The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - #685 - Duff McKagan

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

Duff McKagan, a musician and member of bands such as "Guns N' Roses" and "Velvet Revolver" (to name a couple), singer-songwriter, and author, joins Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt LIVE in studio. Duff's new album, "Tenderness" will be available May 31st 2019.  This podcast is brought to you by: Stamps.com -  Use code JOEY for a 4 week trial which includes postage and a digital scale. Go to Stamps.com, click on the Radio Microphone at the top of the homepage and type in JOEY.   ZipRecruiter - post your job to 200+ job sites with a single click for free at www.ziprecruiter.com/church  

When I was about 19, 1983 around there, one of my buddies's dad was fucked up. He was like a degenerate gambler type, drunk type. And he, I guess his father had gone to Atlantic City and came back out off the bus in Union City. And he went into the fucking bus station or the cab place complaining, talking shit. And they threw him out. They bit slapped him or whatever. So my friend, it was a sweetheart of a guy, came to the bar where we were hanging out. He goes, guys, I'm going to pinch.

My father got beat up. I want to go down there, the Venge's fucking beating. Getting a fucking car, and I'll buy drinks later. He was like a bartender, so he was going to take care of us. So myself, Fernie, Pelican, like two carloads of people go down. We pull up, and he gets out first, and he's the orchestrator. He's the Stevenson guy. He goes, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I just came down here to have backup. I'm going in there first. he goes, I'm going in there. Give me the fucking bat. So he takes a bat. Now, this place, the desk to the cab company and all this shit, I guess it was a cab company that the guy bit slapped him, was facing the sun.

So they would put like a sheet on the window and the glass so you really couldn't see inside what was going on. It was like tinted windows. We could tell that there was people in there. So my friend John takes the bat and he goes, I'll be back. And he walks in and we could see that he, goes in and he swings the bat one time and the guy smacks him takes the bat from hits him on the head

with the fuck in his own bag the guy you hear like like one of those things the guy comes out holding his head you know and then we are like half laughing and shit we're like what the fuck happened and my buddy asked him he goes what happened to you who are you Mickey mantle because he was holding on to his hat anyway I thought it was funny when it happened this 30 years ago who gives the fuck greetings from podcastville you bad motherfuckers. The church of what's happened now is brought to you by Stamps.com.

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C-H-H-R-C-8's at ZipRecruiter. Dot com slash church The Smarter Way to Hire Lee, kick this motherfucking meal. Oh shit. It's Monday, cop suckers. We got Duff McCagent. We got the Christ Killer

and your uncle Joey Diaz. It's a beautiful day to be alive, Duff McHagin. I got you in studio. You look good. You look healthy. You look beautiful. Thank you. And that's it.

What's happening? Yeah, Chris, man. We just lost, like, two years ago. Yeah, it was two years yesterday. Yeah. I seen somebody put it up. That's why I was like, we got to, you knew him from Seattle. Yeah.

You knew him before you came down here? I did. No shit. Yeah. And then his, he was, Susan Silver was pregnant with, with Lily, when my Susan was pregnant with May. So they, we had two pregnant, you know, wives together and had little babies. So his oldest daughter is Susan's? Yeah, Lily is 18.

The one he was bringing on stage and singing with her. That's his second oldest daughter. No shit. Yeah. So you knew those guys. Was he really a cook at one of those places that sell salmons? We were all cooks, man. What was the name of that chain?

I think he was at Roy's bait house. It's actually Ray's Boat House. Ray's Boat House. Yeah. Roy's bait. And then what was the other one that just sold salmon and shit like that? Ivers. Ivers.

Yeah. Ivers killer. Yeah, I mean, that's how you, like if you were a punk rock kid or whatever in Seattle, you did construction and you were a cook. You were in the back. So he started as a dishwasher because we had blue hair, we had whatever. We weren't presentable to be a waiter, a bus boy. You had to work back behind the line. And so all of us probably are great cooks to this day, you know.

And you knew him. You knew the guys from Allison Chains, the Pro Jam guys. Alice Chains guys I met later because they were down to Tacoma mainly, like when they were starting up. I left in 84. I'd heard about Allison Chains starting up. I did meet them. When I moved to L.A. in 84 and when those bands started to get big, Pearl Jam and Alice, Soundgarden, I was like the Seattle welcoming committee, you know.

So the first time Alice came and played in L.A., I played at God at the stage. I played with them. They came to my house afterwards for like three days. Pearl Jam guys as well. So I knew, yeah, of course, I mean, Seattle, you've lived in Seattle. Yes. And you lived there back in the 90s. It was very kind of provincial, you know, very close-knit music community.

It was that way in the 80s. and Seattle was kind of way off the beaten track, especially in the 80s, you know, before the Internet and all of that. Punk bands would come through, Black Flag came through, DOA, of course, from Vancouver, B.C., but we were way up there, and people thought we lived in teepees and, you know, whatever, in the 80s. And that made this really close-knit music community. We were always sharing ideas and sharing equipment and garages.

to rehearse in their basements or whatever. And, you know, it rains there. So you spend your time in basements honing your craft and creating weird music that, you know, you don't know if the rest of the country's into. D.C. had their scene with minor threat and bad brains. L.A. had their scene. San Francisco had their scene.

Seattle had a scene, but nobody else knew about it until it kind of broke in 88. I didn't even know Seattle existed until the Supersonics. Like, in the playoffs, like, 79. when I was a young kid. I was there. I went to one game with that. Jack Sigma? Jack Sigma,

just going into the Hall of Fame. My favorite player was downtown Freddie Brown. Come on. Drinking a brown bag at the end of the bench. You shit. The coach would put him in like Freddie Brown with down eight. Go do your thing.

He was built chubby, five foot like nine. They had him at six one. That was a lie. Dennis. He was like five foot nine. Yeah, but Dennis Johnson. Dennis Johnson. You had the wizard, his brother, Gus Williams.

Oh, man. Oh, come on. Ray Williams' brother, he was playing in New York. Seattle, when I was a kid, that's how I first got attention to Seattle. Yeah. I was like, that place is fucking nuts. And I'd watch downtown Freddie Brown. And who did they lost to the bullets?

No, we won. You beat the bullets. That's what it was. We might have lost a year before. Okay. But we won that. That was our only championship until the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. That was our only, like, Seattle championship was the 79.

Supercellets. Isn't that stadium the Seahawks, like the loudest stadium in the NFL or something? They kind of designed it. Seattle's loud. You know,

like rock concerts and everything. It's always been like this. And I think that's built out of like, because we are so far up there that we wanted to make sure like bands knew that we appreciated them. And the same is true with like sports. Like the Sonics games were the loudest.

And then they kind of took this loudness of Seattle and constructed this football stage. where the seats come, it doesn't make good radio, but I'm making a steep V shape. It just comes straight down to the field. So it feels like the fans are on top of you, and it's sonically super loud. It was weird because that what brought my attention to Seattle.

I liked how they played basketball. So I'm like, I'm going to have to go up there. I'm going to have to go up there just because of the basketball. Good team in 95, too. Now I'm a kid. Now I'm a fucking kid. You know, I'm 1312 when they first went. 77 yeah we're the same age yeah I'm a year older than you so I remember being a kid playing basketball

I would write down Gus Williams's move and go to the basketball court and shit you know there was no camera in those days on your phone and then write down the move I'd write down the move while I'd watch it amazing and I put like a number to it and the whole thing and then I looked at when I got into comedy in 91 the best logo in comedy was Seattle like somebody had put made put time into this fucking logo and it's like the towers the twin the there's something the sky whatever the fuck it is space needle

and it was like a face on top of the needle and it bent over and I'm like you know what man I've always wanted to go to Seattle this will be it for comedy and then boom the music yeah and then once the fucking music I was living in Denver and I'm like I gotta get to Seattle I mean

this is the weirdest story I'm like I gotta get to Seattle I gotta get to Seattle and I meet a fucking girl in Michigan and she goes, I'm going to Seattle. And I was like, you know, I'm fucking going to say. I mean, I was like, come get me in Boulder. And she sure fucking did. She came and picked me up in Boulder.

We went to Seattle. And by the time I got up there, you know, Sound Garden was huge. Yeah. You guys were the Kings, right? 95. You guys were on top of the fucking world. Yeah.

And that's what's crazy. Like by the time all that Seattle music came out, fucking. Guns and Roses is just huge. Yeah. One of my all-time favorite videos is Sweet Child of Mine. MTV didn't really have a lot of videos that year. And Sweet Child of Mind was on MTV two times an hour every fucking hour.

And I was going to get locked up that August. I was going away to prison. And that's all I did all something. It was work, call home and watch MTV. And even when I got locked up, I took that cassette in with me. Nice. Of appetite for destruction. What a life you've had.

So you got a GED like me. What made you quit high school in the 10th grade? I was playing music. I mean, back then you did do-it-yourself punk rock tours. I was in a band that started like going up and down the coast and going other places. School wasn't really, like, you know, 8.30 to 3 o'clock school wasn't conducive with me having a lot. job because you have to have a job if you want to be in a band you got to buy gear you got you got to rent you know whatever you got to do so um i was the last eight kids too i think by that

time my mom she saw that i was when i said i'm going to leave school i was going to go to alternative school right but they didn't have a lot of those when we're grown up they had nova they had this place called nova so i i got into nova and i didn't really really really go. That's when I just, I kind of became a lifer in music. Once I left, like high school, was when I said, okay, well, you've made this big movie better. Be all in. You know, you can't just quit school and be some loser dude. So I really went all in on, I was playing drums then. I was playing guitar, then. I was playing bass then. I was trying to figure out which I was going to be my one. Was it going to, was like, I made a drummer.

About the same time, I'm about 16 years old, heroin came in to Seattle. This is 80, what, 81, late 81, early 82. And it really kind of, this brown tar heroin came in to Seattle and kind of took out everybody I was playing with. It didn't hit me. I had done drugs and stuff earlier, like really young age, like middle school, you probably did too. It's our age group.

12, 13. hot and we moved on to acid. Acid of sixth grade. Yeah. Meskeland, remember. Cinebinol. Canineal. We had everything.

And in Seattle, we could pick mushrooms on the way home from school. You know, we knew how to discern Liberty Caps from every other mushroom by the time you're 13 years old. You're an expert on, like, mushrooms. And so by the time I was 16, I kind of went straight edge. like a really bad asset trip I had a really bad mushroom trip I'm like okay I'm done I started having panic attacks and I thought it was from all the psychedelics so I um I wasn't like going to a A meetings I just stopped everything and it was just so into music and that's what I that was my drug about the same time heroin came in and it took out like guys in my band this band we just like

we were poised to make that next move we were we toured with black flag we toured dead kennedy's which is you're on your way up in that day and age, right? My roommate that I had a house with, he got strung out. About 18, my girlfriend got strung out. And at 19, I was at this point. So it's 1984. And a friend of mine who was strung out, he said, man, if you don't leave now, you've got to go somewhere.

You've got to get out of here. You're like our hope, you know, and I'm my little group of friends. And my car, I didn't think it would make it. It was a 71 Maverick. I had a slant six engine. I bought up a 300 bucks. Like, New York's 2,500 miles away or whatever it was. L.A.'s 1,200.

