2021.02.27 - Beneath the Bassline documentary - Interview with Duff

Transcript:

Duff: So when I was discovering bass sound, like getting my own sound, I kind of took sort of like Larry Graham, Sly Stone, what stuff I grew up to, mixed with Paul Simon on sound from London Calling, a little bit. I don't know if you guys remember a band called Magazine. He had the chorus on his bass. That's how I got the Chorus on my bass. Early Prince records. A mixture of all this, Cameo and Killing Joke. All that stuff, that's what's going on in my head. I want a mixture of all those sounds. That's what I know bass to be. That's what bass is. And I was a drummer before and a guitar player and now I'm a bass player. So I kind of mixed all these things together. And didn't have enough money to buy the stuff I wanted to get until we got our record advance for our first record, Guns N' Roses did. And I had already eyed it all at the Guitar Center. "I want that bass, that head, then I had a cabinet. And I want those strings." And I'd been close to my sound with this other gear I just kind of put together, but suddenly I had like pro gear and the Chorus pedal, Ibanez Chorus pedal. I'm good to go.

Duff: Slash and I always do these things when we play together. I love our chemistry because we have a thing. He taught me a lot about playing just because you have these riffs that were too tough for me to play as a beginning bass player. So I would just work on these riffs and it made me a better bass player. It was basically like doing scales and I didn't know any scales. There was Slash riffs, those were my scales. And it gave me dexterity and I started, so he and I, if you hear like early days, we just, him and I, go into a riff together, the same riff. I'll play the bass line with him and then we'll break off. Whether it's Guns N' Roses or U2 or any band that you like, that you discover how to write songs together, you believe in the same vision, you have a shared vision and you matriculate that vision and people start to come in and believe in your thing. And you make a record you wanna make and you tour and you work hard. And suddenly, you know, a lot of people are into it. And it was an amazing run. It was a volatile band at times, a lot of times. And we went off into our own little camps eventually, kind of all those typical things you hear, and we were like that, we fell into all the sort of trappings of that, and like people coming in driving wedges and all that. But at the end of the day, I look back, and especially writing about it, I just appreciate all the guys in that band and what we did for each other as young men coming of age. It's only the five of us who really experienced that whole thing and only the five of us really understand what happened. We accomplished a lot. We wrote a lot of songs, recorded a lot of songs, and it was great. I'm glad that was part of my life.

When signing:

Duff: You're gonna get this on camera too? Is that all right? Yeah, yeah. So you make sure it's not just some other guy signing him.

Duff: My favorite Spinal Tap moment, I'd kind of forgotten about this, but somebody, oh, Snake reminded me of it. You know Snake from Skid Row? He goes, "Dude, do you remember," I saw him recently and he's managing Loaded. He works for Doc Wiki. So he's managing my band. He remembers everything. Snake remembers everything from the tour they did with us. Like every day, every gig, every city, I'm like, "How the hell do you remember all that?" But I had this belt, this killer big belt that had crosses on it and a buckle and this chrome hearts belt, I wore it every gig, I wore it everywhere I went. And we had this stage, we had this grated metal stage, take all around the world with us. And I did something, I kind of like, if it got wet out, that stage would get slick and cowboy boots, you know, you'd slip. And I slipped and I fell, and one of my crosses went through with one of the grates of the... So there I am, we're in the middle of a song. So I'm stuck and you got like, roadies trying to undo my belt, and I'm stuck and I'm trying to play, and I totally forgot about this moment, and finally I had to take the belt off, like, you know. It's kind of like the Stonehenge, mini Stonehenge coming down.

Duff: The most freaked out I was was I met Prince in like '90 when he was on the Diamonds and Pearls tour. And I think we were like in Berlin and it was we had a night off and went saw him. And suddenly somebody, some big dude said, "You can come back and say hi." "Me? Okay." And that freaked me out. I met Paul McCartney, you know, when we played Live 8 here in London. You know, you play three songs, so you got three songs, you got to hit your nut really quick in front of all of those people. No time to warm up. There's like, everybody was playing on it. So there's a lot going on backstage and the Who's there and Madonna's over here and the Pink Floyd's gonna finally play and we hit the stage and up on stage there's Paul McCartney. And he looks at me and he goes, "Hey, Duff." And so the whole, you gotta hit your nut, you gotta be comfortable. But all I can think is like, "Paul McCartney knows my name. How the hell did that happen?" But yeah, I've really been able to like meet my heroes and it's been a pleasure to find out that those guys who are still around, they're around because they worked hard and they're good guys, you know. I've met some really, really good guys who are my heroes.

Full documentary can be found here:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/beneaththebassline/517386497

Transcribed the two short videos.