WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1021 - Duff McKagan

Episode Date: May 23, 2019

Duff McKagan weathered the storm of rock and roll excess and now finds himself with a loving family, sobriety, a reunited band, and a new solo album. Duff takes Marc back to the days when he first met Axl Rose, when Guns N’ Roses became one of the biggest bands in the world, and when heroin decimated his entire scene and nearly ended his life. Duff also talks about the lesson he learned from Joe Strummer that still guides him today, why Slash still blows his mind, and how he keeps himself grounded by being out in the world talking with people. This episode is sponsored by Turo, Airbnb Experiences, and Starbucks Tripleshot Energy. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck sticks that one seems hostile fuck stick that's never said in a positive way what's up fuck stick

so i don't use it as much but it is it's got a good rhythm to it uh how's it going is everybody okay i'm i'm a little i'm a little jacked i'm a little jacked right now for well for good reason for good reason i'm jacked because uh all right you know i'm gonna tease it a little bit first let me um let me say that i just burped you can cut that out you know what don't leave it in let's keep it let's keep it loose it wasn't a loud burp let's keep it loose duff mccagan is on the show from guns and roses the bass player and uh he's he's the real fucking deal rock star rock and roll life all of it but uh very lucid lucid smart uh thoughtful great guy i i i had no idea you know why because we project so he's here and it was uh it was a real treat

and that's something i don't say but why am i jacked why am i jacked? Why am I jacked? Well, I'll tell you why. Because less than an hour ago in this very room in my house, in my house, people, David Letterman was here. David Letterman, the man who I looked up to for more than half my life. And then once I became a comic, all I wanted to do was be on his show. And it happened, but it took a long time but he was he was here he came to my house and you don't know what a mind fuck that is i don't want to go into it all because by the time he got here i was okay but it did take me two days to get okay like you know a lot of self-talk he's just a guy he's just a guy it's just a guy that you looked up to that you know you hung all your hope on being on his show just a guy but he was here

and i'm gonna i'm gonna share that conversation with you a week from today okay i guess i should tell you then if we're teasing weeks out which i don't usually do monday uh timothy oliphant is here for the uh what is it memorial day he was here we talked about stuff i watched a lot of the justified shows and i enjoyed them was like watching uh mcleod with my parents when i was a child dennis weaver do you remember that show it had that vibe right 70s kind of you know episodic television thing. And Walton Goggins. Walton Goggins was on. That guy's a fucking wizard.

We got to get Goggins in here. How would you, wouldn't you like to have a friend named Walter Goggins? What's up, Goggins? Goggins. Goggins, what's up? Dude, Goggins is here. So maybe I'll become friends with Walton Goggins someday and he'll do my show and I can refer to him as Goggins. Dude, Goggins.

Tonight I am in Madison, Wisconsin through Saturday. Those shows are all sold out. But hopefully I'll be there. I'm traveling as you listen to this. I should be on a plane in the air. If it's not in the air, it'll be on the ground, and that would be preferable if it hasn't taken off or it's just landed. Any other time a plane's on the ground is not great.

You know what I'm saying? So what is happening? Okay, a couple of things. I decided to get back into twitter a bit kind of dip my toe into the hate waters into the fucking chaos of of infantile emotional outbursts by our president primarily but by most people really i. I just thought, you know, I was being honest. I was at home on Sunday. I was waiting to watch, I think, Barry or John Oliver. And I turned the TV on and Game of Thrones was on.

So I said, I have not watched Game of Thrones. This is the first episode I'm tuning into. I feel a little lost. Could somebody, you know, tell me what's happening? Something to that extent. Now, is that funny? Yes. Is it snarky?

Kind of. Is it condescending? I don't know. You know, it's just, it was, I was being honest, but you would think I would have said there was no God to people who all they think about is God. And I do think that there is a similarity in certain fans' minds about the importance of these fantasy movies. Again, not being condescending, feel free to be a fantasy nerd. feel free to be a fantasy nerd feel free to invest you know eight years of your life into a fucking you know bloodbath of armor and bullshit and castles and dragons again did that come off as condescending i know a lot of people liked it but i'd imagine after about a year in most of those

people felt like they had to they were they were, it was almost like sort of like, just, just try our church. You know, I mean, you know, it's different than your church. Um, but I think you'll like our church. You know, there's a lot of exciting things that happen at our church and, uh, it's every Sunday and, um, you know, at, at, you know, at night, which is nice. And you can get lost and find solace from the real chaos with some ancient, fantastic dragon bullshit chaos. You just sort of refocus your emotions and sense of competition and relief and hope into a dragon show. But it was surprising the the response it was if i insulted someone's

entire way of life is the way that fantasy nerds react yeah a lot of like oh so edgy i wasn't trying to be edgy or even be cool like why do you assume aren't you the cool guys now if you're watching game of thrones isn't that the majority opinion watch game of thrones so why am i always why are you bullying me the guy who is apparently out of the loop the guy who doesn't know well enough to watch it i maybe i'll watch it someday i don't know but But there was just it didn't happen. And it's one of those things that like if you miss the first year or two, you're not going to go back until, you know, you have a broken leg until you're bedridden or, you know, you have the measles because dumb people don't vaccinate their children. And then you're like, hey, I'm covered with spots that are itchy and I'm probably going to be bedridden for a while. I can't go outside.

Maybe I'll watch that Game of Thrones thing. That should take my mind off this disease that no one should have. But because of stupid people, we have it again. But I don't want to think about that because that'll make me angry. Oh, look, a dragon. A dragon. that because that'll make me angry oh look a dragon a dragon all i'm saying is like one of the reasons that i don't engage in twitter anymore is because i'm a grown-ass man for the most part i do have emotional components that are quite infantile but they are not infantile or expressed

in the fantasy realm so the the point is, any conversation you can have on Twitter that unfolds into some sort of argument over bullshit is completely fucking adolescent. It seems like the entire dialogue on the platform, if it's engaged or you've upset some people, is going to be adolescent. And I don't need I don't want to, I don't need to communicate on, on that level. After I tweeted, I never watched Game of Thrones, just tuning into

the episode on now, I'm a little lost what's happening because of the response I was getting from, you know, seemingly adolescent people who took offense to that. I wrote love when all the hate nerd babies bile cry when their sad heart holes get poked poetically sound. But apparently that I think that's the one that really caused some trouble in the nerd verse. And I'm not going to apologize because it's like it's nice it's almost like a bob dylan lyric from a lost bob dylan song i'm not tooting my own horn but loving all the hate nerd babies bio cry when their sad heart holes get poked holy fuck i'm gonna write a song god damn it so a couple emails uh this one in the garage this is a

nice email mark i wanted to write to tell you how great a record in the garages i have been spinning it on the reg and i love it i love the color of it the price point was ace as well. $17 at Newberry Comics in Manchester, New Hampshire. I'll fess up and acknowledge that I bought it just for Margo Price and Jay Maskus. But I'm absolutely in love with the Karen Kilgareth song. It makes me laugh my ass off and feel slightly sad at the same time. I'd never heard of her. What a great voice. And man, what lyrics. The song that has the heaviest effect on me is elephant by jason isbell

that fucker slays me every time i fire up a joint i recall the line quote we burn these joints as effigies unquote it sticks with you it really is a mind blower of a performance it really triggers a profound sadness i've never liked melissa etheridge but what a great song and performance it changed my opinion of her it's really cool to get to hear you play with Dave Alvin I love the casualness of it I love the record and just wanted to share that with you you need to advertise this a little more on your show because it really is a treasure you should make this the first volume in the series and release one each record store day keep up the good work sincerely reeb thank you man i'm glad that you liked it that much i like it that much as well okay don't hold your breath how am i not

going to open that but it was literal hiya mark just listen to you and lisa kudrow so regarding holding your breath a clown teacher I've worked with, John Turner said, quote, emotions released on the exhale, unquote. We can't cry or laugh when we're holding our breath. Have you not heard me laugh when I hold my breath? That's how I exhale sometimes. Breathing is vulnerable. Maybe holding our breath is trying to exert some control. Yeah. Especially when we're anxious. Yeah.

Here's the funny thing. When we hold our breath on stage, then the audience holds their breath too. Noted. They probably won't be aware of it, but even they are they won't know why it's because of me so if we breathe they breathe everyone relaxes okay okay then come laughs oh okay hey didn't you talk about that in this episode too it all comes back to breathing farts alan i think you're right alan i'm a breath holder and it's because I don't, yeah, I don't want to feel. And if I'm holding my breath, not only am I not feeling, but I think

I'm invisible. All right. So Duff is here. I neglect to mention at the beginning that he's got a record out and I listened to it. It's good. It's earnest. It's good. It's called Tenderness. It comes out next Friday, May 31st. You can get it wherever you get music. This is me talking to fucking rock and roll. This is a rock and roll dude for fucking real. Duff McKagan and me. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that.

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You don't want to wear the cans? No, is that alright? Yeah, I think so. Just, yeah, if you get up on that mic. I hate the sound of my voice. You do? Yeah. Come on. I do.

Well, how the fuck do you record a record uh what singing and all that i i don't really have cans on really yeah huh i'll sing i'll get a key and i'll sing oh and that's it yeah and you listen to playback or no yeah you just tell shooter like all right just you decide i'm out of here well i mean sort of yeah no no no we'll go he's really quick at um uh comp and vocals uh-huh he's like comping as i'm doing vocal what does that mean comping well so i'll do i'll sing a pass through the song um i'll do another pass right and maybe a third pass right and he's already so he'll take up a line from the first verse. He likes the first pass I did, and then he'll take a second line from it. I get it.

So he's cutting it up. He's making notes. As we're going. That's smart. Yeah. So by the time I walk in the room, he's got it comped. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think the record, the new record, I, I don't generally, you know, these aren't really plug generated interviews, but you know, this is what you're out there talking about. And I listened to it. And it, it feels like, you know,

you, it feels like a record you had to make. Like, you know, that things were kind of working up inside of you. You're at an age now where you can process shit and write shit down and have some wisdom and some reflection. There are things bothering you.