I've been to L.A. and played. So I just headed south. I moved to L.A. Now, how long, what would you do the first couple months in L.A.? I mean, I was busy. job first at Black Angus first day I was here, like on the way. I drove in, this is how green I was,

I drove into down over the grapevine, got it to Northridge, the 405, right? Got in Northridge, I see lights. I must be in L.A. I didn't really know the layout of L.A.

I only played like the Cathay de Grandin Hollywood and some other, you know. So I'm here and I pull off way out there and get a job at the Black Angus. I'm in LA. I had a resume. I was a cook. I had a good resume with, I got a job right there. I'd been driving for whatever, 20 hours. But when you're 19, you can do anything. So I got a job after that shift. I asked. You worked right then? You started? Yeah. Yeah, man. Got a job. What are you going to do? Oh, give me some time.

No, you start. Okay, I got a job. I only had like $260.60. So I didn't have enough to get an apartment. I knew there would be a little swing time in there. So after that shift, a guy, an older cook, like a front line cook. I said, how far is Hollywood? He asked me if I could give him a ride home.

I'm like, I'll give you right home. Where's Hollywood from here? He said, Hollywood, man. That's like 25 miles away. So it gave me directions. and I went to Hollywood that night, slept in my car for the first couple weeks, like washed at work.

You know, finally it was able to get an apartment at this really cheap place behind the Chinese theater. The Olympics had just left L.A., the Summer Olympics of 84. So what I didn't know, you know, now I have all this great leisure of retrospect, right? this great knowledge of retrospect. The 84 Olympics, what the LAPD had done is cleaned out L.A.

You ever heard about this? Yes, I was here. I came before the Olympics. I came and my uncle said he'd get me a job with the phone company. Okay. For the Olympic. Now, comedy was not on my radar. Right.

Nothing. Entertainment was not on my radar. I liked movies, shit like that, but there was no way it was on my radar. And I came, I think I stayed a week, and then we got into a beat. He said I don't think you really want to stay for the job and I left But then I was here and I saw I was just in shock. I had come to LA a lot when I was a kid to visit my uncle My mom would send me to Disneyland and SeaWorld and all that shit But when you live on the East Coast your impression of LA is beaches and blondes and bitches And next thing you know I'm saying fucking I'm in Glendale with it looks worse than Newark New Jersey right and I'm like what the fuck is this is a pipe dream

Right. There's a beach, but then there's all this other land that looks like a bomb fucking hit it, you know? Yeah. So without our disagreement, I got the fuck out of it, but I didn't, I would have to go around in buses, and I saw how filthy it was. Like, I went to Hollywood one day when you got to pick up music or something, and I looked around Hollywood, and I'm like, this is fucking Hollywood. Yeah. It was just awful. Yeah.

So what the, I guess what the, it's well known now, but the cops came in and they cleaned out Hollywood. and cleaned out the place where people for the Olympics would be. They want to make L.A. look great. And so I guess they shipped like homeless people to Arizona or Orange County, got the hookers out, got the drug dealers out, cleaned it up for that whatever it is, two months, that the Olympics are here. And unbeknownst to me, I moved right after the Olympics, September 14th. And the cops just left.

And so everything came back into Hollywood. It was like the Wild West. I got, but the good side of that was rent was super cheap. Nobody wanted to live there. And so I got an apartment for, I mean, it wasn't cheap to me. 200 bucks a month was a lot of money. But I had my own place. It was cockroach infested.

There was the, you know, the police helicopters all night long. Like just, you know, it would be right next to my apartment. Whatever's going down. I hear people running by my window. You know, there's bars on the windows. It was culture shock. from Seattle for sure. But that first, so I got a job.

Yes, what I did. There was a newspaper called The Recycler, which was you could get everything from, you know, washing machines and lawnmowers, cars. It's still around, isn't it? It might be still around. And it comes in like little magazine things as you're walking out Hollywood and you can open it up.

Right. And they had musicians wanted musician things in the back. And I went through this, like, what am I going to do? And there was a guy named Slash. You know, Influent, needed a, bass player. I had a bass. I don't think I had it. I might have a little lamp. Influences are aerosmith and fear and Alice Cooper. I'm like, that's right up my alley. Punk rock was the hardcore kind of coming and taking punk rock out of what it originally was,

which was this kind of open thing where everybody was invited into this more restrictive, uniformed thing by 84, punk rock was turned into this other thing, well documented. So I looked at this aerosmith fear, Alice Cooper, the guy's name was Slash. And I thought, my name's Duff. You know, he's a punk rock guy now

looking to make whatever's next ours. And I went and met Slash and Stephen Adler down at the Cantor's restaurant. Wow. They had a bottle of vodka. And we just talked about music. blue hair. They had this long hair and it was that again was kind of culture shock. I'm sure I was me walking in with like this, I had this my pride. I still have this black and red like John

Shaft, pimp long leather jacket and blue hair and had anarchy A on the back of the jacket, you know, classic. And so I think we probably shocked each other, but we all talked to same language as far as music went and I went to slasher me back to his house that night a few blocks away his mom's house he played guitar and I'm like you're not old enough to play like this like I'd never see anybody play like he plays like he does now he played like that then how old was he that we're 19 so you all kids yeah and it you know again I told you before we started this like slash mom was really like cool and generous with me and I mean, I didn't feel like a young kid.

She saw me as a, you know, a boy alone in L.A. up to me. I'd toured punk rock tours, done all this stuff. I was ready for what was next. But she remained in my life and my wife and kids to come later on in their lives, too. But then I met Izzy. Things happened pretty quick, you know. Izzy moved into the shitty apartment building across the street from mine.

I saw this guy looks like Johnny Thunders. He's got like the long Pimp jacket too. He's at the phone booth. And we talked and he goes, I'm starting to expand. Me and my friend is the singer Axel. And I'd seen Slash had taken me to see this gig at the Trubidor where Axel is the singer of an early version of Ellie Guns. And I saw this guy come out and he was like Henry Wollman.

You know, he was that intense and real. and like I backed up a few steps like one of those guys and I love I still to this day I love the people guys are girls that scare me somewhat you know where I take a couple steps back because I love that intensity Iggy had that you know Henry Rollins had that

bad brains had that Axel has that anyhow long story short we started playing all five of us together within maybe four months of me being here. So now it's 85? It's 85.

I think our first gig ever was June of 85. I could be completely wrong. Someone's going to call in and say he's totally wrong. But I think it was June 85 of this, of that five. Now, at this time, Motley crew was ripping it up. On the Sunset Strip. Who else? Different world.

That was like, they were huge, all those fans. Mali crew, rat, all those type bands were ripping it up at that time. Yeah, they were a few years older than us. Right. I think we really thought whatever we were going to do was going to be completely different. We were going to start something new. And there was that, it wasn't much of an age difference, but was we had kind of come up from it in a different time than they had. Than they had.

Even the five years difference of age was huge. It's huge. So we definitely were being our own thing. Like we weren't paying attention to Motley Crew or rat or anything that was going on the sunset strip, which if you came here in 84, you saw all the posters and all the, you know, like it was, it was weird, you know, like kind of almost corporate rock, rock bands, you know. to us. It seemed that way. They had money to make posters and all this like elaborate stage show and and um we were really more edgy and uh connected I think to the street because

that that's where we lived you know we eventually got a place together behind the guitar center it was just a room wasn't the garages it was like it was a storage space it's still there it's still there it's still there I drove down I lived there on Gardner. Okay, you did. When I moved to Gardner in 90s, 8, that's the first. I mean, there was hookers in front of the building and, you know, it was fucking discussed. Was a traitor or Gardner?

Gardner. Gardner. Gardner. Gardner. Gardner, Curson. Yeah. Sierra Bonita. Yeah.

And Vista. Yeah. Those of the street. And then they got Alcomadre across. Yeah, yeah, which up, my wife and I, we were visiting Shooter. We'll get into Shooter in a minute, I'm sure, but Shooter was producing, uh, Shooter Brandy Carlo, we're producing a Tanya Tucker record at Sunset Sound. So they invited Susan and I to come by, come and meet Tanya and check out this song.

So we go down. This is only a couple months ago. So we're down there. We have a good time. My wife's drinking tequila with Tanya Tucker. It's just amazing. You know, and Tanya's what a force that woman is. And Susan and I leave, like, let's get something.

Let's go to El Compadre. Haven't been there since the 80s. No. Let's go. And we get there, and it's, they have ballet parking now. Yes. Do you know this? Yes.

I went by that. It's fancy. That's why I don't stop no more. Yeah. Because they have a valet park. I used to go in there and when, you know, it was a fucking wild wild western. Totally. You go in the bathroom, there's Coke on the floor.

Fucking, they would close it down. Oh, I left my Coke there? Yeah. It's a crazy place. But I used to stop there on Mondays and I get the chicken marito. Sure. Fucking delicious. Kurt Fox, the comic,

go to get the chicken burrito. So go to get the chicken burrito. And it's just a, but now... The margaritas were super strong. Yeah, the margaritas were fuck you up. Yeah. And so we went to go there, my wife and I, and then we, Paul,

I'm like, I got the secret entrances in the back in the alley. I go in the back in the alley. That's where, like, there's an outside lounge, there's valet parking there. There's like, sir, it's a 45 minute wait. I'm like, what?

45 minutes. So we didn't end up going. yeah, it's busy now. Yeah. That's where professionals are only. Everybody else goes to the standard that wants to mingle. If you want to get fucked up and see the devil, you've got to go to Elkhampadre

and meet crazy women and the waiters are doing blow. It's still. You can't get your order of food because the waiter for God he's in the back cut to Graham. And when he comes to you, he's fucking sweating. The guy playing the guitar was the Coke salesman. So he would come to the table and you throw money into the hole and he would pop up his arm and a Coke rome.

