2011.04.17 - QMI Agency - Q&A; with GnR's McKagan

Q&A; with GnR's McKagan

By DARRYL STERDAN, QMI Agency

AUSTIN, TEX. -- Duff McKagan swears he's not loaded. Not as loaded as you think, anyway.

"I'm just a working musician," insists the lanky blond rocker, sipping a high-octane latte during a one-on-one chat in a meeting room at SXSW. "What makes you think I'm rich?"

Gee dude, I dunno. Maybe because you were the bassist in Guns N' Roses for 13 years and sold more than 100 million CDs. Or because you've gone on to sell several million more with GN'R-spinoff Velvet Revolver. Or because you're about to start a career as a musicians' investment guru with your own firm Meridian Rock. It's even one reason you're at SXSW: To give a presentation cheekily entitled Your Financial Adviser is Duff McKagan.

Yep, that's right; the man whose legendary alcohol consumption allegedly inspired The Simpsons' beer-mascot Duff Man now wants his peers to trust him with their royalties. And they could do worse. Rich or not, McKagan isn't scared of work.

After the original Guns imploded in the '90s, he moved back to Seattle, dried out and earned a finance degree that he's put to good use negotiating deals for VR and his band Loaded. In addition, he's nurturing a career as a writer -- he pens the Duffonomics column for Playboy, weighs in on sports for ESPN and has a regular column in the Seattle Weekly.

(Maybe he does need money after all.)

But he hasn't abandoned music. McKagan and Loaded also came to SXSW to showcase their CD The Taking. Produced by Seattle mainstay Terry Date (Soundgarden), it's a propulsive blast of old-school guitar-rock that bridges Duff's musical worlds, wrapping arena-sized riffs in the fuzzy sonics of grunge.

As he waited to give his speech, the tattooed McKagan -- decked out in the rock-star uniform of black tank-top and jeans, accented by aviator shades and crucifix -- talked music, money and the Seattle sound.

Music or finance: Which takes up more of your time these days?

Oh, they go hand in hand. And these days, they have to. Because nobody's selling records. There's no more million-selling rock records. So bands have to adapt. And young musicians know more than anybody what it takes to make a band work. They know how much gas is in every state. Or that if you're in a bus in England, it's going to cost you £250 to go into London, so you should park outside and take the tube in. To have any sort of success nowadays, you have to know about licensing and T-shirt costs and inventory and everything.

Well, let's start with music. The new Loaded album seems a lot more aggressive than the last one.

Yeah, this was the first record we ever made coming off a tour. We went on tour with our last album Sick, and when you play a record live, it gets heavier and heavier because you got four guys on adrenaline and caffeine. And then when you start writing riffs, that's where this record came from. We came off the road and started making demos. Then Terry Date heard a couple of songs and said, "I really want to do this record." And this is how money always plays a part: He usually gets $200,000 to produce a record. But we don't have that kind of money.

Sure you do. You're loaded. It's even the name of your band. I mean, I presume it originally referred to your drinking. But nowadays, it kind of has a new meaning.

Oh God. (Laughs) Yeah, I guess. But if you were to live my life, you'd see I have to work. I have a wife and two kids. Yeah, I've been very fortunate. But rich? People make huge assumptions about the guys in GN'R. They think I'm f---ing rolling in it. But trust me, you don't have any idea what I make. So anyway, back to Loaded. Terry knew we were making the record on our own dime. And he offered to be sort of a partner, so he did it for free in the hopes that the record will do well. So it's in his interest to use whatever machine he's got to sell it too.

This really sounds like a Seattle record. Not the songs necessarily, but the actual sound of the guitars and drums.

It's just wet, I think. I'm not kidding. I think that has something to do with it. There is an actual sound to Seattle. I know from growing up and playing in punk bands. Everybody rehearses in the basement wearing coats, so you're bunched up and uncomfortable and it's raining outside and everything is kind of wet. I think the paper in the speakers might be a little damp, and the tubes are firing a little differently because there's condensation. I don't think anybody's ever explored that aspect of the Seattle sound, but to me it's always been sort of obvious.

Every interview, you're asked about reuniting with GN'R and getting a new singer for VR. You must get sick of it.

It's just part of life. I've learned to understand it. I had to. I could f---ing fight it but there's no use because there's so many people on the planet. I did this signing at a guitar show in England a few weeks ago. There were 1,000 people each day. And the first day, I got asked those questions 1,000 times. Every single f---ing person asked. So the second day, they put up a sign that said, "No, Guns N' Roses are not getting back together, and Velvet Revolver is not doing anything right now." It was hilarious.

OK, let's talk about money: How did you go from musician to investment guru?

I'm from a family of eight. My dad was a fireman. And I worked my ass off since I was 14 -- construction, dishwasher, you f---ing name it. I lived on $100 a week. Then GN'R took off and I got my first cheque. It was for $80,000. It might as well have been $1 million. I was frightened of it. And nobody sat down and talked with me about investing. So I just ended up being terrified of the cheques I was getting. Then I got sober when I was 30; I woke up and I was a millionaire. And I didn't know anything about money, and at 30, I was too embarrassed to ask. So I went to school.

Wasn't it embarrassing being the rock star in class?

I didn't care about that. I just wanted to learn. Luckily, I had a great professor. About halfway through the semester I had a frank discussion with him.

I said, "I'm sitting on all these monthly financial statements for the last six years, and I can't make sense of them." So I blacked out the numbers and brought them in and he helped me understand.

And everything I learned in class, I could suddenly put it directly to my situation. I think for that reason alone, I excelled at school: I could apply the things right away.

Where did the idea for Meridian Rock come from?

My peers started calling and asking, "What do I do? Do I buy a house?" I was like, "Dude, I'm taking calculus. I don't know if you should buy a f---ing house!"

But I started to see this need, you know? And now that I'm sober, there's a part of me that wants to be of service. I want to do something that's a little bigger than myself.

Do businessmen underestimate you, and can you use that to your advantage?

If people underestimate me, they soon learn. I've been in meetings where I see people who are f---ing scared.

Do you suit up?

F--- no. I go to Canary Wharf like this. It's not about appearance or any of that bulls--t.

Do musicians have different financial needs?

Totally. They might have more zeros to deal with at once, but they have shorter careers. It's like sports -- they get a few million, but half goes to the government, then there's the manager and the agent and the lawyer, and then you want to take care of your family and friends. All of a sudden, that money is gone. But people like you think you're rich. Truth is, you gotta make that money f---ing last.