2011.04.02 - Artisan News - Duff McKagan Loaded Movie Combines Beatles And Scandal

Voice-over: Duff McKagan has mixed the world of the Beatles with the world of scandal thanks to Mary Kay Letourneau. The former Guns N’ Roses and current Velvet Revolver bassist is in the process of working with Jamie Chamberlin to film a movie based on The Taking, the new album from his band Loaded. Duff admitted that it's the closest thing he's come to a concept album and he thought the visuals should go right along with the audio journey. Chamberlin has been working with Duff to film several vignettes, including one for the first single Dead Skin. He talked about how the movie idea came about.

Duff: We had made all these webisodes on the last Sick record. We made all these pretty funny webisodes, and we thought we would just make a movie like a one of our webisodes but long, like a webisode on steroids. But as it turned out, like, my little idea – I told Brick, my manager, I called him “We gotta make a movie.” And the guy, Jamie Chamberlin, who had just made a ZZ Top film, a DVD that came out last year, he lived in Seattle - he lives in Seattle. Next thing I know, we're sitting there with Jamie Chamberlin, and he's like, “I can make this film.”

Voice-over: Duff sees it as a Hard Day's Night type of film.

Duff: He got our humor. We didn't think he’d… how would he get our humor? But, so far, the vignettes that we filmed are really, really genius and they look amazing. But does he get our sense of humor, like, does he get that we don't want to really make a movie? We're not actors, and my idea was sort of like a Hard Day's Night-ish type of thing where the music's just playing and we're going through all these sort of vignettes – although there is dialogue in Hard Day's Night, maybe less so with us.

Voice-over: He added that there are plenty of cameos, including Mary Kay Letourneau who was jailed for her love for a minor that she eventually married.

Duff: There's, like, some great cameos, genius comedic cameos by rock personalities and other personalities, and it's kind of taken – in the Northwest it's kind of really taken its own life and the mayor of Seattle wants to be in the movie. And Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher who married the student, the kid – hot teacher, right? So she thinks she's making a cameo in the movie, which is genius. You know, that's… you can't really buy that kind of stuff.

Voice-over: Duff McKagan’s Loaded will release The Taking on CD April 19th, but a week earlier on vinyl, through Eagle Rock Records. The band is hoping to have the movie done in time for the album's pending deluxe edition and for submission to film festivals. Stay tuned.