Rock would fall out and he'd go to it was crazy I've seen them carry out who's the big time director now that did pulp fiction I seen him carry him out of there like somebody had punched him with a hammer like two Mexicans had them around their shoulder they were just dragging them they took the keys out of his pocket just drew him in the front seat that's how crazy I've seen that place yeah I mean when we were there this is 85 86 it really it was just like our clubhouse like alka potter across the street when we had enough money to go or somebody said we'll take you over the Al Capadre but yeah it wasn't we could just walk in then yes you know in the daytime it's wide open you see we can afford cocaine so I didn't know if the waiters were had the cocaine

was coaching horses still there was there at that time two blocks up I don't know we didn't wander up you just stayed behind the guitar center sunset grill you know what I mean yeah all that shit yeah denny's was down the block yeah we filthy fucking denies it's like the it's the it's it's that restaurant aroma aroma now it's not denny's anymore no what do i know across the guitar center that way it's yeah it was a filthy denny yeah but it's 99 cent breakfast man yes it was no no it wasn't filthy as a sense of the food i was in there eating like late night one night and some crack hook i just sat next to me instead of playing with my hair that type of yeah oh yeah like when you're eating breakfast. Somebody just sits next to you and says, do you want to date that type of

fucking dirty? It was dirty in that. Oh yeah. If you can't handle, like you got it, you already knew what you're getting yourself into, I'm sure. But if you, at 19, I knew what I was getting myself into. It was, wow, it was culture shock in LA. Like, none of that kind of stuff shocked me with the crack hooker. Like, I moved my second apartment when I moved on up to like a $260 dollar apartment. I moved up to Franklin and El Cerrito. So now I'm out from behind. I'm out of the cockroach building. Really bad cockroach problem. Like I got used to cockroaches crawling over you at night. You get used to, you got to sleep, right? You get used to whatever your environment is. You turn the light on and get up with your LA weekly and try to like, you know,

there'd be a thousand of them, you know, scattered. But you got used to. So I moved to. So I moved to, to this building without as many cockroaches. And this is 80, whatever, five or six. And Sly Sten lives above me. This guy helps me move into my apartment. He lives next door to my. He goes, what are you moving in? I'll help you move in. And it's this guitar player guy who became a really good friend. He showed me opening tuning and I wrote It's So Easy like that minute, West Arquine. He was kind of connected to our band from that moment on until he passed away. But he goes, yeah, man, Sly Stone was upstairs. I grew up to Sline the Family Stone. Like, that was music of that that flavored my youth. It was playing in our house, James Gang, Sline the Family

Stone. Like, what do you mean he lives in this shit hole? Like, yeah, he's got hookers and he's selling crack and stuff. And that's one of, that was my first aha. moment like I just thought sliding the family like Slice Town would be living off in some fancy mansion somewhere you know and that was a good lesson I of course ran into him he ducked into my apartment one time to take a hit of crack somebody was after him I'm like okay he gave me a demo tape one time and I wish I knew where that was it was a lot of it was just crazy music but some of it was amazing I'm going down rabbit hole here Rattle holes here, sorry.

No, no, it's great. But I'm like, oh, wow, so Stone lives here. Like, what happened? You know, crack. That's what happened in that case. But I don't know if I was getting at. Well, we're just talking about the chronological order before type of destruction. It must be kind of crazy because when you move, like, I've been here for eight years in L.A.

And to most people, that's nothing. and it feels like not that much time but then when you look back at what you did you're like oh shit like a lot of stuff has happened and to think about you like you were talking about like you go back and forth between Seattle and L.A. now and then hearing about a $200 month apartment

where you got used to cockroach as much Yeah it blows my mind it's like wow it's like what you went through when you're starting is crazy man I got Empitaigo I thought I had because I had my piece of shit car. I always had to work on the engine. Like, you know, I remember replacing a master cylinder. I didn't know you had to keep the things under pressure. Master cylinder is your brake thing. You have to keep

the hoses under pressure. So I pull out, I go to the junk guard, find a master cylinder that matches mine, right? It cost me 30 bucks, whatever. Bring it back. I'm going to take out the old master cylinder and put in the new one. That's for your brakes, right? But the hoses and the brake fluid, you have to keep under. So I take this thing out and all this. brake fluid goes flying so then you have to find remember those books on your your cars right remember what your car is you got to see all the fucking equipment that's needed and what what it costs and it'll tell you what you got to do I'm like you gotta keep the things under pressure and if you've lost the pressure you got to do this whole other thing my point to that is not how to

fix a master cylinder in a 71 goddamn maverick it's uh it said I thought I like I'd rubbed up on battery acid like the battery too many times I started getting these like, well, it seemed like battery burns all over me. And I met some woman, her dad was a doctor, and he said, okay, you got battery acid burns on it. Like it's like on my waistline. Like you use, you know, whatever it was, baby powder. Something tried that, it got worse.

And she's like, oh, you should probably go to, I don't know, a free clinic or something. Her dad was a pharmacist. That's what it was. It's all coming back to me now. I put the impetigo out of my fucking brain. Empetigo you get when you're extremely dirty. I go to this free clinic and I've been keeping myself clean, you know, but my apartment was fucking dirty.

Like you couldn't clean the felt out of this fucking place. And in Empatigo, it's like a thing third world babies get. It's this like bacteria. So I got Empatigo from that first apartment. It wasn't battery acid burns. And like to you, was it exciting? to be in Hollywood even though you were in that shitty apartment. Like you thought Northridge was, that's like, it's like the summer.

Oh, when I got the apartment. Yeah. Like, were you like super excited to be there? I'm like, I'm in Hollywood. It wasn't like the movie. I wasn't in Hollywood for the movies. I wasn't in Hollywood for, I didn't know what fancy stuff was. I didn't grow up with fancy stuff.

So all of that was out of my head. Like those, you didn't go up in the hills because that was fancy stuff up there. Might as well not even go look at it. it. I was here for one reason. I was a lifer in music and I was there here to find my band, you know. So having my apartment was, yes, much better than living in my car. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Did you have any doubts at that time? With any doubts about going to Seattle and you always could get a job at Roy, whatever's, and cook? No, I couldn't do it. This is it. Yeah. I couldn't come back with, you know, my tail between my proverbial legs.

You know what I mean? I had to do it. And, you know, people have asked me, like, what do you tell a young musician? I mean, if you, I couldn't breathe if I wasn't doing music. And I tell anybody young, if it makes it hard for you to breathe to not do music, then you're doing the right thing. You know, if you've got some backup plan,

it's not going to work. It's not going to work. If you got to, I didn't have an option for college. I didn't have an option for, things, you know, which was I wasn't mourning that it wasn't like, I didn't know any different. None of my other brothers and sisters had the option either. They went in the Vietnam. They went in, you know, whatever. So, no, I was totally dead set. I was for sure of myself and with what talent I had, I knew, at least knew how to like spot other talent, I think, was, and I

saw Axel when Izzy said I started in his band with my friend Axel. They'd come out from Indiana so I knew they were in it too. They had no backup plan. You wanted to find those people. And I'm like Axel, man, I saw that guy.

That guy's super intense and met Axel. You know, we started playing and we got Slash and Stephen in and that was it the moment we played our first. And you rehearsed behind guard. We finally got that spot. That's where the rehearsal.

We were in Silver Lake. Yeah, and then we got that spot, which I think that spot was like 300 bucks a month or 400 bucks a month. But no bathroom, no kitchen, no. Just storage, just to go in there and lock yourself and in play. And live, yeah. All these. Yeah.

At certain times, all of us. Our gears there, we built, we went to a construction site and stole some lumber and built the room. I mean, the place wasn't much bigger in this room. No, no, no, I know those garages that. We built a little loft, like above our amps, like a sleeping loft. It's tremendous. When was the first time you saw any success with Gundam Roses? When did you feel you were on the right fucking path?

Well, that was, we just kept writing songs at that point in playing little gigs. Three people, you know, five. And the three people was like West Arkeen, his girlfriend, and the guy that's, you know, our buddy who has a big enough car to put our gear in. But we started, we just kept writing songs and playing more and more. Axel was super, he's like, super driven guy. He just had a bigger worldview or our band. Like he's like, we're going, this is going to be our next step in the next step.

next step and like, okay, that sounds amazing. I don't know. We're just writing songs in our shitty little place. But we started drawing more and more people and getting better gigs. And it was so, like, to us, like it didn't, it happened over, we made like a mailing list. We did all this stuff to, like, push our band. We'd go after fans, you know, like, keep on them, get their address. mail on flyers, you know, get the money for poachers, poachers stamps. All you do is fold up the flyer, tape the top, put a stamp in their address, and mail it to them. But we toured, we made, you know,

we got signed to Geffen. On the stipulation, we could, we had all artistic, you know, last word on everything. Nobody could touch our music. No, we would pick the producer. or we'd pick the mix, we did everything, pick the singles, all of that.

So that was a good feeling. It wasn't success necessarily yet. And we toured for a year and a half on the record, opening for everybody, you know, with like seven people coming to see a band. And we started to break in the UK. And that was a great feeling over there going and played. We went and played the marquee, which is tiny.

And then the next time we played, we sold out Hammer Smith-Oadion, which is a big theater. And that's quite a jump. So that was maybe the first time I felt like, oh, we sold out the Hammersmith, Ode. And we were going over to Japan, Australia, Australia, and getting some movement there.

In the U.S., it was such a big market, really commercial. You know, it was like rock set, Madonna, White Snake with that big record. But we were nothing like... That leopard had a big album. Death Leppard. 86, 87? Yeah.

You guys released in 88, correct? 87. 87. December of 87 or something? I think it was June of 87. But the album took a long time to catch on. If you thought it came out in 88, because it took a year and a half.

It took, because I got sentenced in 88, and by that time you guys were off and running. Right. Everybody knew what the fuck, Guns and Rose as well. Yeah. I bumped into, I bumped into Slash when I first moved here at a, there was a pseudo-comedy club on sunset.

I didn't say much. Then I saw him again at the comedy store. Didn't say much. Then I got on the plane with Rogan to go to Vegas, 98, maybe. And I saw him on the fucking flight with us. I didn't say nothing. I went to the hotel that night. I had insomnia.

I had no weed in Vegas. No money. I was broke. And I said, let me just go for a walk. And I saw Slash. was like a game convention or a comic book or something to do with something, you know. And he was at the bar, and that's when I said he's by himself.

And he'd go up to him and ask him. And I went up to him, I remember going, you know, I love your albums, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What really happened with Axel? And, you know, he could have told me to go, fuck myself. And he goes, you're a comedian, right? I go, yeah, he goes, are you hungry right now? Are you?

I go, yeah, I'm not having a hard time. He goes, remember these. times. So when you get successful, you can look at this and see that you did the work. That's all that counts. I want you to remember that you did the work, you know, that you put in the hours. And that resonated with me. For this day, it resonates a lot. And from what you're telling me, it seems like the guys that you got very lucky because the guys you were in the band went had the same dream you had or even more powerful, that lifts you. That's got to be lifting. You have to find the right. In a year we're going to be playing the Hammersmith,

whatever the fuck, and you're like, how much dope did you do last night? But then you go home and you're like, maybe he's got a point. Yeah, you know, somebody asked me about this, and I've never, fortune, maybe, I don't know if luck, if there's luck involved, you put in the work, you put in the 20-hour days, you know, day after day, we rehearsed twice a day. We were all in. Like we didn't have hobbies. We didn't have other things that were outside. It was all about the band. And you were like a fan at that time.

Yeah, we were like a gang. Yeah, you guys just hung out together, fuck chicks together, the drugs together, starved together, all of that. Put everything went into a pot. That's a... That's a big thing to learn in life. Yeah, and we were separate from...

We felt separate from everybody else in Southern California, not just L.A. And we were like this little gang, you know, we protected each other, we did all that stuff. And so, you know, we, I think we wrote the right songs. We were really super hard on ourselves with writing. We wanted the best thing. You got your feelings hurt a lot in a band situation. You're not a solo artist, right?