There are things that were painful in your life. And this is the record, a grown-up record. The record, you know, I really did, Mark. I've written two books. I was a columnist for the Seattle Week for five years. I wrote columns for Playboy and ESPN and and i got used to articulating my thoughts right on the written word yeah i found a voice yeah and um so on this two and a half year tour that the guns did you know it was amazing the last one this last we did, this huge tour we just did. It was amazing that we were back together.

Yeah. And there was this sense of ease in my life. Yeah. Because we had talked things out. You had, all of you. Yeah. And that was really important, more than anything else. Who was on the guitar?

Was Gilby on it? Who was on the guitar? It was Slash? No, Slash and Axl. So the three of us are the ones who ended the thing. Izzy had left back in 91. Yeah. Steven.

Before? Yeah, before that. And so the last year and a half, two years of the Illusions Tour in the 90s, it was just the three of us. Yeah. So we ended it like that, and we got back together like that and my point to that is there was there was a lot of kind of dirty water under the bridge between those that the the end and the beginning and we addressed those things as like grown-up motherfuckers you know and um and it worked and it worked and so also the point of that is, you know,

I was at this sort of intellectual or psychic ease. And coinciding with this ease and our band's back together, we're playing really amazingly huge shows everywhere you go. You're like playing country. It's like the entire country comes. In Estonia, it was kind of that. There was kind of shows that was actually that. But I'm an astute guy.

I've traveled since I was in punk rock bands. I'm 15 years old. I left high school because I was touring. Yeah, you were in the rock life yeah and i went to like alternative school where you didn't have to show up and sure and kim from the fastback she was 18 and she was my high school counselor because she was 18 right she would sign off on work i did while we were so they didn't even know you dropped out for a year no i went I went to this alternative school, which is called Nova. It was like the hippies that started it.

Doesn't matter. My point is I've traveled a lot, especially maybe since I got sober and kind of went through this whole martial arts thing that I did and still do and became self-aware and self-responsible. And then started writing columns where I became a kind of observationalist. Yeah. You know, over time. I wasn't like checking people out.

I wasn't like coming to your house and checking you out and writing a column on it. Looking outside at the world and having some thoughts on it. Yes. Yeah. And inarguably, the world and having some thoughts on it. Yes. Yeah. And inarguably, the two and a half years that we were on this tour were some of the most interesting political times, not just in America, but around the world. Sure.

The enclosing authoritarianism. That you and I have seen in our lifetime. Yeah, we didn't think we would, but it seems to be happening. Yeah, these are the things that we were raised in school to recognize as bad. And shouldn't happen again. Right.

We've seen, the problem is I read so much history. And I'm an armchair historian. I have been since I was 30. I read. So in other words, you're freaked out. A little. But no, I'm not.

But you know the precedent. I know the precedent for sure. And there's many of them. Yeah. Even just in America, this has happened before. Right. But this is where you were compelled to write the songs. So I wasn't compelled to write songs originally.

I was going to maybe write my third book. And it was going to be observations on my travels. Right. Yeah. And getting out and talking to people. We play every third day because it's a huge stage and we're playing the stadiums and one stage goes to the next city

and it takes two days to build this thing. So we play every third day. And how are you guys playing? Good? Oh, yeah, thanks. We are kicking fucking asses. We're playing really good, better than we've ever played. Thank you.

That's great. Yeah, yeah. No, that is all good. Yeah. I's great yeah yeah no that is all good yeah i gotta tell you that is all good like we are all way better musicians and and we've all most of you're sober yeah yeah i talked to slash it was great we had a great conversation slash is this yeah i mean he's sober and he's um uh all he does is it's you know, as you go along in your life as a musician, I think we're lucky. Maybe it's the time we came up.

I don't know. But we're so invested in our instruments and becoming better. And I don't think that'll ever stop. Sure. What I learned maybe from punk rock, early days of punk rock, was just be

real and truthful. And if you're going to do something, do it 110%, you know? Even if it kills you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I almost did. But- I never knew he was such a, like, I always heard that he was such a monster on guitar, but like, even when I listened to the earlier Gunn stuff, the way they were mixed, they didn't put the leads way up front. I kind of had to pick them out a little bit. I could hear the riffs, but I never got a true sense of what he could really do until I was going to interview him.

So I went to see his last band, the newest band. What's it called? Who's that guy he works with? Miles Kennedy. Yeah. I saw them at the Troubadour, I think. So this little tiny place. And it was the first time I'd seen slash i never saw guns live okay and that guy i was just sort of like what the fuck is happening yeah he'll do that to you i mean he he does that to me now

and he really yeah he really does um he i mean i met him i moved down here in 84. He had an ad in the Recycler, right? Right. This guy named Slash. I thought he was- I thought he was a punk rock- Punk rock dude. Yeah. And it said Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, and Fear.

Yeah. I'm like, okay, well- Okay, Fear, I get. You know, the punkers in 84 were looking, we were going to invent the new thing. Yeah. What was it going to be? Yeah. But I met him at Cantor's, him and steven adler and we went to his mom's basement

right he started playing acoustic guitar and he played at 19 like he does now no and i played with some really cool guitar players at that point i've been in a bunch of bands yeah never seen anything like this he just locks in man he loses himself he that he loses himself to a point sometimes on stage where i have to tap him because his eyes are closed and i've had to do this for years like come over and tap him on the like with my foot time to get on with the song man oh what yeah yeah but your point like being that you know you were going to all these different places in the world and you had three days you know i have to get out in the world i have two days off and i i'm a guy who

who's always like to get out yeah see stuff and i'll go to museums that's good i'll go to depends on where we're at sure the planet i'll go to do a tour of normandy with a guide you know yeah or i'll go to auschwitz but i i get out and i and when you get out the thing is about that you you talk to people. Sure. And I go to cafes. In America, I go out, and I'll do side trips in my bus. I'll go to Little Bighorn. I'll go to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

I'll go to World War I Museum in Kansas City. You really make yourself do it. We're not even playing Kansas City, but it's on the way from Denver to Little Rock. Right, man, yeah. Let's stop there. That's great. And you talk to people and you talk to people yeah and what i what i saw was in this two and a half years i would watch news in america right and i would and i'd get on twitter and i'd get i was getting you know i'd get freaked out yeah getting freaked out every day before you get out of bed you can get freaked out you can get freaked out but i freaked out every day but then before before you get out of bed

you can get freaked out you can get freaked out but i go out and i would talk to then i would go places and i'm like i'm not seeing this divide that they're talking about because i'm i'm in the south and i'm in the places and i'm in yeah you're seeing quote unquote right red places or blue places yeah man i'm like this place isn't red. Yeah, yeah. Number one, it's not red. It's just a place where the humans live and coincide and work together and do stuff. They don't become monsters until they get online. Pretty much. Yeah. But then we would go to like South America, let's say.

The next leg would be, we'd go from, you know, we're touring the States, go from Texas down to South America. Brazil? Yeah, Brazil, Argentina. We'd go Texas, down to South America, Brazil, Brazil, Argentina. We go everywhere. Yeah. Um,

Central America, Mexico, but you don't have the three news stations because there's nothing. You don't watch TV. And I found myself really good. I'd post something on Twitter, like soundcheck a picture, you know,

and that, and I wouldn't look. Yeah. Um, and I never look at comments as it is, but I would just stop looking at Twitter. And I noticed like in one week, the quality of my life became so much better. And I started writing about that.

Sure. I'm like, I wonder what that is, you know, how much input. I was doing like a self-study of like input on media to my brain. Well, yeah, man, because like, you know, you are shattering your brain. I mean, you're dumping more information in there than you need and you're having, you know, an over, like too many human reactions to me. You're going to have

emotional reactions, like a speedball. You know, every bit, you know, you're just kind of frying your fucking mind and then all of a sudden, I guess you find you're actually, you know, thinking and acting and feeling compulsive at the same speed that you can get information, right? So, you know, so you're not, you know, like just hanging out at a cafe, you know, if you probably have some

withdrawals, sort of like, you know, there's probably a couple of days when you're not on Twitter going like, oh God, I got to check or, you know. Then I didn't, I didn't have a withdrawal. And I kind of started thinking, I'm a little long on the tooth to be checking Twitter. You know, I read too many books for this. I'm not an intellectual or whatever, but it's funny how quick you will. I had coffee with my buddy in Seattle.

It was during one of the breaks of the tour. And he's been through, if you knew this I had coffee with my buddy in Seattle. Yeah. It was during one of the breaks of the tour. Yeah. And he's been through, if you knew this guy, he's my age. Yeah. He's been through, nothing's been handed to him. Yeah. He was a junkie and a fuck up and all of this.

And he got sober and he started this working building house. Yeah. Pounding nails. And he built himself up to a point now where he owns the company yeah but nothing was handed to him but we're having coffee if you knew this guy's past and we're in seattle yeah right right and we're having coffee and we're talking about some political stuff and and labels yeah you know what i mean that lefties yeah right elites and and and he goes duff you know you and I,

we're the elites they're talking about. I'm like, what do you mean? I don't know my story. Nobody handed me anything. He goes, no, no, it doesn't matter. You make over 100 grand a year, 200 grand a year. You live on the West Coast. You live in LA and Seattle.

You're one of the elites. I am. He goes, I'm one of the elites. I own a company. I LA and Seattle. Yeah. You're one of the elites. I am. He goes, I'm one of the elites. I own a company. I live in Seattle and it's just how quickly label people or label people a redneck or a lefty or extreme right. Some woman wrote a book about that.

Is that right? Just recently I saw her interviewed on Bill Marshall, the boxing in through labeling. How it degrades the nature of the person and and in a culture or you know once you start naming people it immediately puts them in a box and denies other you know identification yeah you know in the dialogue sure and in truth we're just so i'm traveling during this all this stuff's going on i'm getting this information my friend in seattle the elites and i'm like i okay, man, we're just throwing labels around. I don't remember lefty being there like three years ago.

