2019.06.25 - Rolling Stone Music Now Podcast - Interview with Duff

Excerpts from Blabbermouth:
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Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan says that he and Slash worked "hard" on trying to get Izzy Stradlin involved with the band's reunion tour. [...]

Now, in a new interview in the "Rolling Stone Music Now" podcast, McKagan has offered more information on the circumstances that led to Izzy's absence from the trek.

According to Duff, Izzy's decision to sit out the tour "wasn't from us not trying, for sure. I don't know if have a take beyond that," he said. "I know what we tried to do and how hard we worked at that.

"Touring in a big rock band is not for everybody," he continued. "That's my take on that. It's a thing — this is a thing."

Asked about Stradlin's claim that he stepped away from the reunion because the band didn't want to "split the loot equally," McKagan said: "I don't even know. At the end of the day, we just couldn't figure it out."

Duff went on to address Izzy's history of "coming and going" from various projects, including a brief stint with Duff and Slash's post GN'R band Velvet Revolver.

"There's a lot of coming and going, so this was one more chapter of that coming and going," Duff said in reference to Izzy pulling out of "Not In This Lifetime".

"I don't wanna say anything that's untoward, because I love the guy," the bassist continued. "Slash and I are sober guys, and we went at it with a solution-based [attitude], like, 'Let's make this work.' But it just didn't. And who knows? Maybe some other time."

Asked whether he thinks the Guns N' Roses reunion is finite, Duff said: "I don't have that feeling at all, [that] it's a finite thing.

"Because we've done no press yet, nobody knows," he continued. "And I kind of dig it, to be honest with you. I'm not trying to keep you in the dark. I don't dig the feeling of keeping you in the dark, but it's kind of nice. It's a thing where nobody needs to know our business. I think that's… We got into trouble a long time ago, where people knew all of our business… So we talk about things to each other now — something that maybe we never did before."

https://blabbermouth.net/news/duff-mckagan-on-izzy-stradlins-non-involvement-in-guns-n-roses-reunion-maybe-some-other-time