This is like everybody's wanting to make that song the best. So that riff that you just brought in, you just something in your band just like side comment, that sucks. you know, and you're moving on. You got, you can't, you got to grow thick skin and, and serve, like, the song and serve the band. And so when our kind of number was up, it wasn't a lucky break. We had just done all the work and, you know, maybe fortunate that the timing of our songs and subject matter struck a chord with the rest of, when it finally got out,

struck a chord with the rest of the rock world, you know, the kids our age. These were, we were, it was finally kind of like a truthful voice of, um, what was really going on in life. Kind of like the NWA record was a couple years later, you know. Um, so I think that was it, you know, um, but we were all super driven. Like, we would have done anything for the band. Was it weird that you found, like, it sounds like these people were the first people that you met in LA. Like, to me, it would seem that you would go through like five, six different.

different bands before you found no I was I played I was playing with other people in Seattle or in LA too in LA okay I was you know I was meeting a lot of people slash wasn't the only person I found them recycler I just like you like opened it up saw him and went to canters and that was it no there was no real idle time in my life you know I'd work finally got a job in Hollywood um so I was playing music all the time but this was the thing once I think once it was Axel and Izzy we started playing together it wasn't slash and Stephen at first. Was the two other guys?

Slash and Stephen were with Tracy Guns? No, Tracy Guns and this guy, Rob Gardner, were in guns first. Okay. Right, and we booked, Izzy and I booked this kind of punk rock tour because I was used to doing this West Coast. I knew all the club guys and the crash houses where we could crash.

It was all done. We had a guy who would drive our gear. We got U-Haul trailer. And that was kind of the shit or get off the pop moment for guns in our history. Tracy and Rob were just like, I mean, I'd never done like a tour and like didn't put. These are punk rock tours then were not like exactly knew we were going to sleep that night. You didn't know exactly how you were going to eat. But I'd done it so many times.

And Izzy and Axe were like, okay, let's go. We got gigs book. let's go and those two guys, Rob and Tracy, just basically last minute, we're not going to do it. That just sounds too, you know, winging it. And to me, that was normal. Like, these were normal things you did. That's what you do. And that was, we're not canceling this tour, man.

And that's when we got together with Slash and Stephen. But more than that, that, When we got together with those two guys, it was the first three chords we played. It was like, oh, that was the best move we've ever made. And we were off to the races, we went and did that tour. Well, we only made the first gig, which was in Seattle. A car broke down in Bakersfield, so we hitchhiked the five of us to Seattle. You know how far that is, right?

We hitchhiked. Oh, my God. Who picked all five of you up? 1,100 miles. We hitchhacked? thousand miles we were eating onions out of the onion field and like bakersfield and uh we had thirty seven dollars all right between us so we went to the truck stop and there was a trucker there guy was tweaking out of his mind on crank he said uh we said we need a ride we're going to

Seattle. He goes, I'm going to Medford. How much money you guys got? Medford, Oregon. Yeah. How much money got? We got 37 bucks. All right, give me your 37 bucks. And I'll take it to Medford. And the guy was, we all got in the cab, you know, like the sleeper, like our guitars. And the guy did. He got us to, he dropped us off at one point in Sacramento. It was like 110 degrees, man. And we're at the like the capital building on the lawn. There's water fountains and stuff. and the trucker takes off for like he's dumping this air man but I think he just went to get more crank

and sure not if he came back around got us like in an hour or two got us to Medford we hitched we got one ride from Medford on the I-5 you know this Mexican guy was this little pickup but we all got in the back

and it was rubbing the tires and he's like I'm sorry you guys he took us like five miles his back tires are smoking. I'm sorry, you guys. It's going to ruin my truck. I wish you the best of luck. And then these, so we're out there,

you know, now we're north of Medford somewhere. And we're hitchhiking. And this pickup truck, a real one, like a regular size pickup truck with a cab in the back. These two women in the 30s, so they were old to us. They said, you guys, where are you going? in Seattle. He said, well, we're going to Portland. We could take you that far. But at this point,

I'm like, okay, I'm thinking I can call a friend in Seattle, come down to Portland to get us. And we get in the back of these girls pick up. It was like that corrugated back, you know, cab, but they had a window up to the front. And they said, you guys, they said, look, we passed you guys. And then we turned around and came back and got you because we used to hitchhack and we were hippie girls. Nobody would pick us up because of the way we looked. And we just did that. that to you. We passed you. And then we talked and we said, we just passed people that were like us. We passed them for the same reason because they don't look, you know, they look different. And they're really sweet. I wish I would have remembered their names because they, they,

you guys hungry. We're fucking starving. Okay. We're going to stop it, get some gas. We get you guys some sandwiches. Just come on in the store with us. They got some beer. You know, it's just like angels picked us up. And at that, gas station, I called collect to my friend Donner in Seattle. I said, man, we're on a mission. Dude, we're a headjack and says, it's Bakersfield. Can you come get us in Portland? He's like, I'll do that. And not only that, I'll throw you guys a party when you get to Seattle like nobody's ever seen. So we get to Portland, there's Donner. He picks us up, these women, dropped us off. Good luck, guys. You know, never got the trucker's name. He was so tweaked out on

on meth, I don't know. We got to Seattle. There was like this house party, like beyond house parties. There was barbecue and, you know, booze and chicks, everything. And it's like I've got to welcome my new friends, you know, Seattle. Like, this is our band, especially after that hitchhiking trip, we were a band. Yeah. Like, don't fuck around with us.

It's over, yeah. Yeah. The gig we played in Seattle, our gear didn't make it because I, the car broke down so we borrowed the fastbacks gear who we were open up for a band i used to play and play drums in um there was nobody there we sucked um but it didn't matter at that point didn't matter what songs were you doing then you remember i know you remember you're a fucking genius well we were doing like we had jungle we had those songs yeah we had and we were playing um like we have a new box set that came out last year and it has all these sound city demos we did and

That kind of gives you a good indication of what we were playing. Like Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis, like the Speeded Up version. Reckless Life off of our first EP. Nice place. Don't play rock and roll by Rose Tattoo. We were playing covers, but we had our own song. We had a good grip by that point, like eight or nine songs. We played it probably played Don't Cry, Jungle.

Of course, now in Seattle, like 2,000 people said they've been at that gig. That first gig we played, there was only actually three people there. We sucked. I'm glad people weren't at that show. But that was, and we got back to L'A. We couldn't do the rest of the tour because the guy who had the car with the U-Haul and our gear, the car never got fixed. He was trying to get it fixed.

Our hopes were he'd get it fixed. Meet us in Seattle. We'd be able to do Portland, Eugene, Sacramento, and San Francisco, but we never did. But we made Seattle. And we made our way back, and we did our show. Somewhere we got back because we had an LA gig at the end of this tour and it might have been the troubadour It might have been opening on a Monday night for two other bands. That's where you start there And we did it man. We came back like changed people

I think and a united band and how long from then till you have to record now don't cry you already had don't cry then Why didn't you put that on? Right Yeah, there were some songs from before. I mean, there was, Axel started November rain. He had this, like, thing. All the way back then he's time November?

He had this piano. Like, anytime we, the thing is, we didn't have piano, right? So anytime we'd get around a piano, he'd start playing this thing. And he had, like, this melody. He might have had even words. But, yeah, when you don't have a piano, like, how are you going to develop the song?

And he did over those, like, four or five years. He developed by the time we made the illusions record, he'd had this whole thing. But there was bits and pieces to all kinds of songs. We just sat in that, stood in that, lived in that little room and just wrote song. So don't cry. Yeah, it was, why didn't we put it out on Appetite?

I think probably Sweet Child, but took presidents. Sweet Child's a remake, correct? Well, you guys wrote that originally. We wrote that. We wrote, okay. Yeah. There was something else I thought it was a remake, Oh, live and let die later on easier illusions?

That's what it was. No, no, no. I thought, for some reason, I just thought, uh, sweet child. Oh, no. Cheryl Crow fucking did it. Oh, yes. That's why.

That's who we did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I listened to that album the idea down the plane. Uh, the second or third Cheryl Crow, my favorite mistake. That album. Right. She put it on that one. That's who we did it.

She did it, like, for a soundtrack for some movie. I remember getting the license request. Like, okay. I think that was first time. So we made, remade, it was like 94, right? 98. It was a 98, okay, what do I know? My time.

You have so many, like, listen, man, you're, why I wanted to get you is, you're not like most musicians. Every musician has their own path. You do something that I believe in a lot. I forget who said it now. McCart, they're one of those guys that, moving to area in the area with excellence. you know, you, like you just said it earlier, even though you were hanging out with slashing those guys,

you were hanging out with other guys too. Like you've always been, when did you cut out? I mean, you know, in 90-91, guns was the biggest out in the world. You know, Use Your Illusion. One and two came out in November that year. And something like that, 90. If you say so. Yeah, yeah.

Like it was like one and two. Bert and I, Bert Kreisner and I did a podcast about a year and a half ago. and we went off on the guns. Like, I didn't know Bert, like guns. Burr Christi, do you know that? That's a comedian. Him and I just went off. Like, we started playing videos.

Like, it wasn't even a podcast. It was like, yo, MTV Raps. We just kept playing, you know, don't cry and all that, use your illusion stuff. And we got so many fucking emails because a lot of people don't remember, you know, a lot of the young kids today didn't listen to that shit.

Right. You know, they didn't listen to that. They listened to something else. We got nobody had, I mean, I'd love. them TV and even that you guys put those videos out and just flipped them TV they were like fucking ballads like a short movie it's like you know don't cry and what was the other one November rain the strange fucking beautiful I mean you guys just

took videos and flipped them now your first solo album was 93 that you uh was it yeah 93 you're right right right right the tail end so I was basically making um demos really like for the next guns right record or whatever, but I was a drummer, right? So I played drums on the record and I played bass and I played guitar. I got some guests people to come in. But we were traveling on that Allusions Tour was massive. And I took a little solace, like got out of the fray of the tour by getting little studios in Dallas or wherever the hell I recorded that record. I was pretty out of it. when I wrote those songs and one thing led to the next.

And somebody at Gafflin said, well, you just put out a solo record right at the end of this Illusions tour. And, you know, if I were to look at myself then, from where I am now, I said, no, you're going to go get clean, which did eventually happen to me. So I went out and toured straight after the two and a half years of illusions. I got a band together and we went out back to Europe opened up with Scorpions on a big like tour

did a bunch of our own shows did some LA I did some U.S. dates we were set to go to Australia I think and the gigs were doing really well you know we went to Japan

came back we were supposed to go to Australia and something like I was I just woke up on day I just bought my house in Seattle. Like, finally back home on. This is it, man. I finally got the house. Like, in the neighborhood, we used to steal cars from, you know, like the other side of the tracks.

I got a house there. We lived on the other side of the tracks. But the other side of the tracks for me was, like, this neighborhood on the water, like, with big houses. And I was able to get this house there, this house on the lake, you know. We used to steal boats and cars and everything from this neighborhood. but and I got this house and I had like a bed. My manager got me a big screen TV back when they were huge. So the box from that TV came in was my couch in this house.