It was around. It was around. It replaced commie in the late 60s. Yeah. My oldest, I have the youngest eight kids. I have seven older. You grew up with eight kids. Yeah.

And it was hippies. You know, like my older brothers and sisters were hippies. Two of my brothers were in Vietnam War. Really? Yeah. And so I grew up. My mom took me on a march, brought me out of kindergarten. She was a Catholic woman.

The Catholic women went on a march when Martin Luther King got shot. So I don't know why. I got a black armband on. I'm asking my mom, what happened? And you're like six? Five or, yeah. And my mom said, well, they shot this man. He was a peaceful man.

So why they shouldn't? Well, just because. And I never got a better answer. Like, well, they just shot a guy because they killed him. And my brothers are in Vietnam. And I said, you you know why are they in vietnam well two old men from these countries didn't agree so they sent their young men to go fight their disagreement over their disagreement i've never found a better answer than that that

my kindergarten answer to to war and my brothers are they gonna you know did they come back they both came back yeah how were they my brother they? My brother Mark, who just passed, he never talked about it from the time. He was a little withdrawn, for sure. You remember him before and after? I don't remember him before, but he was very withdrawn, never would talk about it.

Even I went to this, I read a lot. I went through this whole Vietnam phase of reading the things they carried and all these amazing Vietnam books and and I would try

to talk to him and all those movies were coming up Platoon and all that stuff and I tried to talk to Mark and he he said the one

the one movie one thing he said to me he goes the movie Hamburger Hill yeah that's what it was like. Oh. Senseless, taking hill number, you know, whatever that was.

Yeah. 62. Yeah. And a lot of guys were killed, and then you get the objective, and you just move on. Wouldn't keep the objective, just move on. So that was the most information I got from him about his experience what about the other one john was fine my oldest brother he was um he flew kind of i guess i get spy missions they would fly over and take photos and he was fine you know so your other brother

was in the shit and my other brother's one was shit. And one was in the air. Yeah. Yeah. And, but growing up with all those experiences and, you know, I remember the Akamis and I remember lefties back then. Sure. Just all this stuff and pinkos and, you know. That's weird because you grew up in it. You and I are like exactly the same age. I'm 55. Me too.

Okay. And like, you know, I remember remember very early on like i didn't have brothers were you the youngest yeah i'm the youngest really of eight so how many boys how many girls my parents are i grew up in with depression era values my my parents grew up in catholic values clearly um my mom went south of the catholic church when uh it was a vatican 2 came in it got really conservative. And I just remember us going to Catholic Church where the nuns didn't wear habits. So more liberal Catholic thinking. She went that way.

And then she, yeah, she kind of left the Catholic Church. So my older siblings grew up more in the Catholic indoctrination and Catholic schools. And she shifted in the 60s? I went to public schools. Oh, you got lucky. My next 60s? I went to public schools. Oh, you got lucky. My next oldest brother and I went to public schools. Yeah, you got the street education. Yeah.

So, but how many girls, how many boys? Three sisters, five boys. That's insane. But like, I remember, like, I didn't have proximity like you did, which must have been helpful in a lot of ways. But I remember when I was very young and the Vietnam War was going on and I saw the hippies, like I instantly wanted to be that.

Like, you know, they'd show them on TV and shit with the clothes they were wearing. And I was like, dad, those are them. That's what I want to be. Look at them smoking and hanging out, growing their hair long. I remember it having a profound effect on me. And I wanted nothing more than to be that kind of,

I wanted that rock and roll kind of hippie thing. Yeah, I had an older brother, Bruce, still do, who played in a band then. In the 60s? In the 60s. And the Sonics were a big thing in Seattle. Yeah, I have a reissue of one of their records. I think Jack White reissued some Sonics record.

I mean, it's classic garage. Yeah, yeah, sure. So they were around. They were, weued some Sonics record. I mean, it's classic garage rock. Yeah, yeah, sure. So they were around. They were, we had the Sonics record. It was a Dayglo Orange. Yeah. And I was, being a little kid, that's the record you want to put on. It's Dayglo Orange.

Yeah, it's cool. And they had a song called The Witch. You know, I thought it was about a real witch on a broom. Yeah, yeah. But I guess. Did you make your, isn't your new record coming out in Dayglo something? Or is it gold? There's no Dayglo no take oh there's a yellow and red vinyl okay yeah yeah right could have went with day glow just a little nostalgia yeah maybe i guess so you had that music in the house when

you were very young like you had all this influence you had brothers with record collections and you had you know like uh you know long hair and weed and stuff and you saw all that a lot of weed yeah i smoked my first weed when it's funny because i have girls who are 18 and 21 now and raising them up too i smoked weed in the fourth grade i'm looking at my girls in the fourth grade like that's really really young um 18 and 21, so they never knew you fucked up? Nope. Wow, good for you. But there's plenty of YouTube. You know, I had to-

They can find it. Yeah, I had to have- Do a search on Duff fucked up and they can see it. Probably. Yeah, I've never done that because I don't want to. But they know my story because I've told them my story. Sure. And I've told them, look, guys, you have like half of my genes in you.

Yeah. And we got to be careful. You got it genetically, you think? It goes back, you're an old man, and where's the alcoholism? It's kind of everywhere. In my family, my mom's brother's family, he got sober. He was a doctor, my mom's brother. Yeah.

He was the one that they put all the family resources into. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. 40s. We got one. Let's make it. Yeah, let's go. We're going to deliver this one all the way through.

Either going to be a priest or a doctor, and let's go. um so there was yeah he got sober for sure so you knew sober alcoholics you knew that there was people in your family that no longer drank because it was bad for them those are the ones you hid from yeah you don't want to hear it you didn't want to hear it oh no you don't want to be judged but um do you do you just do it with uh your own system or you do the thing i i i got sober because i got i'm coming up on 20 and i do the thing you do the thing yeah i i i like the thing yeah and i have a lot of friends and i like going to those fellowship yeah um groupings yeah um secret meetings secret society it's a secret society. Yeah, yeah. We have a handshake. Sure.

All of that. Handshake. We got things that we do together. We wear hats. Yeah. Really? Where's that one? Are you going?

I want to go to the hat meeting. But I got sober in a really, for me, it was profound. It had to be because my body took a left turn at 30 and my pancreas burst. Oh, let's work up to that. Let's go back to the Sonics record and your brothers from Vietnam and the records in the house. Because we were downstairs talking about records and you said you had a relationship with a record player. I had a relationship. Well, we had a reel-to-reel.

It was a while before we got the Technics or Techniques turntable. Like a TIAC reel-to-reel. Yeah. It was a while before we got the techniques or techniques. Right, sure, yeah. Turntable. Yeah. Did it like a TIAC reel-to-reel? We had a reel-to-reel. My brother brought back from Vietnam. Right.

Receiver and speakers. Uh-huh. And just when FM radio started. Yeah. Right? And we had reel-to-reel. So we had James Gang. Yeah.

Sly and the Family Stone. On reel-to-reel. Reel-to-reel. The boxes. I knew how to do all that stuff. Had the little stone on reel-to-reel reel-to-reel I knew I knew how to do all that stuff had the little leader on it and if you need to make a new one you could you know tape it on there yeah James Gang man Joe Walsh really cool record tapes and then we got and then there was FM radio in Seattle they would just play I think they would just play records you know the whole

side yeah yeah um and so there was a lot of you know there's stuff i didn't like because i'm a little kid right so you your tastes go to more sliding the family stone like wow there's a lot going on yeah yeah all these voices yeah or sergeant peppers because of the cover yeah of the record great cover and uh but you know bob dylan or um iron butterfly just like was too like dylan as a little kid it was like it's just this guy talking over and over again i was like i can't do that but you had a lot in the house and you had a lot going on and you had uh you know like siblings who were actually you know engaged in you know what was happening in the world and a mother

who was engaged in what was happening in the world and you saw it from an early age so it's like it makes sense that you know you you're kind of compelled now you're or in the last decade or two whenever to to sort of uh go out into the world and educate yourself and you know and see what's up because like there is a you know a sentiment on this record of of you know you know wanting social change observing you know how we're you know losing our grasp of you know what's good yeah and i i think you know the the i'm not to sound like um i'll just say it yeah um the america that i know and i'll just talk about america because i i'm american right i i could talk about America because I'm American, right? I could talk about other countries, but it's way more observational.

But I've traveled to these countries a lot in the last 30-something years. I can't over, you know, Germany before the wall went down. I've been there. When the wall was going down, after it went down. Touring. Touring. I could tell you a lot about what I observed there, but I'm not German. Right.

As an American, we grew up with eight kids. My dad was a fireman. You do the math, how much money we had, right? He's a fireman, huh? Yeah. So we had to feed all these kids, right? Everyone's wearing each other's clothes. That's it.

Yeah. And big bags of Cheerios. Right. You don't know any better. Who cares? Yeah, yeah. You're eating breakfast. You're eating breakfast, man. It's Cheerios and you don't know any better who cares you know if you're eating breakfast you're eating breakfast man every day but you just assume that's

what everybody else yeah until some guy you go to your friend's house for breakfast you're like what's this well it was like in middle school man I could tell you so many interesting things I as an adult I didn't look back and go that was so interesting. I started public school the year that we started integration and busing in Seattle. My family is mixed. My oldest sister, Carol, married a black man in 1962. It was not, you know, that was... Heavy.

It was illegal in some states, in a lot of states, because my oldest two nephews and niece are mixed. Yeah. And they're about my age. Right. Anyhow, so there was a kid on our block who was a Caucasian kid, but he had white blotches on his skin. It was a pigment thing. Yeah. So I thought there was just like, and then there was a Filipino family across the street.

Sure. So there was, you know, people that, and there was polka dotted kids. Yeah. And there was, you know, mixed kids. That was one of the races, you thought, the polka dotted kids. You know, it was going white with white watches. We all played together, right? And so, you know, it's definitely a learned behavior to be, you know, have something against somebody with a different color.

Sure. For sure. Yeah. Because we just played together. Yeah, there's an innocent questioning. Like, you know, what's that? How come you're different? But not like, you know, fuck you, you're different.

