Duff on VR, GN'R & Rock N Roll Hall of Fame

Joe Bosso of MusicRadar.com recently conducted an interview with Duff. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

MusicRadar.com: If my calculations are correct, next year Guns N' Roses are eligible to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

Duff: "Yeah, there are a lot of 'ifs' in that…

"I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't know it was coming. I've been made aware of it. I don't sit around and do the calculations: 'Oh yeah, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, that's where I gotta be…'

"So yeah, I guess we could be eligible. But I think it's a real 'cross-that-bridge-when-you-come-to-it' kind of thing. I haven't done any thorough thinking about it or reaching out to anyone about it.

"My only experience with the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame was when VR played it and we were inducting Van Halen. That whole band was supposed to be there, including David Lee Roth — we were going to do a song with him. It all started falling apart in the two weeks leading up to the gig. It was sad to watch…

"We were just the innocent band that was there to play Van Halen songs, and we saw their whole thing crumble. To see Michael Anthony and Sammy Hagar show up, when it was supposed to be everybody... Michael and Sammy were really cool guys and good sports about it, but they took all the heat over the situation. A lot of heat.

"I don't know if I want to set myself up for heat. It's going to be a debacle, isn't it? A press debacle. I just don't know what else to say about it, Joe. I have to come up with some good quotes!" [laughs]

MusicRadar.com: Let's talk about Velvet Revolver. I spoke with Slash before the holidays, and he indicated to me that things would be figured out soon. [McKagan laughs] Then, around the start of 2011, rumors circulated that Corey Taylor might be the new vocalist.

Duff: "We recorded a bunch of songs with Corey. I think he's fucking great. Whether he's in VR or not…'cause I'm at a point where I can see things with a bigger view, you know, it's not all about me… I think he's the best voice of a new generation. The best rock 'n' voice out there. He's got a lot of positive energy. I'd be proud to do anything with him.

"But the truth is…I can't see Velvet Revolver happening till fall, maybe. Slash is touring, I'm just starting to tour… We'll just see. Joe, I just don't have an answer. I don't."

MusicRadar.com: On to another group — GUNS N' ROSES. Last year, you played with the band in England, but afterwards — and I want to make sure I get this right — you said that you felt it was a mistake to have done so.

Duff: "It wasn't a mistake. Everything happens in life for a reason. See, I have a another business that has nothing to do with music at all, and my partners are with a London-based firm. As a result, I go to London from time to time. So I'm in London on a business trip, and the hotel manager is showing me and my wife to our room. Nothing's odd at all, everything's fine. Then the manager says to me, 'You're playing tonight.' And I'm like, 'No, I'm not playing.' He looked at me strangely, and then he said, 'Is it going to be a problem if your room is next to Axl's [Rose]?' And I said, 'No, there won't be any problem.' At that moment, I said to myself, 'This is the time when it's gonna happen, that he and I reconnect.'

"You know, say what you want, but some of us guys went through a bunch of shit together. You can't take that away, and you can't put yourself in our positions. People have quipped wise about our situation, but what it comes down to is that you're in a room with a guy you went to fucking war with. Everybody said we wouldn't make it, that we sucked. We played gigs to three people. But we believed in ourselves and we got huge, and we went through all of that together, too.

"I hadn't talked to Axl in some time, but you know… I'm a grown-up. Martial arts has really taught me how to deal with a lot of things. The biggest thing is, Don't be a pussy. Not just with that situation, but in general — in life."

Read the entire interview from MusicRadar.com.

Adler: Singer "wasted a lot of our time and a lot of our money"

metal sludge
In a video interview with Gary Gittelson of Metal Sludge, Steven Adler talked about the recent exit of the Adler's Appetite's lead singer, Rick Stitch.

"I think he went about it the wrong way, 'cause I didn't even find out that he quit the band from him, I found out from someone else."