Like you just sit on it right and you make it a couch. And I woke up one day and I had like what I thought was like a sharp kind of gas pain. And I've rolled over like trying to get it out end of gas pain. It's just spread across my whole midsection and dropped down into like my right top of my quad and was everywhere and I couldn't. I moved again and it spread like over across the rest of my intestines and I knew something was really wrong. And I couldn't reach over to, I had a phone next to the bed. And I couldn't reach every movement just hurt. It was like dull knives pouring into me.

and I couldn't reach the phone to call 911 and I just laid there and I'm like, this is it. Whatever's wrong. I had no idea it was wrong, but then this is it. It's over, you know? And I was kind of thinking that day would come, just wasn't sure when. And a lot of thoughts came to my head then. Like, man, part of my whole dream wasn't like when I was 16 and 17 and 18 saw my friends

getting strung out. Like that wasn't part of my dream. becoming this bad. It was just to play music. It was all the things I just told you about, like moving to L.A. finding your band, doing that thing,

being able to, like, hitchhike 1100 miles and being aware and write the songs and do the stuff and do the work. And here I was. I couldn't even reach the fucking phone

next to my bed. And my best friend, Andy, who's still my best friend. We've been best friends since we were three. He came out, I heard him downstairs. He came, my car was in the garage,

so he knew I was home. My keys and my wallet were downstairs. So I'm here, I'm like, where are you, man? Where are he? He comes up to stairs, and he sees me on the bed. He's like, oh, fuck. Finally happened. I was bad for a few years before that.

So he got me to, there was a doctor, like two blocks from my house at an office. And this doctor, his dad had birthed all of us kids. So it was the doctor's son, had become a doctor. going to the doctor's office and uh and it's like i couldn't talk right i could barely move like and even the car ride just getting down from my bedroom extremely extremely painful took me in the doctor's office there there's nobody in there the doctor came you know okay how much is what's he been doing like what's he and he's like i don't know you know and it was like i wasn't even there they were having

this conversation i couldn't talk shot me up with two shots of d'ameral i didn't knew what that should do. It didn't do shit. And so they took, Andy got me to Northwest Hospital. The doctor said, you'll get them there faster in the ambulance. We'd call on, like, go now. I'll meet you guys there. And they got me into, I mean, I took me into the emergency room. I was laying on the ground. I couldn't move. And they got me in and shut me up with morphine and all kinds of stuff. Did it? My doctor arrived. they did an ultrasound. They didn't know what's going on, but he had an idea.

Like, I was alcohol, it was drugs. It was, it took my heart. My pancreas had expanded the size of a football burst. So it was all the, like, the enzymes that digest your food were on the outside. So it was just eating up, you know, the outsides of your testings and stomach and quad muscles. That's why I felt it down there. So what they do, you know, I mean, it was very beyond serious at that point. My doctor, they were going to go in and take part of it out.

I would be on dialysis at best if I didn't, you know, die of shock from the pain at first, right? I'm hearing all this stuff going. I signed the guy, the surgeon comes in. I signed the thing. I'm like, just, I told the guy, said, just kill me. I can't take this. Like, I'm on morphine. Now I'm starting to have withdrawals from alcohol, right?

So they give me a librium in the other arm, right? Because you can die from alcohol withdrawals, right? This is all fresh news to me as it's going down. Pancorous bursts, the size of a football, there's enzymes on the other that's eating. They're going to, they open up your stomach to let steam out to release some of the pain before you die, you know? Okay.

And I just told the surgeon, just kill me, man. I mean, there's nothing left for me. and um they didn't so i spent a night there like ice chips i had libraum in one arm with the button right and i had a morphine in the other arm with a button buttons on both of them i just pressed the buttons continuously and ice chips are i mean intensive care so there's always somebody there and they did an ultrasound before the surgery and my pancreas has actually kind of come down back down and my doctor said we're going to wait for the surgery and just kept me on ice chips and my room in the morphine and checked again did not ultrasound that night it kept coming down and my doctor by the next day they did

another ultrasound he goes okay listen man I want you to hear me you've been given a second chance don't fucking waste it and I stayed in the hospital for about 14 days that hospital. They moved me out in Tessacara after about five days. They took the buttons away, which sucked. You know, and then I went, but I mean, my mom had Parkinson's. I told you I have eight kids in my family. My mom was much older than me. But to see your mom in a wheelchair, you know, with Parkinson's crying because her son's got tubes running in it. I just, you know, I was like levitated above the bed and I'm looking at her and looking at me and like, but the order of things is wrong here. I should be taking care of her. You know, you failed. You fuck up. You know,

you fucking moron. So that was my calling, you know, like I was like, okay, you've, you're off booze, you know, even though I had things in my arms, you're off booze, you're off cocaine, you're off all the other drugs. Like, this is your chance. Like, the doctor's voice reverberating around my head, don't fuck up. Don't fuck it up. You've been giving a second chance and see my mom and all of that. And it really changed everything, man, for me. And I came out of hospital. They had a rehab for me to go to. And I'm like, I'm done. I am done. I didn't know how to live, you know. But that was a long time ago now, you know, to recall that it, now it's starting to seem like a long time ago. Maybe 10 years ago, it wasn't that long ago. But now, because I think

of, you know, eventually I met my wife. Like, I went, it got. into martial arts after that after rehab no rehab i was i had to come back down to l.A. from seattle i didn't know how to even buy fucking grocery sober driving my car was like are you kidding me all you smelled was brake pads because i was like so fucking tense i was on the brakes and going into a grocery store is like you're on acid you know hearing the voice come out of the thing because you're so sober you're not used to it and uh crumpled up like dollar bill like a sweaty all the time I was riding a mountain bike with my jeans on, you know, because I had to do something. And somebody introduced me to Sensei Benny.

I was going down to the North Hollywood Golds. I was doing everything, riding my mountain bike. Then I would go to Golds, didn't know how to work out. Got some guy that said, there's a trainer there, you know, he can help you figure out how to work out this guy who, was like, okay, man. I said, you know, I've got some issues. My pancreas just burst. He's like, all right.

I worked out there for about a month, and I saw this kickboxer. This guy, Danny, come in. It was a professional kickboxer, and he was doing all the stuff. And the look on his face and all. I'm like, I want what that guy has. And somebody took me two doors down to the back of Sensei Benny's dojo, House of Champions. And there was Sensei Benny, and he could see right through me all the way down. of my core and I started talking and he goes, ah, no. He goes, you want to, you want to,

you want to be a part of this. This is a fighter's gym and you'll do what I say. You'll work hard. And there's not going to be a lot of conversations here. You show me you work hard, you can stay. So I just, man, I was in that dojo two times a day. I just wanted whatever I saw in Sensei Benny's eyes, that knowledge and that depth and the, they didn't seem to be freaking out because they weren't on alcohol and drugs, and they had to calm about them. And I stayed in that dojo. I stayed close to that dojo for two years straight, you know, two days. No touring at time, no nothing. Where was guns at this point? This is 95. This is 94 into 95. I didn't think I could play music again.

I thought, you know, when you get sober, that's the misnomer, right? That's why I didn't quit Coke for all those years. Right. You're not going to be funny. You're not going to be funny or crazy. Yeah. I'm probably talking too much for this fucking podcast. No, I love this stuff, man.

All right. I love this stuff. But, yeah, stay close to that dojo. And I got, I started getting honest, like with myself, which is a turn of events, you know, to be deeply honest with yourself. And you do simple things like you come home to your answering machine, like those calls you wouldn't return. I was returning every call. I was making my bed.

I wasn't leaving dishes in the sink, right? I was like keeping my house clean, washing my clothes. For you to overcome addiction, you have to get your character. Yeah. Your character comes into question a lot when you want to overcome an addiction. Same thing happened to me. Yeah. Same thing happened.

That's what comes back. Is that character that you fucking shot away, snort away, and drank away. That little guy that, when it's you and him, when it's you and him alone, you'll throw the cigarette out the window on Laurel Canyon. Regardless of what, you'll throw a McDonald's fucking soda out the window. You'll litter. You'll do little things that, because guys like you and I always do the big things. Yeah. It was little things we stopped doing.

That's what made us. It's the little things. I tell people on this podcast, I don't give a fuck about your big accomplishment. Give me 10 little ones, and that's bigger. Then I started being polite to my wife. I started all these things. I mean, you went through a couple divorces,

so you could write it off to... They were both before. Before this right. So it's just the things you see. And then you are around martial arts, which is that brings character back. quick when you have three or four gold albums but at the end of class you're mopping down the max you are mopping down you're mopping down the mess no those fighters knew who the hell

i was didn't care they didn't give a fuck yeah they didn't give a fuck they didn't give a fuck no but i finally you know so i worked out i learned this step jab step jab you know defense defense jumping rope doing all this stuff uh my body started really start to change and i was riding my mountain bog I doing everything. I'm like I shed like 50 pounds of just booze weight, you know, in a very short amount of time, like five months. It just fell off. And when you're in hitting bags and jumping rope and carrying a dude upstairs, you know, you know, you're going to do that 50 times. Okay. You know, you're just, you're going to drop the way. The dojo is no AC in it. Upstairs. Upstairs is the golden room, right? It's about 150 and up there. And you're, you're,

you're sparring on the floor, not in the ring yet. Not allowed in the ring yet. You haven't earned the ring yet. You know, you do your stuff up here. But that moment when sense I said you're ready for the ring, it's today. And there's P.D. Cunningham up there getting ready for a fight in Paris. And if anybody knows. I know the name.

I know. He was the best in the world, middleweight. probably the best in the world period at that point 95 um need sparring partners get in pity kind of hand axe kick left his shoulder act kick the right i couldn't jab i couldn't punch you know he's just i had headgear on he's just banging a crap kicking punch and i'm just trying to move trying to give him some work i know that's what i'm supposed to do and i did a couple rounds with him and just beat the hell and he said oh you You could tell your friends you did two rounds with the world champion.

I'm like, okay. I didn't do them very well. Lost all my, like all that. I got beat up. I get beat up every time I got a kickboxing. It's just part of the little things. Yeah. It's the little things because that getting beat up will make you more humble.

Yeah. On the outside. Yeah, I got really humble. You get really fucking humble. And you're thankful for everything. When did you decide to go back to school? All right. So, well, okay, so I met my wife.

So I did start playing music. And Steve Jones, one of my heroes from Sex Pistols, had been sober for a couple of years. And Shannon Hoon, it just died. And there was this benefit for Shannon Hoon's wife and little brand-new daughter, right? And he said, Steve called me. Steve Jones, my hero, I go, hey, you want to play a show with me at the Viper Room? We're going to raise some money for Steve Jones.

All right. Steve, I don't know if I can play music. I'm sober. I know you're sober, mate. I've heard. That's what I'm calling you. He goes, you can play. It's going to be okay.

And Steve, just Steve Jones telling me it's going to be okay. So I went down and rehearsed with Steve and John Taylor from Duran Duran and Soram, Matt Soram. Got the set together and I could play at the rehearsal place just fine. I was playing guitar in this thing, right? Not bass. Playing guitar. But I learned to play guitar. All my guitar wrists were Steve Jones.

Like, now he's going to see, like, and he was, I think at that point, used to people like a lot of. people copped Steve Jones guitar licks. So we played this gig, man. I was scared, but I had, you know, Sinsai and all the stuff. And in my head, I was like, chest up, you know, head up. You know, it's okay.