No, it would last maybe about 30 seconds and then you move on because you got to pick teams for, you know. You got to run around. Yeah, throw in dirt clods at each other, right? So an interesting way to grow up. I don't think Seattle really, there wasn't a, that I knew of, a racist. There was the Central District, the CD, we called it. Where'd you grow up?

In the Central District was where, you know, it was African American. Yeah, my ex-wife, my first ex-wife grew up in seattle and her dad was is married to a african-american woman and she kind of grew up in the city yeah in yeah yeah i think so i'm not sure which part but she she wrote a book about it about growing up with a dad who was basically a white guy who was in cultured black you know he she you know like he was that trip it's called i'm down uh and uh yeah if you read like the quincy jones book cube where he you know he's talking about seattle in the jazz

scene and the ray charles moved there when he was 15 there was quite a quite a like hendrick's black jazz scene in the 40s and it was pretty open i think you know it seemed like it was pretty open, I think. It seemed like it was a pretty fertile music scene of all kinds, right? It proves to be. There's something about the air up there and the dope that... I saw the dope come into that town. The black dope, right?

The tar? I saw it come in in 81 and 82 when it really first came in and it decimated my whole scene that's why i moved to la i mean that was like when did you start you know um you know playing out when you know what how did so you saw the creation of what became the grunge scene but you know as a kid you knew the sonics were there but like all throughout your childhood there you know there was music rock music happening in

seattle so when did you become part of the scene that was evolving okay because i'm from a family of eight kids yeah you want you got nothing of your own so you might have like this baseball bat is mine right right and that's it's mine it's not ours it's mine yeah and uh i saw punk rock flyers on the telephone poles the mentors and the lewd and doa yeah and i just started kind of my brother older brother showed me three chords on the guitar yeah i started playing bass there was a drum kit next door at the neighbors i would play that yeah it's made you know made to keep time yeah you know how old are you fifth grade yeah sixth grade yeah when i'm keeping time right playing you play these three chords and don't don't fuck up you know and play uh today is your birthday on

okay that's the what i realized later that's the major blue scale sure yeah i didn't have to learn much more than that yeah three chords a pentatonic scale and keep time and there's the major blues scale sure yeah I didn't have to learn much more than that yeah three chords a pentatonic scale and keep time and there's the notes in there

I didn't learn much more than that until I started taking bass lessons in my 40s didn't need to you know it's all ear

and so anyhow I see these punk rock posters and I'm like that's something that could be my own and I was so intrigued by it and I saw there was a kid uh with a pink mohawk that would walk through a neighborhood and finally i talked to him he's like hey i'm starting a band man you want to play in my band yeah and uh and i was 13. yeah and my buddy andy my best friend, him and I, he played drums and I played bass, if that's what it took.

I got a Gibson EBO to this guy. I had a paper route. I bought it for 125 bucks. I'm sure it was hot. Yeah. But it was 125 bucks I could save up for my paper route. Got that bass.

Eventually I put a black flag sticker. I don't know what happened to this bass, by the way. Anybody out there listening, seize this bass. I lost't know what happened to this bass, by the way. Anybody out there listening, seize this bass. I lost it in like 85 in LA. If somebody found it, I'll do you a solid. No questions asked. Gibson EBO.

Anyhow, we started this band called The Veins. And all I knew what to do was like you write a song whatever that meant right and uh i wasn't good enough to write a song like the witch i mean that's like a real song sonic's tune so we would just the sonic song or our beatle song so you would just write i got turned on to the to the pistols yeah and i got turned on to the suite. Yeah. And I got turned on to DOA with our Kiss. Yeah. And the Avengers

and the Clash. And I got turned on to 999 and UK Subs. And all of this stuff came flying in and the Slade. And then somebody said,

well, you know, this came from the Stooges, you know. And I'm like, all of a sudden, the Stooges. Oh, my God. I'm going crazy because all this great music is dropping into my life. And we're writing songs. We don't know how to write songs.

But the thing is, we've got a gig in a week. So we've got to write the songs, and you just go out and play them. I remember Andy and and i we were little thieves man and we we've stole all these milk cartons plastic ones out of the back of a grocery store the crates the crates yeah and then we stole some lumber and we built a stage but suddenly like we had our own stage like we could play anywhere you know what i mean um yeah and so you would rent these uh we had it in like two pieces this dumb stage yeah and uh we we'd rent like union halls right you'd have to put on a front punk show yeah it was like you'd have to call a dance you'd have to hire an off-duty cop uh-huh

um for like 30 bucks i think it was a dollar to in. So you just had to make enough money to pay for the place and the cop. Yeah. And sometimes you charge $2. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're selling tickets? I don't know. Yeah, people are coming. You're playing for somebody.

Somebody's doing it. And we just put on shows. And little clubs would pop up and and close down and and um but um never knew how to really write a song just riffs and like an idea of like uh you know it's all middle school stuff yeah yeah you know i wrote this song called the fake was the first song i ever wrote it's on a single you You can find it. Oh, really? The main single from 1979. Yeah. My voice hadn't changed yet.

Oh, man. And I'm singing the song and it's actually, part of it's like, you'll recognize the jungle riff in there, the verse riff. Yeah. It's,

da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na song yeah my voice hadn't changed it was about this girl in middle school who was just being a fake man a fake but you know you go back through yeah yeah it's fake yeah good one yeah thank you you got a single you do you have any of those records i don't i know and i guess i think those singles are like a thousand dollars if you find an original one someone give duff his record and then and then kind of matriculating through the punk rock scene and realizing, wow, you go see a lot of other bands. You go see every band that came through town. It's like a community. Yeah, there's about 100 of us.

Right, and then people would come into town and you'd have to find out from somebody because the punk scene was all about people hearing things and where... Record store.

Yeah. Oh, our record store. No. Yeah, yeah. But Scott McCoy, who went on to play in the Young Fresh Fellows and R.E.M. was our record store yeah oh our record store no yeah yeah but Scott McCoy who went on to play in the Young Fresh Fellows and R.E.M.

was our record store guy and he would he worked at the counter and he knew all the stuff and you could look at magazines NME you know

yeah sure New York what was that New York Rocker right yeah and then Punk Magazine

came out yeah and I think the first zine may have been New York Rocker, right? Yeah. And then Punk Magazine came out. Yeah, Punk, yeah. And I think the first zine may have been Maximum Rock and Roll. There was Flipside and Slash. Yeah. But we were open to everything. ACDC at first was like a punk rock band. No doubt.

It was accepted first in punk rock. Oh, yeah. And they went and opened for, they played the Coliseum in Seattle, which is now the Key Arena. They opened, it was ACDC, Cheap Trick, and Kiss. I saw ACDC with Journey. There you go. Yeah.

Yeah, and I was there to see Journey. Okay. And you were probably like, what is this punk rock band? I was like, what is this going? It was with Bon, and it was crazy. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

And we were just so open. We got to see so many great shows. Dem Kennedys. And soon enough, I was in bands that were getting more serious. And hardcore was kind of coming in. I was in this band. It was a hardcore band called The Farts. And I played drums.

Yeah. Super fast. And the singer of that band the farts the farts yeah was way more politically astute at we were so young i don't know how like happy apathy yeah it was all political oh yeah reagan was coming like all this stuff was going on um and he was writing about it and he turned me on to tank and he turned me on it Tank, and he turned me on, it must have been 1980, to Motorhead. Ace of Spades had just come out like, oh, this encompasses everything. Right?

Yeah. This is everything. Like, this is, then we went down that road. Metal and punk and rock. Yeah, Tank, there was a band, Tank. But this guy also turned me on to Blue Cheer. Oh, yeah. And, you know, your world's just exploding.

Your mind's exploding with all this great music. And these bands that we'd come and see play, even The Clash, I saw them pre-London Calling. Right. At the Paramount. And again, there's those 100 of us there. And this one, before it was even slam dancing, it was pogoing still.

Sure, sure, yeah. And the security there at the Paramount, they were used to more straight shows, I guess, or whatever, and plays and stuff. And they see these kids jumping up and down, and a big yellow-coated guy in the front punched a guy. Of course, I knew the guy he punched

because I knew every punker in town. Yeah. Broke his nose. What the fuck? During the Clash show, because they thought we were fighting i guess yeah and strummer stopped the show man yeah uh and paul simenon came out with an axe from the side like a firefighting axe yeah to chop down the wooden barrier and he said strummer said there's

no difference between us and you uh we're in this thing together. And, you know, he dressed down this security, like, we're in this, we're human beings, you know? This guy's just dancing. And he broke his nose and, you know, and stopped the show. And I realized, man, these guys are so exotic. This is The Clash. They're singing about London's burning.

I have no idea what that means, you know? But he stopped the show to say that we're all in this together, that there's no difference between them and us. And that stuck with you. To this day. Yeah. When I play shows, you know, I've met so many fans.

Going back to me going out and meeting people and talking to people, I've met so many fans, and I've been over the years, you know, and now. When you assume you're the most interesting person in the years, you know, even, and now, and when you assume you're the most interesting person in the room, I always find myself to be so, so wrong and so full of my fucking self. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there's people that are coming to our shows that have, there's so many stories

and there's, there might be somebody just, just you know wife might have just died of cancer and they bring in their little girl you know they because because sweet child of mine oh yeah was this song that they had in common with their mom and that happened they came to seven song seven shows in a row and they're crying when we play a song what's going on there and i met the that them on the street in new orleans i was out with my wife and it was this guy and his little girl and I got it I got daughters man I you know I see you guys at the shows and then they we were walking they said we don't want to bother you guys who you know we're just yeah you're not bothering us we're just walking in New Orleans and and they were so sweet and I gave the little girl

pick and she started crying I had to cut heart picks in my pocket. And the dad, he started telling me the story, you know, of the mom that she passed away. And then Sweet Child of Mine was a song. And I'm like, that's why you guys are. He brings her up front to these huge shows. And so many stories like that, that these aren't just punters coming to our show.

