Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan revealed that he plans on sticking around after the rumored new GNR album in 2020. McKagan made the remarks in a new Classic Rock magazine interview. A Guns N’ Roses member recently called a bandmate a ‘bloated’ mess.
And as you told us earlier this year, there’s a new Guns N’ Roses album coming. If and when that happens, could you die a happy man?
“Well, everything I’m doing now, I’m thinking this is part of my legacy. But I’m planning on being around for a while.”
Your album is mostly acoustic, with what you call a “sociopolitical” theme. It’s nothing like Guns N’ Roses. What kind of reaction were you expecting?
“Of course I thought about what the reaction would be, but it wasn’t the main concern. I’ve done these massive rock records in the past, but I think it was an okay time for me to do something different. And this all happened during the Guns N’ Roses tour, a couple of years back. The original idea was to write a book, but I had my acoustic guitar on the road, and after I wrote the first song, It’s Not Too Late, I thought I’d make it a record.”
Slash just revealed if Izzy Stradlin’s absence ‘ruined’ the Guns N’ Roses reunion tour. Rovim posted about the album on MyGNRForum.com, “I believe Axl Rose doesn’t want to release low quality material but there’s no proof he’s on medications or that he lost inspiration or passion. My guess is he probably just overthinks it but a truly great artist is someone who can actually let go when it’s time, knowing when their creation is getting diluted.
Listening to the 2019 leaks and comparing it with the official release which I still very much enjoy, to me it sounds like he buried a lot of what made the material compelling with attempts to improve the same tunes with layers of newer ideas, adding and replacing them with others years after they were originally conceived.
That is the best way to lose the vibe that most albums got, a snapshot of a specific time in the artist’s life. It’s amazing it worked at all and I’m glad he made it but a decade for one album is too much time to labor over just one thing imo and Chinese wasn’t the end of it cause it’s been 11 years since that was released which probably means he’s still overthinks it.”
GnR Chris responded, “Not necessarily. A lot of time has past since Chinese released, but four of those 11 years has featured the current lineup touring. I really do think a new record was probably closer than some people think, probably around 2014, up until the thought of a Slash return started to become a reality. If given the option of GNR material with DJ Ashba recording over Finck or Buckethead, or waiting several years to get a new record from a Slash/Duff/Axl lineup, I would have chosen to wait. LOL.”