It's like getting in the ring. It's okay. Like, you're all right. You've done all the work. And I got on the stage, I played the show. People said I played better than I ever had. People thought I had like plastic surgery and like because I'd look so different.

You know, all these rumors, Jones, he's like, yeah, people thought you got a facelift and all. I'm like, oh, what? And but I could play and we started playing gigs and it's called Neurotic Outsiders. And, and so now it's like 96. I still hadn't, didn't know how to be like with a woman. I didn't, that was kind of far off my radar. I was reading books at home, but working out, I was like a monk, you know. But that this, I was out on this tour and this guy. from Thastrow Magazine. I was in Detroit. He's like, hey man, I know you've been, like, sober for a couple years. You know, like, you had a bad time with women. He goes, but I, it's this girl I grew up with.

She just moved to L.A. I'm going to, like, put you guys on a blind date. Like, you guys would be good to God. I've known you since 86. I've known her since she was a kid. And, and she, like, she's a model. but she's like just moved from Paris from New York back down to L.A. And like I don't know if I want to get into that world. You know, like my world is so simple right now because her world, she's like you. She's from Bowling Green, Ohio.

She's really, she didn't get mixed up in all the cocaine and the modeling or all that stuff. She's like, and he put her on the phone. We got to my room, went up to my room, called her on the phone, and she sounded like one of my sisters. I'm really calm, really. I talked to her a few times on the phone

through the rest of the tour, and she came and picked me up at the Burbank Airport. I flew from Phoenix to Burbank. She goes, I'll just pick you up. What she didn't tell me, she didn't want me to know where she lived because she thought I was a, you know, I could have potential creep, right? And never know, you know, with her. She was totally right. So she picked me up at the airport, and it was Susan, it was my wife, you know, and

this woman, this one before TSA and all that. So she met me at the plane and she was all dressed up. I'm wearing like sweatpants and a white feeder in tennis shoes. And she looks amazing. And I'm like, ah, oh, crap. All right. So, hey, listen, can we go to my house just so I can at least change? Like, we can't go to dinner with, I just thought she was going to pick me up and go get some simple thing.

But she was dressed in the nines. And she was the sweetest girl in that first day. She was just like the girl I talked to on the phone. And she was really nervous. You know, I found out, okay, she was, oh, she's Susan Holmes. Like, John Taylor, like, I knew, because John Taylor from Duran Duran was in our band, Outsiders. He was way more into the fashion world than I ever knew anything about.

He's like, man, this girl, you show me pictures of her. Like, this is my dream girl. And it was Susan, it was Susan. And like, I know who you are. I actually know. I've seen pictures of John Taylor's got a big crush. She's like, oh, that's sweet. but she was just as met Susan,

and we kind of not been apart since that first date night. So I, you know, I kind of had like tell her, like my story, you know, and eventually not that night. But over the next couple months, you know, I said, you know, I've been married a couple of times. And I was to die, alcoholic and drug addicts, you know, I knew I was going to die and I was kind of set for it and it almost happened.

And it didn't. Now I do. You see, I go to this dojo all the time. That's my thing. And I'm riding this mountain bike. This is going to be my thing. And by the way, I just got Sonics tickets for like 21 games, courtside. I hope you like basketball.

Because that was, I mean, that was me making it, was being able to get court side tickets. You know, 95, 96 Sonics? Come on. Fuck, yeah. Come on. And she got. and shit that was camp yeah can the rain man yeah the rain man yeah the glove uh hersey hawkins rcy hawkins jesus christ yeah uh we i mean what a team that was and uh yeah uh anyhow i could

go into that team we could spend an hour on the team i'm taking a lot of you guys time but um susan i didn't she got pregnant with great i was now i was thinking about school like i wanted i need to i've been reading all these books i knew i'd made money I didn't know how to ask about my talk about my money. I was kind of averse to money. Really like I didn't ever get into music to make money. But then again, I drew Sensei and stuff in angling in the ring and defense and fight your opponents and fights you and redirect and all of this stuff. I was learning about my own life as well, right?

Take control of the things you can take control of. And my money was one thing, and I didn't know how to ask the questions. So I started taking some business classes. And I got myself into Seattle, U eventually, so it was real long, into their business school. So I went to Seattle to you with my GED, right? And I had taken a couple of business classes, and I said, write you a check.

You know, I want to go to business school. And they said, you can't come here with it. What kind of moron are you? You know, like you have to. So I had to go to, community college across the street at Seattle Central. And they told me which classes to take and they say, get all A's. And maybe it bought you in. And I did. I got all the A's and then

it said, okay, that's cool, do it again. And they told me what classes to take. I did it again. And got all A's. And then they said, we did an admissions essay. What? And I don't know, ask somebody. And so I asked my friend Dave Dieter, who was in President of the United States of America. Those guys all went to Ivy League schools. I've known Dave since we were kids. They wanted an essay from me.

What do I say? You know, like, what kind of essay? Do I write them a story? He goes, no, tell them your whole, tell them your thing. Tell them, your pancreas explode. Tell them your alcohol. Tell them you moved to L.A. Tell them you had this dream.

Tell them, the dream went to stray for a while. Tell me you do martial arts. Tell them you met your wife. Tell them, you got a little baby. Tell them you're on guns of roses. Give them your whole story. tell them the truth. So I wrote this thing. And it was fucking gnarly. But they accepted me in. And yeah, went to business school, Seattle, Albers School of Business. Go Redhawks.

And really my life was getting just so much better day by day with Susan. We had Grace. And eventually we had May, two daughters who are now 18 and 21. So being able to be there and be present and grow every day I tried to at least, you know, learn something new. Or be open-minded to an idea and not be a closed-minded cock sucker, cock sucker. It's funny that you went to business school, you didn't know how to ask for money. But I think that the Sly Stone thing stayed with you. I think that that was on the back of your mind that you did not want to end up like fucking Slibe. stone. Of course. You guys sold. I don't know how many millions of fucking records worldwide. You want to know what? Six year

fucking tour. Yeah. You know, there's got to be a dollar somewhere. Yeah, I mean, I knew I was getting... You just didn't know. I didn't know his hands were in it. That was the thing. You know, I didn't know what a stock or a bond was. I was too ashamed to admit I didn't know what those. But then I when I went business school, I really found out like most of us don't know what those things, what interest rates really mean and how they, why they affect things and what risk what investment actually means

you know what is a portfolio that's a fancy fucking word you know what is that mean and me an investment portfolio so I just took man I took it from the very beginning accounting into

finance into you know macroeconomics microeconomic all of that stuff that you take and I really I moved you know business managers I said, okay, I was able to start reading our financial statements, and nobody really ripped us off, per se.

You know, but there was, it was time for something new for me to start fresh. And I knew what I was talking about as far as financial statements went at this point, and I moved CPAs and started fresh. And you started a company? Well, that was later on, much later on. But you started a company to pay so musicians could sign with you or comedians or whatever. Yeah. And you decide for everything? It was more of an educational.

I started writing for Playboy.com during the financial crisis. I was writing for the Seattle Weekly. I started writing. And an editor at Playboy, Tim Moore, who had edited like Norman Mailer and Hunter S. Thompson, all this stuff. He's like, you would be perfect for this financial column. I know your business school. like just tell people in plain language what's going on so I started this this column as a weekly column at playboy dot com got a lot of feedback people were freaking out you know

people were like selling everything in their 401k like everybody was freaking out and I was just you know I kind of gave people the history of the stock market in plain language if something would come up that week in in the news like These mortgage-backed, you know, these mortgage-backed equities that were there selling, what does that actually mean? So I'd break that down. What does a mortgage-back equity? What does equity mean?

What does a mortgage mean? So I'd break these things down. And that started to get a lot. I started to get calls from a lot of friends like, hey, could you help me out with my money? I'm too embarrassed to ask, or, you know, we all are. Unless you go to fucking business school. I'm like, do you have to go to business school? to actually, like, know what you're talking about?

This is ridiculous. It should be easier than this. So I was thinking of just writing a book of like a simple, like, that we could all read. This is what a stock is. Let's start there. Here's what a bond is. I read one of your books, not the business one.

No. Isn't your agent Bird Level? No. I'm one of the books. Because he sent me. He's a book agent. He sent me a copy of your book. The first one was called It's O'Easy in Other Lives.

The second one. This is the one about your kids. They're both kind of, yeah. There was one called How to Be a Man and Other Allusions. No, that it's that one. Right. That's the one you said before, kind of black coverage. Yeah.

I think I still got it at the house. It was weird because I went looking for it. I have over a thousand books in that fucking house, so I couldn't find it. Yeah, no, I try to read as much as I can. That's all you got. But it's weird that, so you went to business school, you know, you do all this stuff, and now you realize you could play music. Yeah.

So Velvolver. started that thing up. The robber. And that thing did really well. And now, you know, we were all fairly clear ahead. We got Scott Weilin. He got sober and the first record and all of that was really a, we knew how to handle ourselves business wise too.

We were all, you know, all at pretty much all of us at the dojo. You know, it was like we were 40 and, you know, kicking asses. Like we were, you know, again, we were on that kind of where guns was when we were living in the shitty garage because people doubted us. Those guys are too dirty. They're too scummy. They're writing their lyrics about drugs and shit and blah, blah, blah. We got that.

And Vover and Vover and now flash forward 20 years or something, they're too old. They're not in touch with what's going on. They play rock and roll. So we just like blasted this record and kind of the whole mindset of that band was like, we're going to go out and slay, you know? and it did well, you know, it did really well.

At this point, I'm, you know, Susan's now seeing like the rock world. That's the thing. Slash his godmother's name, Miss Susan. Susan? Susan. Little hippie glasses. Okay, I'm looking, I must know her.

There you go. But I don't know where I'm getting to, but. No, but Susan got to see now she was seeing like, and things kind of started going sideways and vulgarral with some drugs and some things and some outside influences and things. And Susan's like, whoa, this world's fucking weird. And she just wrote a novel.

She just came out. She took her nine years to write it. She worked so hard on this thing. But it came out a couple of weeks ago. And it's kind of, I read pieces of it as she was writing it, but she wouldn't let me read it until she had like the final draft.

And she's like, and she took all. all of her experiences from her modeling world. And then kind of like that first thing into the rock world and made this 90s novel that's pretty genius. I'm like, I know you got that story from, sort of. You know? But my point to that is her, like, us having two little girls and there's like rock and roll, like hardcore.

We're touring hard and a lot. And we learned how to be a family like on the road. and how long I can be gone and not gone. If it gets past 12 days, it gets weird. You know, I'll come home for a day. Now the girls are grown. We've kind of passed that. We've been through all these cycles together as parents,

like raising our kids on the road. They've now been able to, they've traveled the world like eight times. You know, they've got that extra education of being world citizens, like seeing there's other cultures, other things going on. but you know also raising our kids through this social media age that kind of came in right when they were like seven and ten like oh shit how do you do this you know cyberbullying all that stuff um but i think from traveling the world you know we got we got guns back together it's like stronger and more pure than it ever was like getting um slash and axe would really like

again like being on stage with them like show me what hard work and being badass is is about and it like instills like that that old thing like how fucking hard we work and we never phone it in it's never like a thing it's always real um but it very interesting we got this like we got our like the brotherhoods back together you know and it gives me this sort of really sense of calm. My girls are now old. They're, you know, whatever they were. They're going to be good, right?

