1991.08.DD - Finnish Television - Interview with Duff

Transcript:

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TRANSCRIPTION:
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Interviewer: Where did you get your first spark to play rock ‘n’ roll? Was it in your childhood? How did it happen?

Duff: Well, I’m the last of eight kids and everybody is, like, very musically inclined in my family – you know, besides me (laughs). And I just grew up listening to, like, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Aerosmith... Aerosmith was probably the band that did it - cuz Led Zeppelin was brilliant musically and Jimi Hendrix was from my hometown, so he was real big there, but Aerosmith was the cool looking band, they were like the bad kids on the block. That’s basically how I was; you know, on the wrong side of the tracks, that type of thing. I saw Aerosmith in ’76, I was 12 years old, and I said, “This is what I want to do.”

....

Duff: I’ve just done doing a solo record, cuz I play drums, right? I’ve played drums for 4-6 years. I didn’t play bass until we formed this band. But I played guitar also for about 15 years, so bass was pretty easy. So I just got done with the solo record, which I’m not gonna release till, like, next...

Interviewer: ... this tour is over?

Duff: Yeah. I don’t wanna compete. I’m more, you know...

Interviewer: Is it like a solo record as a bass player, like a Paul McCartney or Sting type of thing? What kind of solo record? Are there guitarists there?

Duff: Yes. I have Slash playing, Lenny Kravitz is singing on one song, Sebastian is gonna sing. I sing on the rest. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Nothing selfish or anything. It’s just, you know, I’ve had all these songs and I wanted to get it out, and that was the best way to do it. I was supposed to get another drummer come in, but I could play drums, and who would be better to play it than myself. They’re my songs, right?

Interviewer: Like Phil Collins?

Duff: Yeah. Well, no. Not really at all (laughs). It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do, and now I can afford the opportunity, Geffen has given it. It turned out really cool. I recorded it, you know. It’s very different, it’s not like Guns N’ Roses. It’s from here (=the heart). (?) It’s from the single heart, you know.

Interviewer: Are you single?

Duff: Yeah.

Interviewer: I heard that you don’t have any setlists. Is it true? That every gig, basically, is a jam session.

Duff: Basically, yeah. It’s cool, cuz we react to the audience. But we don’t know which song we’re gonna start with until...

Interviewer: And it gets boring to sing the same songs in the same order for years and years.

Duff: Yeah. I mean, every band you go see they have the same rap between the songs, the same setlist...

Interviewer: Same speech.

Duff: Yeah, exactly. Same rap. Yeah, same speech.    

Interviewer: Like “Hi Stockholm” in Helsinki? We heard that.

Duff: Oh, really?

Interviewer: I don’t remember who it was, but it felt like (?)

Duff: Yeah, Ted Nugent did that. In Memphis he said “Cincinatti” or something. Yeah, I mean, it keeps us on our toes. It keeps us really fresh. We’ve already toured for two years, so we don’t wanna, like, burn out doing the same setlist every night. Plus, rock ‘n’ roll is meant to be a bit dangerous and volatile, you know? And this keeps it that way.

Interviewer: Yeah, as soon as you mother likes the same band as you do, change the band!

Duff: Yeah, exactly.

[Live footage]

....

Duff: Next question.

Interviewer: Okay. I’ll say it differently. What is the atmosphere in the dressing room just before the gig? Is it like complete harmony or chaos or...? What happens? Everybody does their own thing or...?  

Duff: No, the whole band will get together always before we go on. It just kind of is really quiet. Our dressing room will have, like, candles – the main dressing room, I should say. Candles and incense and stuff, so it’s, like, completely calm. We have the same stuff at every gig, you know? The “world order”...

Interviewer: Just like a home?

Duff: Yeah, it’s like a home base. It’s, like, the same every place we go. Because it can get a little crazy, you know, if you don’t have, like, at least some sameness. And so everybody leaves out there except for the band, and we get together, and it’s just real quiet. And we just kind of decide what song we’re gonna play first, and then we just go out.

[Live footage]

Interviewer: Yesterday the gig reminded me of seeing Hanoi Rocks ten years ago, when I went to a gig.

Duff: Really?

Interviewer: How about Hanoi Rocks? Did you meet those guys? Have you seen them live ever?

Duff: Actually, when I moved to L.A. from Seattle, my hometown, when I was 19, I got a ticket – they were gonna play The Palace in L.A. And that’s when, you know, Razzle... So I didn’t get to see them.

...

Duff: We flew Michael Monroe to L.A. from New York and he sang - we played harmonica and sax on one song on the record, and he sang a duet with Axl on another song. So, yeah, I mean, I know him. I know Andy McCoy and Sam Yaffan. Those two go out in L.A.

...

Interviewer: So it was basically your idea? Those [Hanoi Rocks] records released?

Duff: Yeah, because you couldn’t get them anymore, right? We have our own label, okay? So, you know, what the hell...

Interviewer: What is the most difficult time of touring?

Duff: Doing interviews on TV (laughs). No, I’m joking!

Interviewer: That’s what they all say.

Duff: Probably sleeping.

Interviewer: Is it? Time differences are very difficult.

Duff: Yeah, and – I don’t know. I mean, you get used to the road, you get used to it. It’s like when we were just home, we played five gigs back in L.A., so it wasn’t a vacation at all. But I own a house in L.A. for when I go home, and the first four-five days when I’ll wake up in the morning I’ll pick up my phone to call room service, you know? (laughs)

Interviewer: I once went to breakfast where I live one morning because I’d been away for so long.

Duff: Yeah, exactly. So, once you get in the tour mode, I mean, it’s your life – that’s life, that’s how you live. I think things are made pretty easy for us. I mean, we’ve got things set up, we’ve got our own plane. The worst part is the loneliness, you know. I kinda cleaned house before I left. You know, I don’t have a girlfriend or anything. So, it’s like, you don’t have a home base to call home to, you know? But, I mean, that’s part of the road, it’s part of the tour thing, you know. I’ve got my friends in the band [cut]