You know what I mean? And it goes back to Joe Strummer. I was an interesting person at that Clash show. I had a story. We all had stories, and the Clash had the stories, but together, we're stronger together. And also, you've been around now in this band in one form or another, whether it was on record and even when you weren't in the band to where, you know, there's multi generations. Like you have. There is multi, like three.

Yeah. So you got, you know, you got grandparents or even, you know, parents and grandparents turning grandkids on and parents turning kids on, you know, you know, to this music, which is pretty timeless, you know. You know, we say we're 55 years old because we are. But we're really not like, I still see, because there's the Stones and there's Sabbath and Aerosmith, a couple.

I mean, these are the bands I was listening to as a little kid. They're in their 70s, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you see the fans of the Stones coming. Sure. And those are like the grandparents, I guess, right? Sure. I mean, when I went to the Stones show, I was like, I'm not the oldest guy here, man.

I mean, some of these cats have been with them since the beginning. So they're the same age. They're in the late 60s, 70s. Yeah. And the people, the parents, I guess, are like my age. Some of the people my age are grandparents. Yeah, exactly. For sure.

Yeah, yeah. So you'll see a whole like collection of people together you you recognize that's a family and it's like i think initially like you know if you go back to your younger self you would think that would deny the the menace of the music but you know as you get older and you realize that this is part of the american songbook in a way and it's a global phenomenon in that it stays, music stays around forever. You're not up there going like,

fuck you old people. Now it's sort of like, we play this music because we love it, we made it, and it's for everybody, and it's sort of sweet to see several generations of people. Yeah, I mean, if they're into it, it's so easy as a song,

or Coma, which is about a guy looking for a way to suicide. You know, like, cool. You want your kid to hear that? Good. And they're rocking out to Coma. What a brutal song. So when you were coming up, so you were in Seattle when Alice in Chains and Nirvana and Soundgarden, or had you already left?

I left in 84. So that was before? Yeah. So I knew Chris Cornell, Kim Thale. They hadn't started Soundgarden yet. But you guys were hanging around. They were part of the punk scene, some of them. Yeah.

And you saw the dope come in. Ben Shepard from Soundgarden. Those guys were all part of the early punk scene. And you saw the dope come in? you saw the dope come in i saw the dope come in to seattle it was 1981 late 1981 yeah and there were some people some of the older people like doing they they're shooting heroin in their arms you know like okay now had you had you been aware of that with your brother's generation i mean did you know because like a lot of those guys came back you know kind of fucked with your brother's generation i mean did you know because like a lot of those guys came back you know kind of fucked up yeah my brother didn't come back

fucked up on drugs that's good yeah so i i didn't see heroin in seattle until it came into my scene and it came in and it seemed like there was just this huge influx influx of heroin suddenly it was yeah yeah and um it's a new market, a new kind of dope. Yeah. It was that black dope, right? The tar? It was tar. Yeah, so that was a whole new thing.

Yeah. And it suddenly, everybody in my scene, the scene had gotten bigger by 82. There was people, there was the, you know, there was the suburban kids coming in and they thought Slamdance was fighting and, you know, I a suburban kids coming in and right you know they thought slam dancing was fighting and you know all kind of i could comment on just that the shift from the pogo to the slam dance to the slam dance to then you like some kids coming from like all of a sudden like white power shit and like whoa whoa whoa you guys got this all wrong yeah yeah this isn't about they come in from idaho Eastern Washington. Yeah.

Yeah. It came in and really decimated. I had a job. I had a band that was doing really well. We got signed to Jell-O's label, Alternative Tentacles. Oh, yeah. The farts had morphed into this band called Ten Minute Warning. We went on tour with Black Flag.

We went on tour with Dead Kennedys. We were the first band to slow things down, and we were playing these long, slowed down, psychedelic, crazy songs. And we got signed to Jell-O's thing. We could have been like, we're going to be the thing. This band was serious,

but then heroin came into the band. Just decimated. This band, we just got, our band, not our band. And my roommate I lived with, he got strung out. Who was my, these are all my friends, they're my best friends. And you just see him turn into those zombies. Yeah, and it happened to my girlfriend.

Yeah. And just seemingly everyone around me. And by this time, I i'm 19 and you didn't get you didn't get involved with it then no i was drink i did every dude i did so many drugs by the time i was 16 yeah did i went straight edge for a year and a half yeah like i'd done quaaludes valium uh uh cocaine acid acid yes man we could walk home from school and pick Valium Cocaine Acid Acid Yes Man we could walk home

From school And pick mushrooms Yeah We knew By seventh grade I knew how to discern A liberty cap From anything else

Okay Yeah So yeah Very young Yeah Pot I'd given up That was for That was for hippies

By the time I'm like Ninth grade You know Yeah yeah yeah And got into some Harder drugs Didn't get into heroin because it hadn't hit by the time ninth grade i don't think but um i was at the same time i was getting very serious about music by my 10th grade i was this is what i'm gonna do i'm gonna stop doing crime i'm gonna stop stealing cars i'm gonna stop doing drugs Did you get busted for that shit?

My friend got busted for Grand Theft Auto. My best friend. High Speed Chase. Oh, shit. And that's when I was like, okay. That's done. We're done. You weren't in the car that night.

I was not. No, no. Lucky. I had gotten arrested in the eighth grade for throwing rocks at a cop car, blah, blah, blah. But that was about as drastic as it went. So all this dope comes in. You see people dying? People died.

Yeah. And that's when you decided to leave? People, oh, man. People, like, there was a drug house. All my friends, their house turned into a drug house where you go get a score. And, like, a Mexican gang came in, tied them all up, had machine guns, masks.

Like, one of the girls got sexually molested. They pistol-whipped a guy. Like, it was getting very, very serious. Where's the dope? Where's the money? Beating the fuck out of the guy. You know, like yeah this kind of dark stuff started happening all over the place in the mid 80s it's 83 yeah 83 and i'm playing music my band signed the jealous label my band's falling apart my friend comes to me who's a junk and he says man if you don't get out now like you're our hope you know you're our hope he knew he was lost yeah and he and he's still alive that guy but he

still is lost but i'll never uh uh can't thank him enough for like pulling me aside and going you got something yeah it happened to me that one time the drug dealer told me i gotta get out of town and i was like okay if you're telling me that right yeah yeah so uh so in 84 so i had a job i worked at this bakery um being a baker's hard work but i knew how to buy this but i worked there a year and a half by the end of that i was a i was an chef. I started as a dishwasher, ended as a pastry chef. So you can cook a cake? I could cook. I could bake anything. Yeah.

As a pastry chef, yeah, like everything from sourdough bread. Do you still do it? I don't. My wife, I mean, once in a while, I'll make like, but it's been so long, like I'll fuck it up. I'll try to make this lattice topped, you know, raspberry torte with, you tort with you know yeah and it looks awful you're a little out of shape with this yeah that's a thing with that you're out of your position you're out of pie shape i'm out of pie shape yeah but my wife of course like this is the best thing i've ever seen you're the best

baker no i'm not not anymore that was like 40 years ago. But thank you, honey. So you got that skill when you go to Los Angeles? So I have a resume. I had 360 bucks. By the time I'm 19, I toured in punk rock tours and done stuff. A lot of West Coast stuff. So I have 360 bucks. I sell my drum kit, which is a piece of shit. I sell it for like 100 bucks.

I had what I'd saved up, which was $215. And I had my $300 car. And I put a guitar amp, bass amp. I had a bass and a guitar. And I headed south. Yeah. And little did I know, the guitar that I had gotten in Seattle, that I had traded for,

it was stolen from L.A. five years prior from a guitar store in the valley. Get out of here. So I come down. I finally get a job right away because I have a resume. I think Northridge is L.A. Yeah. When you've been driving 24 hours, you see all those lights. Okay, I'm in here in L.A. Forgetting where the cathay de grand is

uh hollywood's further yeah yeah but i was just done i'm like done driving i need a good job now so i got a job black angus in northridge yeah i had a resume they could they were hiring right away yeah for uh uh for a cook yeah boom there i was i I was. I was working, and after that night of work, I asked an older guy, who was like a chef there, and I said, where's Hollywood? He's like,

Hollywood's 25 miles away, man. Yeah. I'm like, oh, crap. Yeah, I'm close, though. So I didn't have enough money to get an apartment. I stayed in my car for the first couple weeks,

washed at work, got my first paycheck, got an apartment on I weeks. Yeah. Washed at work. Yeah. Got my first paycheck. Got an apartment on Ivar. Yeah. And this is right when the Olympics had left LA. There was the Summer Olympics. Yeah. In 84.

Yeah. So I guess they had cleaned up Hollywood. Right. For the Olympics. Yeah. And then when it was over, cops just left. Yeah. So it was the Wild West, man.

Yeah. And if I was escaping heroin in Seattle, boy. So it was the Wild West, man. Yeah. And if I was escaping heroin in Seattle, boy, did I move into the center of it in Hollywood. And man, right. But at least I recognized, by this point, I always thought, okay, well, it's just everywhere. Yeah. And I'm here.

Moved to LA. I had to pawn my guitar. It was the most expensive thing I had. Yeah. Just between paycheck and rent, there was a this little lapse and i would have to pawn the guitar for 39 or whatever it was right and now i could make rent and then i get my paycheck go get my guitar out of pawn right i did it like five

times and after the fifth time these cops came to my shitty little apartment that's just i lived with thousands of cockroaches because they they run the numbers at the from the pawn shop yeah you have to give your idea yeah yeah and they said do you have this guitar they were playing closed cops showed me their badges i'm like yeah i have i have that guitar you're talking about we got to take it it was they could they recognized i was too young to have stolen it five years earlier in LA. They saw my IDs from Washington State. Yeah. They said, well, we have to take that guitar.

They're looking at my apartment. I've got nothing. I've got a bass, though. Yeah. And they take it, and they said, well, we'll try to talk to the guitar store owner and see if you can buy it. But he called me. To his credit, he called me, and he said, I can sell you. Sorry, man.

