1996.09.12 - The Michigan Daily - Punk Dream Team Neurotic Outsiders Shoots Potent Load (Duff)

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Punk Dream Team Neurotic Outsiders Shoots Potent Load (Duff)
Members of Guns N' Roses, Sex Pistols, Duran Duran unite.

By Brian A. Gnatt.
Daily Arts Editor.

Life's been a little busy lately for Duff McKagan. The Guns N' Roses bassist has been living a tale of two cities and two bands - one rehearsing and recording a new record with Axl, Slash and the gang in L.A., and the other touring the country with his new all-star punk rock project, Neurotic Outsiders.

Along with Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones, Duran Duran's John Taylor on bass, and co-gunner Matt Sorum in drums, McKagan and the Neurotic Outsiders are hitting the road with their new band and self-titled album (Maverick, ***). Loaded with burning power chords, raunchy lyrics and raw power, "Neurotic Outsiders captures the punk energy you'd expect when you throw together members from some of the world's most notorious rock 'n' roll bands.

McKagan and Sorum are flying in from Los Angeles today after a four-day rehearsal with G N' R, who is "finally," as McKagan put it, hard at work on their first album of original material since 1992's "Use Your Illusions." They'll play four shows in a row with the Outsiders, and then it's right back to L.A. for another four days of Guns N' Roses.

The story behind the formation of Neurotic Outsiders is quite a simple one: A year ago, Sorum got a call from the manager of L.A.'s Viper Room about getting a band together for a charity benefit. He called Taylor to plass bass and McKagan and Jones to play guitar. Thus, Neurotic Outsiders was born. The band started playing covers of The Stooges, Sex Pistols and the Clash among others at the packed Hollywood hot spot. The chemistry erupted into the Outsider's war punk rock, and the band decided to continue playing together and record an album.

"Jonesy had a record he was working on and all of us had the tape," McKagan said in an interview with The Michigan Daily. "Matt had played on some of it, and it was my favorite tape of last summer, so we started playing the songs 'Nasty Ho' and 'Jerk.' We basically crushed the songs and said fuck the solo record."

To say McKagan is happy with Neurotic Outsiders and their new record is quite an understatement. "I'm as excited as I was when Guns was promoting our first record," McKagan said.

"I used to put together my ultimate punk rock band when I was, like, 17 and 18, and Steven Jones was always in it," he said. "There wouldn't be rock 'n' roll now as it is if it weren't for Steven Jones. That's the way I feel, but that's just simply the way it is."

Jones, who wrote and sings lead on five of the album's 12 tracks, centers many of his songs around his real-life sexual experiences. From the record's first single, "Jerk," with its Pistol-esque intro and a rocking chorus of "You're a bitch / I'm a jerk / I don't think we can work," to "Union" where he asks, "Tell me mirror on the wall / Who's the sickest Sex Pistol of them all," the album looks at the Pistol's nostalgically, but doesn't try to relive and recreate the same old songs.

The album opener, "Nasty Ho," takes the cake as the raunchiest of them all, recounting an encounter Jones had with a "nasty ho." The track starts with Sorum's pounding drums and Jones' and McKagan's heavy distorted guitars under the Pistol's Tome Jones-style lounge vocals.

"Steve's pretty frank," McKagan said. "It's about how he met this chick at a club and brought her home, they...   you know... they (had sex), and they got done and she asked for $300. Instead of pissing him off or bumming him out, it kinda turned him on. So, yeah, he wrote a song about it."

Other album highlights are McKagan's lead vocal tracks on "Good News," "Revolution," and the Iggy Pop-sounding "Six Feet Under." Taylor sings lead on four tracks, including a cover of Clash's "Jamie Jones."

McKagan said neither Guns N' Roses nor Neurotic Outsiders feel any animosity toward the other. "It's not a threat to any of the bands," he said. "That may have been the case behind some of the other side projects, but this just happened so innocently. There was no preconception to it. We just started playing benefits.

"I came into (Guns N' Roses) rehearsal last night and Axl goes, 'Dude… this record … is amazing. It's so important.' And he was singing the words to every song."

As far as the new Guns N' Roses material goes: "It rocks; it's heavy," McKagan said. "With Guns, with what the chemistry of the band is, you're going to be able to tell it's Guns -- even if we're playing a polka, you would be able to tell it's Guns."

For the new Guns N' Roses album, which McKagan said, "shouldn't be out any later than next spring," Axl will be playing rhythm guitar in place of Gilby Clarke, who was fired after the band's 1993 punk cover album, "The Spaghetti Incident."

For now, McKagan is busy concentrating on his two present bands, and said the past 10 years and 70 millions records with Guns was just the beginning, "I really feel like we've just started," he said. "The last 10 years was [?] used to it, learning the tricks, and now it's time to apply 'em."