I've got college covered for them. Like, made a 529B for both my girls in business school. So girls, you get to go to college, right? Like, that's what I didn't have. You want something better for your kids, right? Okay, you know, like guns, this thing started, things started change on the news before we went out, like October, November, December, and I got sucked in.

And I read a lot of books. I read a lot of history books. I'm watching the news. I'm getting sucked down these rabbit holes of these panels that are yelling at each other. And they're talking about this huge divide. This is 2015. I'm like, wow, this is really interesting. This divide, but I start to fall into it.

And when we start rehearsing for the guns tour, and I'm starting to follow people like on Twitter. I'm going down the wrong rabbit hole. very un-mey thing to do. My wife, honey, goes, you're watching a lot of news. And you're getting kind of caught up on this, and you should probably stop watching the news. And I made this purposeful switch.

Right when we started that tour in April of 2016, I turned off all the news. I shut my home screen was no longer Yahoo. You know, and I muted all the, I started following people on the news. I was watching the panel member of this guy. And I knew, like they were yelling each other. I knew that was all to sell ads.

I know what the cable news is about. You know, we all know what's going. If you read a book or five, you know, it's like it's a commercial vehicle, right? I went to business school. I know what they're doing. So these panels yelling each other must keep people on the channel longer, right? Divide, divide, all the stuff's going on. So I turn it all off.

And I mute all the people I'm following on Twitter. And I don't even look really at Twitter. I post like Soundcheck. Picture. Sound check and, you know, San Antonio. And suddenly I'm out seeing what I do on tour, what we didn't talk about, on tour. Since I've been sober, I go out and see the things that I read about in history books. And I've seen so much on this planet because of that.

And I talk, what happens when you go out and see, go to Little Bighorn, let's say. You're talking to Park Rangers. You're talking to people. When you go with the alligator guy in Louisiana on the airboat, you know, you're talking about, hey, alligators like marshmallows. Who knew? And then he told me, the marshes disappeared. We were supposed to go down this way, but it's cut off now.

And he told me about how quickly the marshes are disappearing. And all of these things I was doing, like every other day, all around the world, nobody talked about a divide. Nobody talked, and I didn't feel a divide. I wasn't watching the news, and I wasn't doing it. So I didn't have these influences. And I'm going around the world, and I see the woman with the full head covering and Kuala Lumpur, what the devil horns up rocking out.

We're playing these gigs where these gatherings of, you know, tens of thousands of people per gig. And nobody asks who you vote for when they come in this show. No, it gives a fuck. It's bullshit. Yeah. You know what I call the news? Right. Lying the white people.

They just lie to white people, scaring white people. Whether it's the weather. They petrified the normal American. You know, last night, 70, 75 million people are in danger tornadoes. And they show Iowa, and there's nobody standing around. What fucking 75 million? Tell me that you hit in New York, L.A. The news is there to scare white people.

I've said this for years. Really gentrified white people, they buy into the news. And then they go on social media and they spew that shit. And they make it bigger than what it really is. And at the end of the day, it doesn't affect who D.Keehan, Lee Sia out of Joey Dias are at the end of the day. It really doesn't. Joey Dias still has to get up, tweet, fucking feed his kid, take it to school.

It doesn't matter. All that, it's unnecessary noise going into your head that will keep you up at night for no reason. It has no effect on your income. There's no effect on how you're going to make an income. because you still got to get up and stand online and still put your pants on one leg at a time. So I just lost all this political talk that has infatuated our country the last three years

whether you want to hear it or not because it's whether you want to hear it. That's right. The first 10 minutes of the news are going after the president and the cabinet and it's all something that does not affect you at all. It doesn't. It does not affect your income or anything zero.

It's just to scare you and petrify you and shit on your head before you leave the fucking house. If you watch the morning news, you're getting shit on your fucking head before you leave the house. Whether it's the baby where they found in the dumpster or the parents that, you know, ripped the kid out of the lady in Chicago.

I feel bad as a human being, but it has nothing to do with you. So if you go from politics to the lady who got her baby ripped out of a fucking pussy to the Chinese guy who got beat up on United, you're leaving the house.

Fucking this is what in your mind while you're driving. It's doubting who you are as a human being. It doubts you. It makes you go, why should I leave it? Somebody's going to stick a finger up their ass, rip my baby out. I mean, all these fucking things that have nothing,

and that's why I don't even get involved in that shit. I told my wife, as much as I love my wife, I come in this house again, I see CSMBC on, I throw the fucking TV out to fucking no more TV. And she goes, why not? He goes, because it affects you.

My wife gets very affected by it. I see her at dinner. I see when people come over. She's from fucking Tennessee. She's from the mountains of Tennessee. The biggest thing she ever saw was a fucking rattlesnake, whatever the fuck they do up in Tennessee. I can see how it affected her.

And it affects a lot of people that way. I can walk into rooms now and definitely see who, know who watches the news. And just because I got sucked down it, too, and I knew I was getting sucked. It was the weirdest sensation. Like, you know you're getting sucked down, rabbit hole. I'm all three

Scabble News networks. I'm following people like, you're smarter than this, but it was a rabbit hole that maybe I got sucked down. I always choose to believe I get things happen for a reason. And when I turned it all off and I got to experience

the world and I was reading books out on the road. I read J.D. Vance's Hillbilliology. I read Sarah Kandahor's view from the flyover country. I read Risenpaw the Third Reich. I read Educated. I read the Grant biography, Ron Cherno's Grant. Amazing.

But when you read these things, and I was kind of noticing, taking stock of like any positive change this happened ever, like on this planet from all the history I read, it's not a knight. I mean, it's not a king, it's not a queen, it's not a warmaker, it's not a president. Like, I played in punk rock bands, and we were railing against the lobbyists in 1980.

You know, like, we knew. the man wasn't like the current president. These things, they're so fluid. They happen. They go away. We'll be pissed about something else in two years. I guarantee you something completely other than what we're pissed about today. I guarantee you. This is history.

It's what happens. But I did notice like the small differences that we make. Like in Seattle, you can't help but see the homelessness. I wrote a song called Cold Outside about like walking fast with the keys in the hand, like getting in your car and getting the fuck out. and maybe it's just maybe it's your fear of like I grew up with depression

era parents they grew up in the depression your fear of like you're only too bad moves away from being there yourself is that what you're scared of and the oviate crisis and these things

which is a real fucking thing you and I grew up with drugs we know like if the drug companies get involved shit all bets are off because that's coming that's coming at you

legit to the you know I went to an AA meeting, a VA in Seattle, and I had to wade through the long line to the pharmacy to get to the meeting. And these kids, I've climbed mountains with these kids. They're kids, man, missing a leg. Just got back from Afghanistan, a Marine. They're 21, 20. They get them hooked on drugs and stuff.

Marines, there's so many suicides. They don't talk about these kids that I've gotten to meet and now hang out with. and climb mountains and do stuff. You got to go to an A meeting at the VA and check this out. So I did. I went to. And you got to wait through all the people, you know, really waiting to pick up to prescriptions.

And like, so I figured out, like, these little ways to make things better in my life. And it's like those little things we were talking about that making your bed. But for me, it's maybe, okay, I'm going to go into the junk. go in Seattle and meet some people. Maybe get rid of that fear of the others. And maybe I can do something one more step from that. Maybe I can get some fans involved. Like, you know, and that's why I wrote a record while I was on the road.

And it was going to be a minute. It's just a new one that's coming out. Yeah. Maybe it's going to be my 30th. May 31st. Right. And the name of the tenderness. Right.

That's the name of the album. Yeah. Now, you're doing something on this album for that respect totally. Because you and I discussed this before. We both have paper wraps. Yeah. We both know of this to save a couple dollars for Saturday because you and Nikki Foote are going to walk two miles to the fucking record store.

Yeah. And you're going to buy a sex. I could take the 71 bus. Right. I could take the 71 bus. And I'm going to buy the Clash live in London or whatever the fuck it is. Yeah. And then we get there and you go, I don't know if I want sex pistols.

I'm going to get hard second hour. Whatever the fuck it is eight. Because that 10 bucks. So if you had 10 bucks, you were lucky. It was eight. Now, I see years ago, I did a movie, and I remember they sent me DVDs to the house. And I opened up the DVD box, and there was nothing in there, explain the movie. And it came to me, what happened to the record industry.

Like, you and I would go to the record stores. You would buy it out, I would buy one. And then we'd go to your house and pull out the line of notes and read the line of notes. I remember Van Halen one or. You knew where that record was made. You know who produced it? And what hotel they did. stayed on the road yeah you want to thank the holiday ends or the Hilton's or the fucking

four seasons you knew and now you buy a CD and there's nothing there I see that if you get tend to this it comes with a book yeah yeah like you know you you on your website you've offered different packages for it like you could just buy the album and you got like a sword or something I saw something yeah but then you have a package that has like the book a CD that's tremendous that's what people want to get yeah That's what people want again. And I think, Brian, your manager sent me the liner notes and what gave you the inspiration to write all these songs and whatnot.

Guess what? That's what people want to see again. I think people would go through the change again. I don't think we're doing this all fucking day. Everybody you see, I went to New York last week at the ferry. Nine people on the dock. It's crazy, isn't it? All nine are fucking looking at something.

New York City has changed because people are always on their phones. I don't know about you. My mother, when I got there from Q, my mother said, keep your look, your head's on a fucking swivel. Your heads on a swivel because you don't know what's going to happen. Me in New York, I didn't go in my pocket one time for a phone. And if I use the phone, I walk over to the side and I watch people that come up to me. People just walking with their head down.

I can't fucking. It just kills me. Crazy. Fucking kills me. Now, this, did you do this album, Which Shooter? So I wrote the songs. I was going to read a third book, like the, I had all these ideas.

I was having these experiences, which I'm just telling you about, you know. And I start writing these little passages. And I had acoustic guitar on the road with me, which I always do. And in that rare moment that I'm in my hotel room, because I am always out seeing something. I was reading my Word document on one of the subjects I was writing about. And I had my guitar in my hand, and I started playing a couple of course. to what I'd written and came up with the first song, which is, it's not too late, which is the second song on the record.

And I thought, if I make this sort of this austere record, which I've wanted to make for 20-something years, a very toned-down musical record, if I put these words to this record, maybe what I'm thinking about, which is a concept of healing, of tenderness, of, of, doing something for yourself and maybe just your next door neighbor like we did like after 9-11 you know how we all kind of closed in and like checked on your neighbors and you had to a grocery store and if somebody stumbled you're like are you okay you remember that there was no nobody

asked who you voted for then do you remember that yes nobody gave a fuck we were just taking care of each other the hurricane in houston hurricane and we just took care of people like j j j wott raised that big thing i'm like i'm in I like you as a football player, like, okay, I'll, and people were taking care of each other, the fires here in California. The one that they portrayed on the news before I left on this tour was this divided, fucked up place. And this is the G&R tour.