Yeah. But it was stolen from me. said, I can sell you. Sorry, man. Yeah. But it was stolen from me. Yeah. I can sell you 500 bucks. I'm like, I don't have 500. I don't have anything close. I'm just making rent into my phone bill. I didn't have car insurance.

By this time, I'm working at a phone sales place. Yeah. You know, Bronson in Hollywood. Yeah. And doing like driving stuff around that I didn't know but it was okay because it was a bunch of Hungarian guys

and Mikey my name's they called me Mikey Mikey doesn't ask questions I'm like okay must be something bad in the back I don't know what it is something bad in the back that's the name of the next record right you know I think it was like you know back then it was Something Bad in the Back. I don't know what it is. Something Bad in the Back. That's the name of the next record. Right.

You know, I think it was like, you know, back then it was fake Jordache jeans and fake. Knock-offs. Knock-offs. I think that's what I was driving around. I'd like to think that's what I was driving around. Were you playing at all? So I, yeah, man. I mean, I came, that's what I came to do.

Right. I didn't come. So you got no guitar now. Now you got just a bass. I got a bass. So I meet Slash two weeks in. From the ad. From the ad. From the ad.

What were the three bands? Aerosmith, Fear. Alice Cooper, and Fear. And that's weird, because that was exactly what you were working towards, right? It's great. It's perfect. His name is Slash, man. And so, yeah, he and Stephen have a band called Road Crew.

Yeah. There's no singer. Yeah. But at least there was a chance for me to play with Slash and Steven. And Slash was this, you know, I recognize him as like. Something. This kid is like. Yeah.

This guy is like from. The golden child. Yeah. What is the deal? His mom was really nice to me. Knew like I was down there by myself. And she would call and check up on me. And like, you know, you can always come over if you're hungry or something.

Very sweet. I felt like I had like a home. And Steven Adler was the sweetest guy. Izzy moved across the street from me sometime in there in that first couple months. Just by coincidence? Stradlin? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And I see this Johnny Thunders looking guy at the phone booth doing what I know is a drug deal for sure. Yeah, yeah. And anyhow, I talked to him afterwards. He's like, man, we kind of recognize each other as kind of like. Kindred spirits. Yeah, yeah. 84. You got to realize 84.

So disciples of punk rock and Johnny Thunders and Steve Jones' guitar playing. Right. Let's be honest. That's what it is. And so as he said, me and my friend are starting this band. You play bass. And it was Guns N' Roses. It was Axl.

His friend was Axl. Slash had taken me to see L.A. Guns when Axl was in L.A. Guns. Uh-huh. Right? 84. That must have been something. But I see this guy get up. And I'd seen Rollins when he first got in Black Flag.

My first gig was opening for Black Flag with Ron Reyes as a singer. Right. Right? Before Rollins. Yeah. And then Des Kadena came through as a singer. And then Des went to guitar. And Rollins, this guy who,

I'd read, he'd written a couple things in Maximum Rock and Roll. Right. I knew he was from DC, from SOA. Right. He was this really

kind of hardcore dude. Yeah. Like, he was writing columns and this guy was serious and he's going to be in Black Flag, that's a thing.

Yeah. And he's ready for it and so my band, 10 Minute Warning, we did like four shows or five shows with Black Flag with Henry.

Yeah. His first time in and he was so intense, man. And like, even a sound check, like him just getting ready, I would stay 50 feet away from him. Yeah.

It was like, he looked like a time bomb about to go off. And he's like 20, right? How old was he? I don't know. Yeah, maybe he's 20, but he was like he looked like a time bomb and he's like 20 right how old was he i don't know yeah maybe he's 20 but he was like hardcore man and the way he approached a show man it was it was all it was everything very focused in charisma everything and that's what he felt that when he saw axl for the first time so when i see this guy come out and he

fucking he's the way he's singing i'd never heard anybody sing like that you know i just met slash who's this guitar player like from mars yeah and i see this singer and he's really serious man yeah and something pissed him off and he fucking breaks a fucking glass on stage says he's gonna kick somebody's fucking ass and he's not joking it's like he's going to kick somebody's fucking ass and he's not joking. It's like, he's not joking. Yeah. Right? You back away from the stage like Henry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's some guys, most of them. Yeah. 99.5% is like, shut up. Right. But there was a few dudes. Yeah. He was one of them. Yeah.

You know, in Brawlins. Yeah. And Axl. Yeah. yeah he was one of them you know in Brawlins and an axle yeah what I reckon that's that's he's in that mold man yeah yeah so we go out is he takes me out to rehearsal and there's actually testing out the microphone and like two voices are coming out of his voice out of his mouth at once like a low register and a high register and he's just doing like a scream on the check checking out the pa testing the pa and like whoa you know and uh the band originally was two other guys rob gardner

on drums and tracy guns on guitar there were some they had songs and it was like okay we played uh wasn't axl and Izzy were amazing. And Tracy was amazing. And Rob, I don't mean to put them down. But there was something missing. And I've been in enough bands at that point to know there's just something intangible missing. So Izzy and I booked this punk rock tour for that band to do. And it would start in Seattle, come down to Portland.

I'll play all the punk rock places. And two of the guys, Rob and Tracy, said, well, where are we going to stay? Like, what do you mean we're going to go on tour? Like, where are we going to? Yeah. And the punk rock tours, you just stay at whoever offers you a place to stay. Right. There'll be somebody.

Yeah. Or the club owners say you guys can sleep here. Yeah. Or you figure it out. Right. But it doesn't matter. We got these gigs. You know, that's what matters.

And two of the guys dropped out, and we still wanted to do the tour. So it was just incestuous. Axl had played with Slash, and I believe Steven, and Izzy had played with Steven, and whatever happened. And I played with Slash and Steven. I'm like, well, let's get those two guys. Let's see if they'll do the tour. And they were like, yes, we'll do the tour.

But the moment that the five of us were in a room at Nicky Beat's rehearsal room in Silver Lake. Yeah. We knew Nicky. And we went and rehearsed. The first three chords we played together. It was like, oh, there's this thing. It's there. It's all there.

Yeah. Okay. And we went and did this tour. We had to hitchhike. Our car broke down, our friend's car, in Bakersfield. As you know, Seattle's quite a ways from Bakersfield. Sure, man. But the five of us hitchhiked all the way to Seattle.

That's 1,000 miles. Doing gigs along the way, that's where you started. No, our gear was left in Bakersfield. So we called the band that we're playing with in Seattle. Can we use your gear if we make it to Seattle? Yeah, you can use our gear. But you guys are going to hitchhike from Bakersfield? Yes, we're going to make it.

And that odyssey, which it was, dude. It wasn't one ride. Right. That odyssey of us getting up there. It's five dudes. Oh, starving. Yeah. No money.

We had $37, which we had to give to a trucker to give us a ride up to Medford. Yeah. So we did have one ride, but we were all in like the cubby or the whatever. Yeah, right, yeah. The bed. Yeah. With our guitars, you know, like for, and the guy's all high on crank.

His eyes are all black and we get to Medford, that's like halfway. You know, but we got rides somewhere five miles you know the back of somebody's pickup and then these two girls these two women to us they were probably 34 yeah but they were like women yeah they came and picked us up they had a they had a pickup truck that had a cover in the back. Yeah. And they pulled over. Look at us on the road. Like, we're all, like, who would pick us up? And they said, look, we were hippies. So maybe they're older than 34.

Yeah. And we used to hitchhike here, and nobody would pick us up because of the way we looked. So we actually passed you guys. Yeah. And they had a discussion. And they got off the next, and they came back around, and they picked us up, and they said, are you guys hungry? We said, yeah, we're really hungry.

So they got us a six pack of beer and some sandwiches and they gave us a ride to Portland. Like we can take you to Portland. And at that where we got sandwiches and beer, I called my friend in Seattle Collect. I'm like, we're getting a ride to Portland. Can you come get us? And that's 180 miles south of Seattle. I called my friend in Seattle, Collect. I'm like, we're getting a ride to Portland. Can you come get us? Yeah. And that's 180 miles south of Seattle. He came down and got us and got us to Seattle.

We made the show and we went through that. We just knew if we can go through this together. And we were awful that first gig. Yeah. But we did it. We made the thing. Three people were there. Now in Seattle, hundreds of people say they were at that first show.

There was three people there, and I knew all three of them. So that's the myth, that there were hundreds of people there. Oh, yeah, I was at that show. No, you weren't at that show. And that started. That was the history, right? That's what got us started. And then we had a show back at the Troubadbadour like on a monday night you know that was supposed to end this tour we weren't able to do the portland show eugene show sacrament we didn't have a car right so and our gear was still in bakersfield so

we just got a ride all the way my friends my friend said i gotta go to la i'll give you guys a ride so but you guys bonded and you knew that you know you guys could do it oh yeah and you got to know each other and all the insanity and everything all of that you're all like 21 or 2 20 20 yeah and then you go back and you just lean into it we leaned into it hard yeah we got a little place to rehearse and live. Had no bathroom. It was behind where Guitar Center is on Sunset. Yeah. There was an alley and these little storage rooms. Yeah.

And we took one of those. And yeah, that's perfect. We leaned into it. And then it becomes history. Like Appetite comes out in, what, 87? And Adler craps out. Not right away, you know. Yeah um there was a lot of drugs i mean i was telling you i saw this documentary last night about a guy this famous kind of hollywood guy it reminded me of this is pre-aids hollywood kind of it was around It was around. It was, okay, so I worked, 81, it's sort of.

The bakery I worked at in Seattle, it was all gay men. Yeah. So, I remember when it first came in, the bathtub thing and all of that. Yeah. Right?

So, that was 84, 83, 84. And the guys I worked with, you know, when you work in a restaurant, you're very close with the people you work with.

Yeah. And they would tell me all the gory details of everything. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, that's a lot of information. Yeah. But this thing started coming around. It was called GRIDs at first. Yeah.

I don't know if you remember that. Gay-related immune. Oh, right. It was called GRIDs at first. I remember this like back of my hand. Gay-related immune deficiency syndrome. Yeah. So it was just thought of really as like a gate.

