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APPETITE FOR DISCUSSION
Welcome to Appetite for Discussion -- a Guns N' Roses fan forum!

Please feel free to look around the forum as a guest, I hope you will find something of interest. If you want to join the discussions or contribute in other ways then you need to become a member. We especially welcome anyone who wants to share documents for our archive or would be interested in translating or transcribing articles and interviews.

Registering is free and easy.

Cheers!
SoulMonster

2024.09.24 - Corriere della Sera - Duff McKagan: "I was lost in cocaine and alcohol. Today I sing the beauty of the future."

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2024.09.24 - Corriere della Sera - Duff McKagan: "I was lost in cocaine and alcohol. Today I sing the beauty of the future." Empty 2024.09.24 - Corriere della Sera - Duff McKagan: "I was lost in cocaine and alcohol. Today I sing the beauty of the future."

Post by Blackstar Wed Oct 30, 2024 11:18 pm

Original article in Italian:

https://www.corriere.it/spettacoli/24_settembre_24/duff-mckagan-ero-perso-tra-cocaina-e-alcol-oggi-canto-il-bello-del-futuro-1b485a63-5c37-45ad-8d5b-83286daedxlk.shtml

Auto-translation:
________________

Duff McKagan: "I was lost in cocaine and alcohol. Today I sing the beauty of the future."

The Guns N' Roses bassist will be live in Milan on Oct. 16 with the tour of his third solo album "Lighthouse."


by Barbara Visentin.

Songs about life, about the lighthouse each of us follows to navigate through existence: Duff McKagan is best known as the bassist of Guns N' Roses, the emblem of rock and transgression, but over the years he has built a solid solo career, demonstrating a mature and inspired writing style: "I read a lot of books and try to structure albums and songs as if they were novels," he says.

For "Lighthouse," his third work following "Tenderness," which he brings live Oct. 16 in Milan, he started with the very idea of a lighthouse: "Each of us has a point of reference. When I got sober, for example, I clung to martial arts. But it can be a friend, the dog, parents. On this record, the lighthouse for me is my wife Susan. So there are love songs and then other songs where I wonder what's next. Other ones revolve around an idea I've developed over the last 10 years, and that is that people are much better than what our politicians or social media would have us believe."

McKagan's first solo record dates back to 1993, to the crazy years with Guns when the sobriety he hints at was still a long way off: "That work, 'Believe in Me,' is an effective polaroid of when I was in the midst of my addictions, it's the record of a guy who was knowingly nearing death. You can hear cocaine and alcohol in my voice and you can hear how lost I was. It's a record that really pinpoints what I didn't like about myself," he says. "I didn't like having addictions, I didn't want to be stuck in that world, and so it's a good reminder.

The point of no return came the following year: "I ended up in the hospital with pancreatitis, and the collapse of my body was what allowed me to break free. I had time to get sober and realized that this was my second chance. Then I spent two years alone, figuring out who I was. When I met my wife, I became the person I wanted to be. I was able to look myself in the eye, which I couldn't do before. Today I am a survivor, I have two great daughters, I have made so much music. Life since then has been really good."

McKagan, at 60, writes a lot: "I have at least 75 songs ready. Some others I keep for Guns and send them out to the guys. I don't feel the need to have a separate identity outside the band, but creatively I really need to get pieces out."

One of his tunes, "Chip Away," was even praised by Bob Dylan in an interview, "That was crazy," McKagan comments, "I don't know him personally, I mean, he's Bob Dylan. With Guns we did a cover of 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door,' but to my knowledge he has never made any reference to it. Yet I woke up that day with tons of messages, I didn't understand what was going on. I got a text from Axl (Rose, frontman of Guns N' Roses, ed.) and he said, "hey man, did you see that?" so I read the interview. It was really special. I wrote him a letter and sent him the deluxe version of the record, I don't know if they ever got to him, but anyway, I thanked him."

Guns chapter? "There are plans for the future," he says, "but as is our habit we don't talk about them. They will happen when they happen." Meanwhile, if he looks around, he recognizes that the landscape of rock bands has changed: "I try to look for new ones, sometimes I find some, but I don't know if the same ability to focus is there, and that's a little scary. With Guns we used to play a lot. When things got serious we would rehearse twice a day. Today the idea of trying to become great at your craft, well, I don't know if that's still there."
Blackstar
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