of being a rock star. He formed his first punk band, The Vains, the same year and played in a succession of groups before joining Guns N\u2019 Roses when he moved to Los Angeles in 1983. \u201cI left high school early because I just knew I was going to be a rock star,\u201d he grins.<\/p>\n McKagan, who now lives back in Seattle, admits he was blindsided when his addictions slowly became more important than his music.<\/p>\n He reflects: \u201cI just wanted to be in a successful rock band. That\u2019s the same for everyone. I don\u2019t think anyone goes into music hoping they\u2019re going to be an alcoholic or a drug addict. That wasn\u2019t part of my plan.<\/p>\n \u201cThe trouble is, there\u2019s no manual on how to deal with success once it happens. No-one sits you down and says, \u2018Here\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen, steps one through five.\u2019 It\u2019d be great to be shown: \u2018Here\u2019s how you can deal with it.\u2019 But even if they had, you can still choose to be a dummy and fall for every clich\u00e9 going, because that\u2019s what happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Despite that troubled past, McKagan is eloquent and chilled out in equal measure these days, though new song Just Another Shakedown is blistering and furious punk with a contempt for out-of-touch politicians educated at wealthy universities.<\/p>\n But McKagan can afford to relax a little about his lyrical abilities, after none other than Bob Dylan praised the song Chip Away from 2019\u2019s previous solo album Tenderness. In a rare interview with The Wall Street Journal, Dylan said: \u201cIt\u2019s a great song that has profound meaning for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Guns N\u2019 Roses had a huge hit in 1991 with a cover of Dylan\u2019s 1973 classic Knockin\u2019 On Heaven\u2019s Door, and McKagan laughs: \u201cGetting that praise was stunning. I woke up to a whole bunch of messages on my phone, including a text from Axl saying: \u2018Dude, the Bob Dylan thing!\u2019 Reading that made me relax about my lyric writing, because I thought. \u2018If Bob Dylan says that, I must be going in the right direction.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n [ad_1] Guns N\u2019 Roses bass player Duff McKagan (Image: Getty) As one of the most glamorous bands in music history, Guns N\u2019 Roses epitomised cool, both through their long hair and flamboyant dress sense, and making rock classics such as Paradise City, Sweet Child O\u2019 Mine and Welcome To The Jungle. They were a classic …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[766],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Guns](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/35\/590x\/secondary\/5013618.jpg?r=1697396417851\" "\\"Guns")
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