Right. Something was happening somehow. Right. So you're saying that when you guys were starting out, it wasn't, you know, you were just going at it. Everything was shared openly. Yeah. Everything and everyone.

So you got lucky. Yeah, I got lucky. And there was just a lot of drugs, and we all fell victim to it for sure. You got strung out? Later. Oh, yeah? Because I was still like-

Just boozy? I was boozy, just boozy. And I wasn't even that fucked up through the appetite thing and all that. I drank probably more than the- Way more than the average human being drank. But for us, that was like keeping it even keel. Right, right. Axl kept it together pretty damn good.

We all experimented with stuff, but we did have three guys in the band that were fully strung out. Yeah. Fully strung out. And it's hard to manage, huh? It's, you know, okay, we're going to try to kick together.

They got some drug they heard about that you're supposed to make your kick one day. And it's just like barf and stuff everywhere. And you're trying, like we got our band, our thing's happening, you know? You guys are barfing and fucking freaking out and calling the dealer. Like, get over here now, man. So yeah, it's an extra, you know, bit of spice into that so you had to deal with that just like it's just a different uh it's just a different car ride it's a different hitchhiking situation but but it might it put a strain on the thing right it by the time we opened for the

stones we so we'd done the whole appetite tour couldn't afford like i think everybody got their shit together for the appetite tour for the most part yeah you know maybe copying the heroin once in a while but not a full-on habit yeah until we got back off of that tour and then like we got a we we saw no money on that tour we were our roadies made more we'd have to borrow money from our roadies to eat you know but we got back and in our record it started selling right and they said the money's in the pipeline what the fuck is a pipeline yeah you knew nothing about money i told you about my family i grew up in yeah you know uh so i i got a check man my first check i got was eighty thousand dollars from nothing and i was scared of the money i didn't know what money was like what am i supposed to do like i'd heard all these stories about the depression from my parents like i don't want to spend it all because you know the depression

yeah um but i i didn't know what to do but So drugs were... You could afford them. You could afford the drugs. And by the time we played the show with the Stones, we played three shows with them at the Coliseum. I think it was 89. L.A. Coliseum? L.A. Coliseum, sorry. And it was a big deal to do.

They had asked us specifically, and we were on the cover of the Weekly and stuff, like Guns N' Roses, the new Rolling Stones, and all of this. Too much pressure. We didn't think we were the the cover of the Weekly and stuff. Yeah, man. Guns N' Roses, the new Rolling Stones and all of this. Too much pressure. Yeah. We didn't think we were the new Rolling Stones. We were just us, Guns N' Roses.

Right. And we were doing our thing. And Axl was fed up. He was fed up. And he let the band know, or the three guys that were dancing with Mr. Brownstone during this, that they either stopped. This dancing with Mr. Brownstone during this, that they either stop. This is on stage.

Oh, no. I think I kind of remember. They either stop or there's no more band. I think I kind of remember that. It was pretty genius. It got press, right? I'm sure it did. I kind of remember that.

I was living in a little, like, my little corner of. Your little bass corner? Well, no no not just like i would man our band got big you know and there was no internet there was no like um there's no how-to manual yeah either yeah um i'm still like this punk rock guy you know i'm thinking yeah man fuck i got my punk rock values i don't want to be big be recognized but we're on the cover of rolling stone you go to ralph's to get vodka, you know. Everybody at Ralph's is like,

you're on the cover of the Rolling Stone right by the cash register. You're that guy. Yeah. Ah. Yeah. All of a sudden, you know, your humor's way funnier than it ever was recognized before.

Yeah, yeah. I was the funniest guy around. And all the girls finally do realize how good looking. I mean, I knew. I'm squared away, you know. But all the girls finally do realize how good looking i mean i knew i got my i'm squared away you know but all the girls finally i must be coming into my own here you know yeah uh oh in about six months in you realize ah i'm a rock star it's because the band is big yeah about that point i was going to a breakup i got married way too young to this this girl that

you know we were great boyfriend and girlfriend i was in la i needed something yeah i felt i needed yeah some sort of like anchor sure man life was crazy yeah yeah and like okay well let's get married yeah right right i yeah i did that that'll help no worst idea ever sure and so we had to break up and it was i didn't ever want to get married and divorced but I saw my parents go through this thing when I was a young the second grade and I just know I'm like I never will do that that's too brutal right and but here I was in the middle of it I was only like 21 and then

I found that cocaine at that point you could drink more. And I was trying to just bury my sorrow. Yeah. And drinking and some value and things like that would dampen it down. Man, if you do cocaine, you can do more of that other stuff. Oh, yeah. Stay up all night and drink. For three days. Yeah, yeah.

You know, four. Yeah. And you crash out for a while. You feel great. You wake up and do it again there we go and so i got i got into that and that was a danger that was that was the beginning of the end for me uh what eventually became the end for me but um we went out to chicago to work on the illusions records and uh a lot of cocaine a lot of alcohol a lot of and, a lot of alcohol, a lot of, and that's okay, but we knew there was a line

you didn't cross, like when you played, when you rehearsed, when you played shows. For Axl or just in general? No, for us, just as musicians. Right. Like, you can get fucked up. Yeah. We're world class at it.

Yeah. But just don't let it fuck up recording or rehearsal or gig. That's the line you didn't cross right do whatever you want just don't cross that line right you know yeah and that line started to get crossed yeah and it was it was steven at first and it's and izzy suddenly he got busted on a plane doing something yeah and uh they'd landed the plane in Phoenix. And he got arrested off of the plane and put in jail. And he's left at Jones in a jail in Phoenix.

And he got sober. That was 91. Now, suddenly, Izzy's a guy like, I'm so happy for him. Yeah. But I'm staying away from him. Because if you've got a sober guy in your midst, you don't want to be like, oh, shit. You don't want to hear you got to get sober. Yeah, yeah.

You know, somehow or another, you've managed as grownups who have been through all this, the long ride, you know, you come back together. You're pros. You know, people are excited to see you. You've somehow managed a detente with, you know, Axl. Yeah. And, you know, you're out there doing big shows. You've somehow managed a detente with Axl. Yeah. And you're out there doing big shows. Yeah, flash forward to now.

So much happened. I got sober at 30. What happened? How did that happen? Well, we did the Illusions Tour. I'm drinking more and more. There was one gig in Mexico City that I crossed the line yeah i realized right in the middle of the show i'm just staring at matt by this time matt soren's kick drum yeah just trying to lock in and i realized i was like doing everything i could do just to hold on to the show yeah and i

was too fucked up right and uh that scared me uh we finished that tour i i stopped the cocaine i stopped vodka i thought i'm stop drinking i'm drinking wine yeah sure but i was drinking like two gallons oh man at least yeah yeah wine you got to drink a lot so i i went out and did this tour of my own uh I had made this record during Illusions. We had days off, and I was writing, I kind of thought, demos for the next Guns record. Yeah. But I played drums on them, and I played bass and guitar and sang on these songs.

And our guy from Geth and Tom Soutali came into one of the sessions. He's like, what do you keep doing? You keep going off and recording. I'm like, I've got to do something to keep myself busy, or I'll be out looking of the sessions. She's like, what do you keep doing? You keep going off and recording. I'm like, I got to do something to keep myself busy, or I'll be out looking for the guy to cop. So this record came out right as Illusions ended, and I went out on tour.

I'm drinking the wine, not doing the cocaine, but how much wine I'm drinking, it has to be a lot because I started having this really bad heartburn. I was in the shower one time and my nose kind of hurt and I'm trying to blow something out of my nose and my septum comes out and lands on the floor of the shower. And my hair's falling out and my bottom of my feet are cracking, my hands are cracking. Like when i get up to take

a piss in the middle of night you know my feet just crack open and um it's not going well for me and uh i get where we do this european tour we go out we open for the scorpions you know in your band my band my own band and we do all these shows of. Yeah. And it was fun to go out with the Scorpions because we were like, you know, it's like, wow, they're still doing like arenas. Yeah. Sure. And I got the punk rock super group is my band.

Like all the guys that I played with younger. Yeah. In the early 80s. They're now my band. From all these great bands from San Francisco and Canada, they're all in my band. And it's cool. And I'm drinking wine, man. those guys in my band are like yeah dude you ain't sober yeah i'm gonna get defensive i'm just drinking wine man and his septum is falling out my septum had

fallen out yeah um i get back from leg we were supposed to go to uh we did that leg and then we did some american dates and we did japan i shouldn't have been touring we just toured for two and a half years with guns and roses two and a half years now i'm out just doing it and we do japan we get back i just bought my house in seattle i'm finally back home this is my dream to have a home a house back home yeah you know i i that's me i made it it, you know. Yeah. And I bought this house that we should like steal, this neighborhood we steal cars from.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. High end. We didn't grow up in this neighborhood. Right. And I'm in this house. Yeah. And I'm in the bed and my stomach really hurts. Yeah.

And it starts really hurting. Yeah. And I roll over and then it's hurting like down on my quad muscles and I know something's really wrong. Yeah. And I try to roll over again

to get to the phone to call 911. Yeah. Because I know something's wrong. I can't get out of bed. I can't even move. I can't barely breathe. I'm just,

something's wrong and my friend who's, the guy, the breathe. I'm just, something's wrong. And my friend, the guy, the Grand Theft Auto guy, right? Yeah. Who became a real estate agent between the Grand Theft Auto and now. He found the house for me. And he's my best friend still to this day. Yeah. Since we were three years old to this day.

Yeah. And he would just walk in my house, and he saw my car was in the garage, and my keys and wallet were downstairs. And I hear him downstairs like, hey, where are you? And he, where are you, man? And he comes upstairs. He sees me in bed, and my eyes are open. And he's like, okay, fucking finally happened.

