Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan discussed Slash‘s reaction to Axl Rose asking him to play Chinese Democracy material in 2016 in a new Classic Rock magazine interview. Slash firing a Guns N’ Roses bandmate at a restaurant was detailed last week.
Classic Rock asked, “Back in 2016, when you and Slash began rehearsing for the Not In This Lifetime tour, you were playing those old songs again, from Appetite For Destruction and Use Your Illusion I and II, and also some of the songs from Chinese Democracy, the Guns album that Axl made without you guys. How did that feel?”
McKagan responded, “For me it was very cool. With every record I’ve ever made, I never listen to them after they’re done. So diving into Appetite and the Illusions stuff, songs that I played as a young man, rediscovering it all, it was really cool for me to go back and do that. With Chinese Democracy, some of the stuff on that record is brilliant – really brilliant.
Axl asked Slash and I to do these certain things from that record, and when we played them with Frank [Ferrer, drummer], it was like: ‘Let’s make these songs the best we can make it.’ It was fun for Slash and I to tear those songs apart and play them with aggression. We made them our own.”
McKagan also said about the Not In This Lifetime tour, “It’s been one of the most enlightening times of my life. All the way through, there’s been a lot of levity. You know, when we finally communicated, hey, it’s a lot easier when you talk! And I found myself remembering how these guys taught me so much in my early days. I learned a lot from these guys about just how to be.” A Guns N’ Roses member revealing an ‘overweight’ Slash photo was just detailed.