"Right now we're still going on with our tours. Our tour starts May 5. We have other singers that we've been talking to — even before he decided to quit, we were talking to other singers. And we wanna get more of a solid guitar player, 'cause the one that we hired for the European tour wasn't as solid as we thought."

"It's a shame that the singer we were working with decided not to work with us. Because we're going into the studio in the next three weeks, which he's gonna miss out on. And what he did to me personally I didn't appreciate. We were planning on him being in the band — that's why we did the recordings with him. So, basically, he wasted a lot of our time and a lot of our money. In fact, if he was gonna do it that way, we would have thrown him out a long time ago, we would have never used him."

"I think he's an asshole for doing it to me, or doing it to us. But God bless him all the same. . . I haven't talked to him yet. That's the kind of person I'm dealing with. I found out that he was quitting the band because somebody told me he saw it on his Facebook. I had no idea. So you can take any story you want out of that, 'cause that's how it happened."

"The next person that we work with is gonna be... obviously, he's gonna be a better singer, and a better all-around person that what we were dealing with."

A Hard Day’s Night Meets Inception in Duff McKagan Movie

gibson.com
Former Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan is making a film to coincide with the release of his band’s new album. Duff McKagan’s Loaded is releasing The Taking on April 19.

“We’re making a movie for it which is hopefully as funny as we think it’s going to be,” McKagan told The CelebrityCafe.com.

The rocker said that the movie is about the band’s drummer being kidnapped, that it takes place in one day and that it might be a dream.



“We kind of act [in the movie],” he said. “It’s kind of A Hard Day’s Night/Inception… is it a dream?”

McKagan also talked about his hatred for reality television, despite being on the E! series Married to Rock.

“If you notice in Married I love my wife. I do. I love my wife. It's no secret around my house since reality shows came, it’s [expletive] garbage,” he said. “Then my wife [says] ‘They want me to be in a reality show.’ ‘Good for you, honey. Go do that thing.’ ‘But they kind of want you in it, too.’ And I’m kinda like ‘No. Nuh-uh. Why do they want me?’ ‘Well, it’s called Married to Rock and you’re like the rock that I'm married to.’

“So I’m married and when you’re married when you’re right, you’re wrong and when you’re wrong, you’re wrong. So if you notice in that show I’m kind of like only in it… But no, it hasn't changed. I hate reality… I don’t watch any of it.”

Oh My God (Evader Remix)

in their own words 2

"Rock musicians, like the guys in this band, anyway, are all such fucking sensitive and volatile individuals. That's where the drug problems have come from."

-Slash, 1992

"There was that rape charge, which is basically old news ... Three of us supposedly OD'd. We had been busted on drug charges in England and had been dropped from our label. I was supposedly this bisexual heroin addict who had AIDS and was into small animals. There's been a rumor a week about this band ..."

-Axl, June 1987

"It's strange, but tragedy and pain seem to dog our career. A lot of weird shit happens to this band. We seem to attract it. I dunno, I can't help wondering if the reason Slash and Izzy were so strung out on 'certain substances' recently was their way of attempting to hide and numb the pain they felt."

-Duff, June 1989

"The only thing that bothered me was the drug thing. I've dabbled in it and everything, but nothing like what you hear that they do! When I went into it I thought I'd be walking into an opium den!"

-Matt Sorum, September 1991

"Drugs were doing me in. I felt like shit all the time. I went somewhere where I knew I couldn't score, I had some Codeine with me and a few Valium to take the edge off, and I basically sweated it out. I made it through the 72-hour period but then I started drinking like a fish. I gave that up as well a couple of months later. I've been told that alcohol's no good for American-Indian blood which I've got in me. Alcohol really does fuck me up. It makes me crazy. I become impossible to deal with. I knew that I couldn't afford to fuck up anymore. I'd used up all my 'Get Out of Jail Free' cards."

-Izzy, 1992

"Axl is just another version of the Ayatollah."

-Slash, 1986

"I must say that Axl has fucking balls."