Yes. And I discovered it's not that at all. It's not. And this song, this album reflects those discoveries, I think, in, what I offer. wrote a whole like 3,500 word thing along with the record. It kind of explains a lot of things about the record and my, my worldview. There's not a lot of me in the record. It's we.

And I hope to bring more people, make people more aware. It's just like it's okay to turn out the news. It's okay. It's just to fucking reach out to your fellow man. Okay, to put your phone in your fucking car, leave it there. Yeah, it's all right. You take the phone in the kickboxing gym? You know I never do.

No, I do not. I leave it in the fucking car. I do not. Today I took the phone, I took it from the car to see if anybody had called and was going to run later or whatever. And I went into the school when I finished. I had my hand wraps and everything in there. I try to remove myself from this fucking, on the road now. There's no social media.

When I go on the road, I have an iPad, but it just has Netflix and I have my writing app. No more social media on that. Yeah. On the road there's no Facebook. I have Twitter on the phone. I want to live Facebook on the phone. I took a chance between one or two. Right.

Because I was suffering from the same thing. Yeah. I could feel it. I could feel it. And I don't want to go through it. I want to enjoy life. I want to enjoy life on my terms, not reading about it on a fucking Twitter. Yeah.

I see these people who are constantly, every time I check Twitter, I see six or seven people who are constantly on all day. And it breaks my fucking heart. I had to stop last week and went after a girl because she lives in Thailand. And she's always talking about how Thailand is so beautiful. And she had like nine tweets in a row that had nothing to do with Thailand.

And I went on a personal message and I go, if Thailand is so beautiful, why are you fucking tweeting so much? I had to call her out on it. Like, why are you tweeting something? Thailand is this fucking land that you say about. You should be sucking dick and throwing kicks for Jesus. Out there getting coconut oil rubbed on your titty.

instead of being on fucking Twitter all day and on social media all day. But anyway, that's my view on it. I don't disagree. You're starting to tour. You're starting to tour May 30th. But the beauty is, it goes back, I want to ask you why.

Why are you starting in Philly? Is there a particular reason? There really isn't. I wanted to get to D.C. And hopefully go to Walter Reed, and me and Shooter, going and play for some of the dudes, people. there. So the first day

that might be too much. So we're starting in Philly. It's a great rock town. It's funny because every band usually starts in Philly. I thought it was to get it out of the way. If you want brushes thrown at you and shit, because in Philly they don't give a fuck. No, no, it's true. They had in football, they had the only stadium

with the court downstairs. That's how many people would get arrested at their football games. That's how crazy it was. I don't know if the new stadium has a jail underneath. But that just goes to show you, you know, if you look at those old videos from Bill Burr when he went to Philly and they heckled them and they threw shit at him. So once I saw this, I go,

is that why ACDC started the Back and Black tour in Philly? If you check it out, July 31st, 1980. It was in Philly and then they went to the Palladium on August 1st or something like that. But I saw a lot of schedules that they were open up in Philly. I go, why do they open up in Philly? And after the Bill Berth, I go, ah!

Because you want to get that shit over with it. If they're going to throw bottles at you, you want to get over with the first night. Just so he gets thrown. Yeah, I don't know, man. I'm with shooter, shooter producer record. I had the good fortune of us crossing paths at the end of my writing the songs for this. And he really bought into the whole idea that I had and really took it from there to the next level. He is a next level type of guy.

And now his band played on the record. His band is going to be my band with Shooter in it for this tour. We're starting in Philly. I don't know why. I've always had a good time in Philly. Me too. I love Philly. I just was saying, why do fucking people start in Philly?

And then when I saw the Bill Burr bombing, like people throwing things out of him and shit, I go, oh, that's why I put that together with the football. We're a kickboxes. We're tough guys. We can take a bottle or two, you know. but uh yeah but you know dc we want to do some other cool things if we can when we can um uh and then you're back here on the 13th and you know i'm going you're going good i'm going like i'm going to see you i was supposed to go see michael shenckland okay 14th of may i really really

wanted to go ever since i've had the baby i've been living like a fucking pussy how old is your baby six and i'm 56 yeah so i've been living like a real pussy and I was psyched about going to see Michael Shankler at the Trubodore, whatever the fuck he was, a couple weeks ago was April 14th or something, April 15th, but I had to start a movie that day. And I missed out Michael Shankler when I was going over your webpage last night.

I saw you're going to be in LA and I go, that'll be my first show to break my cherry because I've been to a show in years. I stopped going to show. Yeah, come to the show, man. Yeah. That night we're actually going to have the horn section because it's my brother who lives here

in LA and the same horn section and played all the guns stuff. My brother Matt. Now, which brother taught you how to play the bass? Bruce. Now, which brother was my agent's teacher in high school in Cobbossus? No shit.

No, he's taught, he's been a music teacher for 30 years. In fact, you went to visit him. I've gone out there. My agent said, he goes, one day he brought Duffin and Duff Talk or something like that. I don't know, he played the ukulele. My brother's a legend out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He won the Mr. Hollins' Opus Award the best music teacher in the country, you know. You can only win it once. He won it early. But he also played horns on all the gun stuff early. Our first EP moved to the city. Living Let Die, that horns

and Piccolo, the Piccolo's his wife. Banapolit, da na na nao'na. Oh, shit. So the suicide horn section is what we call them. So they played on this record and they're actually going to play with us on the song you'll play at the end. Don't look behind you. They'll come

at the end of our set and play, which will be a special moment for me. My mom got to see my brother and I, we opened for the Stones in 89 at the Coliseum down here in L.A., flew my mom down, and her two sons were up on the suicide horn section played with us that night. My mom got to see that. How much you miss your mom, though? Yeah.

Yeah, so my brother would be there that night, and L. Ray will be a good show. But all of them, I'm looking forward to playing Nashville with us, with Shooter and that band. It's going to be a different world for me. You know, like a lot of this stuff, I'm getting played on Outlaw Country and Americana stations, which is something I've never been exposed to.

I didn't intentionally make it Outlaw Country or Americana record. This was just this austere songs that I wrote, and Shooter took it to the next level. And so I'm too being exposed to some cool stuff. I got to tell you, when I listen to the album, I was writing in my office. I was doing various things.

But that's like the fourth song. I was like, I like you. I really genuinely like you as a human being because we're the same, like we, you like variety. Yeah.

You know, I expected to hear fucking devil's crying and guitars and cymbals getting lit on fire. And it was just this beautiful, these beautiful words, you know. In the midst of all this gun stuff, like we're, we are playing. loud rock, where I'm supposed to be back, you know, as far as loud rock and roll goes,

and we do it and we do it right. And for me to come out with like a hard rock record in between tours would make no sense at all to me. And I wouldn't have a reason to do it. This was going to be a book of observations. It became an album of observations. And austere doesn't doesn't even, it's not even the same, you know, music classifications, anything Guns at Roses does is it's off the beaten track. That's why. I'm not afraid to take the chance, you know, like, if fans want to come along, great.

If some are like, this is too mellow, it's fine too, too. But I think. You've matured and your fans have matured. I think, yeah. That was 1987, 88. Yeah. That's a long fucking journey, you know. That's 32-something years.

Yeah. Not only did you grow. You hope that they grew and they got off the drugs like we all did. Yeah. I remember seeing you guys at some award party like not seeing you live. I was watching on TV. I don't know if it's MTV or the Grammys. You guys were fucked up.

Yeah. I mean, fucked up. I was cheering for you. Don't get me wrong. You were scaring white people. Like that night that you were scaring people. People must have been like, who the fuck? He had the hat on.

You had the long hair. Fucking crazy. And bro, that was just Tuesday night. That was just a Tuesday night. You know? None special to us. What's the website where they could find the tour dates? They could order the album from.

It's Duff Online.com. Yeah. Very interesting. I like the video that you put up there. Cool. And you have your little guys getting interviewed. You really give the fan a way to look into your mind. Most guys don't give a fuck about it.

And you have, you look beautiful. You have evolved. I was watching the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night. I still haven't catch Def Leppitt on that. It's on HBO, and I put it on, and I'll tell you who killed it that Hall of Fame Day, The Cure. Did you watch it?

Oh, I haven't watched it yet. The fucking cure destroyed that joint. But the singer looked like a fat woman. He still had the blue eye shadow on. He had his hair, like somebody pulled it for an hour. You know, the thing about you is you've evolved. And I think Slash is, everybody evolved. You know, for years, we heard Axel was done.

Look, he came back. Oh, man. Did a great job. And then went over and helped that ACDC for a little while, you know? And the way he did that was, like, amazing. He's like, you guys, don't mind. I'm going to go try out. They need a hand here.

And it's like, you know, we know, like, Von Scott's his all time. And it's like, I'm like, dude, you know you don't have to really try it. ACDC, but he was really nervous. I'm going to go try out and just see if they got a couple months. It fits in with our touring, perfect, and slash there. You got the gig. But he went to Atlanta and tried out, quote unquote, and got the gig. And yeah, he was a, I saw him twice on that tour.

I flew to London to see him and flew to Cleveland to see that. Was he phenomenal? It was great. Phenamo, ACDC? It's just what, I think, what it did for him, you know, like we got to know Angus through that. You know, Angus now come out and played with us a bunch of times. That was, I think, that thing, when you're 14 or 15,

when he was 14 or 15, like, man, one day if I ever got to be in ACDC, you know, you're singing with a broom, and he finally got to do it. Amazing. Duff, whenever you want to come on, you have a family after the tour. I really want to see you back on the podcast. I want you to talk about what happened on the tour and what your feelings are. And you're a bright fucking guy.

You're a genius. You got a family here on the church, brother. I appreciate that. And I'll be there on the 13th. It opens up to Philadelphia on the 30th. It moves to D.C. on the 31st. Then you got Boston on the 1st of June. New York City on the fucking 30s taking a night off.

And in LA, I would write the whole fucking schedule down, but I'd rather them go to your website. Sure. I said you're always welcome here. Don't forget my dates June 1st at the Ice House June 7th in New Orleans in June 8th at the Tabernacle Theater

in Atlanta, Georgia. I want to thank you. I want to thank the motherfucking Christkiller. But most importantly, I want to thank the church family for supporting us. If you're any of those cities, please support Duff. He's the real fucking dear Holyfield. If you have a kickboxing school

when you want Duff to visit on the road, fucking reach out. He'll show up with a mouthpiece, gloves, and a fucking stick for you, young cock suckers. Don't get any ideas. I want to thank Duff McCaghan. I want to thank the Christkiller. And I want to thank our sponsors for always having our back. Our number one sponsor, who I love with all my heart is ZipRecruiter.

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Oh, and June 1st, I got a little working out with Uncle Joey at the Ice House of Saturday Night 730 show. You'll be out of there tip-top, Magoo by 9 with a smile on your face, and you can go give your wife a stabbing that easy. All right, oh, girlfriend. Like I said, I want to thank all you guys for being part of our little, Tate and for supporting this over the years. I love you motherfuckers. Lee, kick this motherfucking meal.

Nothing left to say. It's all been shot through. But behind you, we're all never look about.