Yeah. You broke yourself. Yeah, and he picked me up, and it hurt so bad. I didn't know it was going to happen. I was scared. Anyhow, he took me into the emergency room, and I was on the ground in the emergency room. Couldn't move, and they took me in,

and they gave me morphine. First, they tried a couple shots, like codeine in my ass. Nothing. They put intravenous morphine. They me an ultrasound they were like my doctor whose dad had birthed me on all eight kids now his son was a doctor my doctor i saw his face go white when he's looking at the when he's looking at the ultrasound and i was in so much pain i wanted to die i wanted them to kill me the surgeon came in and he said we're gonna do this and this and the other thing and I said that just killed me I can't take any more morphine I knew what

morphine supposed to do it wasn't working what was wrong with you my pancreas had burst so it's swollen up and it burst so that's all the stuff that you know you digest your food Now once it's outside onto your intestines and like quad muscles, it just drips down. And what the doctors told me was they usually will open somebody up just to let the steam out to alleviate some of the pain before they die. I'm like, this is really real. This is real. And I wanted to die it hurt so bad but they had to put me on librium too because i started to have the shakes from

withdrawals of alcohol which you can also die from i'm getting all this great news you know wonderful news and uh welcome home so i have morphine in my left arm with the with the um i'm plunging a button you know i got the the plunger button where you can just boom, boom. And I got the Librium in the right arm. And my mom, who was by this time at Parkinson's, you know, she comes in, gets wheeled into the hospital to see me and she's crying. And I was in so much pain and so kind of,

I saw myself from above the bed. Literally, I did. I saw that. And I saw my mom there crying in a wheelchair. I'm the youngest. And I'm like, if I can get through, the order of things is wrong here. I should be taking care of her.

I failed her. Her youngest son, I'm in here in the ICU, you know, hanging on. They're going to have to take out, I'm going to be on dialysis at best, you know. But miraculously, through that night, they were going to do surgery. The next day, they didn't because my pancreas started coming down. It was the size of a football and it started coming back down to its normal size.

So they held off for a couple of days. And my doctor said, man, you've been given a second chance after like two and a half days. So remember this. You've been given a second chance after like two and a half days so remember this you've been given a second chance don't don't it up i'm like okay and i got the librium and i got the morphine buttons and i'm not gonna okay i haven't drank for two and a half days man and then it was three and a half days and then it was six days and they took the buttons away from me, and that sucked. And then I was in there for another seven days, and they weaned me off the morphine. And the pain, I still couldn't eat. I was eating ice chips.

And by the time I got out of the hospital, I was done. That was what I needed. I needed that. I had been trying to stop. I just thought, I'll never be able to stop. I'm going to die young. Yeah. And seeing my mom like that, crying, really had an effect on me.

So how I got sober was that. And I got on my mountain bike when I got home. They gave me a Librium. And I said, take as directed. It was a weaning off thing of Librium. Librium is like a value, but it's for alcohol, like to come off alcohol. So you know what I did? I followed medication as directed for all these new things.

I smelled fresh cut grass. It reminded me of having paper route. I smelled like newspaper print. These first things, like when you get sober, all these things come back to you before you started getting fucked up. Wow. And I just rode my mountain bike.

I didn't know what else to do. I was like I was on acid. Everything was so real. And I had to come back down to L.A. We were going to do some guns, like start up a third record. Yeah. I come down to L.A. I get a mountain bike there. Was it a spaghetti incident? No, like start up a third record. Yeah. I come down to LA.

I get a mountain bike there. Was it a spaghetti incident? No, it was after that. Oh. So it was after that. So we were going to get something started. Right. But I had gotten sober.

And somebody introduced me to, I was going down. Now I'm going to Gold's Gym in North Hollywood. Yeah. And I'm riding my mountain bike. I'm going to this gym. I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. I'm going to Gold's Gym in North Hollywood. Yeah. And I'm riding my mountain bike. I'm going to this gym. I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. I'm just trying to stay.

Anything I can do to stay sober. Yeah. And there was a kickboxer in the Gold's Gym. And he was like hitting bags. I said something to him. I said, do you want to? If you want to, I can introduce you to my sensei. And it was two doors down.

Yeah. I went through the back door and I met Benny the Jeter Kiedis. I went through the door and this guy comes up to me. His eyes just pierced through me and like saw all the way down. And it was a real fighter's gym at that time, 94. And he saw that I was, I would just kind of come through some stuff. that I was, I just kind of come through some stuff. Yeah.

And he said, look, man, if you want to work in this gym, you have to, I don't want to hear you talk. You have to show me you belong here. So it was just, I did whatever he said. And I did two days. And I stayed in there for that next two years. I was doing two days. I was reading history at home.

I was living like a monk. I had like a, I didn't know how to talk to a girl or anything like that i got a big l on my forehead yeah but i would just in that two years steve steve jones yeah can we said you want to uh you want to play in this band with me and john taylor matt like like Shannon Hoon had just died. We did a benefit show for his wife and child. And I said, Steve, before that, I said, I don't think I can play again. I think me getting sober, that's the end of my music career.

I don't see myself being able to do it. And Steve had gotten sober two years prior. He goes, it's okay, man. And Steve Jones, my hero. Yeah, yeah. The guy that, you know. He's a character. He's my everything.

Steve Jones asked me to play with him. He says, you're going to, and what he said to me is, you're going to be fine. Yeah. You're going to be fine. Trust me. And we went and started rehearsing and we played that first show.

I was so scared before the show. And the show, then I realized like I was realized it was easier to play. People said after the show, you've never played that good. I'm like, really? My palms are sweaty, everything. I look so much different than I did

at the end of my getting fucked up days, which was only two years prior. Yeah, as soon as you get off the shit, you start rebuilding. Yeah, people thought I'd gotten a facelift and all up days. Yeah. Which was only two years prior. Yeah. But yeah, as soon as you get off the shit, you start rebuilding. Yeah. People thought I got a facelift and like all this stuff. I'm like,

no, I'm just sober. You know? That's great. Yeah. So, that began this really long, cool journey.

As you know, it gets much better. Sure. Right? Yeah. And it really does. And Uketa Khan Martial Arts is a,

what I didn't know until i went to program meetings thing yeah it is the 12 steps the thing yeah is not invented by a couple guys in the 30s these are universal truths right they've gone back in martial arts for 4 000 years uh-huh right yeah so you have to, I went to the things, the secret meetings we have with the pointy hats and stuff, secret handshake. I'm like, well, this is Ukidacon. I'm going through the steps. I'm like, this is my martial art. Kind of astounding. That's great. That's a great story, dude. It's just sort of astounding where you're at. You got two grown kids. You've been sober a long time. You weathered the storm.

You and the fellas are back together again. And, you know, it's nowhere near as crazy and the money's as big as ever. And you found time to sort of like put this album together and now come in full circle. So, you know, where we started this in terms of the inspiration for the record was you being out in the world

and talking to other people. Yes, talking to other people and kind of realizing, I think I'm going to write a book about this. Right. Because I don't see this divide. I see the news and I read the thing, the divide and this and that.

No divide. And Twitter and I'm just not seeing it. Our band goes out and plays these huge shows and music is so universal we've played all over the world for 159 shows yeah to like five million people right and you see a mix of people we played in in muslim countries where you know women with their whole heads covered are just rocking the fuck out. And you realize it's about the music. And to us, it might seem culturally weird, but I've traveled enough to other countries that I don't think it's – I don't go there – I go there without judgment.

It's like they're just rocking the fuck out. I'm down with that. We've played Israel and South America and Asia, totally different cultures. But music is so universal. So maybe if I'm in any bubble, it's in one of unity. There's music that's doing this really great thing in a pretty strange time right now. This country itself has a very interesting history. And if you look at this, you can concentrate on current if you want to.

I don't pay it that much attention, man, because I know this too shall pass. That's the way this country rolls. And I choose to see an America as the one that we unite no matter what. And I think that's going to happen. People are going to get sick of being serious about crap. It happened like when disco came in. People were just so sick of the Watergate and the Vietnam War. And like all of a sudden just people just lost their minds in punk rock and disco and all this shit.

You know, like people just went crazy. Yeah. You know, like that's just our recent history. Oh, yeah. Well, I hope it happens that way and not in the way where people start picking up arms and organizing militias and cleansing the rest of their state. Yeah. I just, I think humanity is, I haven't seen one like even, I have a cabin in a place that's,

my neighbors have been in a quote unquote red part of a state. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Super red. Right. They don't know the cities. They're scared to come to the cities.

Yeah. My neighbors and stuff. And I like talk to them. I joke to them about it. My family's gone to use my cabin and get a call. It's early on. There's some,

somebody's using your cabin, like broke in. I'm like, what do you mean? Well, they're black. I'm like, that's my family, man. You know, like they never see, you know what I mean? This is like 20 years ago,

but we've come up together over there in that country where we water ski together. We go up in the mountains. We do- You're friends with your neighbors. We have barbecues. We're super good friends. And you know what?

We just don't talk about politics. So this record you see is a unifying record. I hope it to be.. I hope it to be. I really hope it to be. I started writing these little vignettes that were going to be beginnings of chapters. And just of my observations, it's not as bad as you think. And if you go back in history and you see this happened here and this happened there, and this will pass, man.

It's how we handle it now. And I do have these daughters and i want my daughters to know their father you know what did you do when yeah yeah right yeah what did you do when that happened and i see the you know we see a lot of fucked up shit going on with the school shootings and and you wrote that song called parkland i mean it's very specific it's pretty specific well It's kind of made without commentary. It's more of a funeral dirge.

Yeah. No, yeah. And I think you picked the right producer. It's got kind of that Roots feel. You know, Shooter's like, you know,

when he sets his mind to doing something that sounds American. Yeah. You know, in a way. You know, it's very accessible. I think it was great.

And, you know, and I wish you luck with it. Oh, thanks, Mark. All right. It's great talking to you. Yeah, you too. I'm glad I finally got to come on the show. It was really good, Duff.

Thanks, man. Okay, cool. So that was Duff. What a nice guy, right? It was all coming back to him, it seems, when I was sitting there talking to him. His third album, Tenderness, comes out next Friday, May 31st. Get it wherever you get your music.

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