-Duff, January 1990

"I sing in about five or six different voices that are all a part of me, it's not contrived ..."

-Axl, June 1987

"Before, Axl used to be one of those guys who, if he thought someone was looking at him weird, would just haul off and smack 'em. And sometimes, y'know, the people he went for weren't even looking at him."

-Izzy, October 1991

"Axl's, you know, a different kind of cat."

-Matt Sorum, September 1991

"Maybe it would've been best for the purists if we'd died or broken up."

-Axl, 1992

"It's a brotherhood."

-Duff, July 1991

"This is the most highly organized unorganized bunch of people in the whole world."

-Axl, January 1991

"Steven Adler's sacking will be the last line-up change we make. The current band is it. I wouldn't want to see anyone else go."

-Slash, October 1991

"We may be fuck-offs in life, but we're not fuck-offs in the studio."

-Slash, September 1991

"There's no way of getting this band in any kind of regimented routine."

-Slash, October 1991

"There's only one photograph of the six of us in existence, can you believe that? Getting all the members of Guns N' Roses in the same room at the same time is very difficult."

-Matt Sorum, October 1991

Chinese Democracy Can Now Be Yours For Just $1.99

via Blabbermouth
BEST BUY, which was the exclusive US retailer for Axl Rose's decade-plus-in-the-making album Chinese Democracy, is offering a special deal on copies of the CD. You can now purchase the album via the bestbuy.com web site for just $1.99.

Chinese Democracy was a commercial disappointment upon its release in November 2008, selling just 614,000 copies in the US so far, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The CD was officially certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 3, 2009 for shipments in the United States in excess of one million copies.

Best Buy paid $14 million for 1.6 million copies of the album, according to Hits.

Aside from Billboard and Spinner interviews and answering a number of fan questions at a GN'R message boards, singer Axl Rose has done no promotion for the album.

Guitarist Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal threw cold water on remarks by fellow Guns axeman Dj Ashba, who was quoted as saying at a party in Los Angeles late last year that the band was "throwing around a bunch of ideas" for a new album. Thal took to his Facebook page to set the record straight, saying, "We've yet to get in a room and write as a band. (I) know Dj mentioned something about a new album, but don't want y'all expecting anything soon. Other than old unreleased songs, songs need to be written, jammed, recorded, tweaked, re-worked, re-recorded, mixed, re-mixed, mastered, re-mastered, art, new art, label approval, a game plan from the label that Axl approves . . . not as simple when it's on such a big scale . . . Just don't want ya getting frustrated if a GN'R album doesn't happen quick."

Chinese Democracy came out 15 years after its predecessor, 1993's all-covers-album "The Spaghetti Incident?". It took more than a decade to record, during which every original member of the band except Rose was replaced and four different producers were used.

Nevertheless, Rose hinted in a 2002 interview that the lengthy sessions for the record had left him with enough material for two follow-ups.

Discussion.

Rick Stitch and Alex Grossi Quit Adler's Appetite

via Blabbermouth
Vocalist Rick Stitch has left Adler's Appetite in order to concentrate on his Los Angeles-based original project Ladyjack.

Stitch's Ladyjack bandmate Robo (guitar), who was filling in for Adler's Appetite guitarist Alex Grossi on the latter group's most recent European tour, will not be continuing with Adler's outfit.

Grossi recently left Adler's Appetite in order to focus on his work with the resurrected Quiet Riot.

"I am extremely grateful to have had the experience of writing, recording and performing with Steven and company," says Stitch. "But it is now time for me to concentrate all of my time on Ladyjack."

As reported earlier this month, Steven Adler will be returning to VH1's Celebrity Rehab, for its fifth season.

Remaining Adler's Appetite members:

Steven Adler (Guns N' Roses) - Drums
Michael Thomas (Faster Pussycat) - Guitar
Chip Z'nuff (Enuff Z'Nuff) - Bass