by Duff McKagan
It’s So Easy was released in 2011. And when I got into promoting the book, I realized how much of my experience promoting albums translated to the world of publishing, even if the two communities were very different.
At one point, my publisher dispatched me to something called BookExpo America in New York, a closed convention where all of the different large and small publishers show their new wares to buyers like Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, Costco, Target, and Hudson (you know, the stores at the airports), as well as all of the independent bookstores like Elliott Bay, Powell’s, and the like.
The night before my signing at the Expo, my senior editor and her staff threw a cocktail party in my honor at a fancy restaurant in Manhattan called Lamb (so damn posh, right?). It was actually one of the sweetest things I’ve ever been to.
The publishing community is VERY different from the music community. Or, to be more precise: the publishing community is like some wonderfully kitschy and nerdy indie movie. The mood and personality that filled the room at the party was interesting, thoughtful, smart, nerdy, and diverse.
I have been trained to be a little (OK, VERY!) dubious of the rock-and-roll press. They always want “the dirt” or are looking for some snidely and wise-ass way to catch me off guard or misquote me so that it seems much bolder and dumber than the things that they actually ask me about. There were members of the press at the cocktail party. I was ready.
I quickly pulled my editor aside and frantically told her that I didn’t know that the press would be at this party and that I didn’t want to talk to them at the risk of being misquoted for the umpteenth time. She looked at me quizzically and stated that “the publishing press would never dream of doing something like that!” Yeah, I guess Kirkus Reviews and the book side of Associated Press and whatnot don’t just want the dirt. The publishing industry, it turns out, is still a quaint little field that is still in the business of actually being excited about new things, and the publishing press and all of the different publishing companies are still in the business of helping each other out. They want their industry to be strong, and there just really doesn’t seem to be any sort of underhandedness and BS happening behind the scenes.
At dinner after the party, I sat with a few of the publisher’s mucky-mucks, and we all talked about the books we had been reading. I had just finished One Bullet Away by Nate Fick, and one of the gentlemen that I was sitting with had edited that book. Yeah, that’s right, for a book nerd like me, that was like sitting with the guy who had just produced the latest Rolling Stones record. Pretty cool.
At the Expo, I signed copies of my book for a thronging line of like-minded book nerds and exchanged small talk with them the same way I’ve done at countless album signings. There were a lot of people from other publishing companies, book buyers for large and small stores, and librarians, even one from the Seattle Public Library system, which I have frequented since I was a child.
The one big difference—and I must say that I was a tad crestfallen—was that none of them asked me to sign their tits.
It’s So Easy also gave me a chance to experiment with different kinds of performances.
I did the typical book signings, sure. But I also presented sold-out evenings of music and readings at clubs and theaters around the world. I even played a stripped-down, intimate gig at the Viper Room in LA. That was an interesting night.
Before I go any further, I want to say that I think it’s actually a genuinely sweet offer when someone passes me a joint. “I don’t smoke weed,” I say politely. I know the intent is good, so I never want to be the guy who passes judgment or otherwise looks at that situation with scornful disdain.
Drugs are a funny thing. No one really wants to get high alone, at least not when one is still in the “casual use” stage, anyway. Rarely will you hear of people doing bumps of cocaine or hits of crystal meth on their own. There’d be no one to jabber and talk mad nonsense with.
I thought that if you bought a ticket to a show in which I present the story of my pancreas exploding that you probably know that I don’t do drugs anymore. Right? Apparently not.
Places like the Viper Room—and the old CBGBs, come to think of it—have only one set of bathrooms. Everyone shares. So, when I had to go, I went into the men’s room at the Viper Room and patiently waited my turn. And, there I was, dick in hand, and I got offered a bump of coke.
Now listen, I will state it again: I find no fault with the people who offer me such things, it’s just fuckin’ odd sometimes.
If I were in my heyday of getting fucked up, these people would have offered me free drugs only once. Guys like me aren’t dainty in our usage. All the drugs in that men’s room would have been gone in an instant.
I guess learning to say no is a talent I picked up on the rock-and-roll circuit as well.
10
CHAPTER
MAKE TIME FOR YOUR FRIENDS
YOU CAN’T TOUR WITH YOUR BAND, IN A VAN, IF YOU don’t like each other. That would be hellish. You’re going to be with the same people constantly. Even when you love each other, you still need a break from time to time.
When I say break, I’m talking about taking a spell from the 24/7 tour grind that can drive anyone to the asylum. Walking Papers keyboardist Ben Anderson and I saw a chance for our escape—hey, sometimes, just splitting a band up into parts can do wonders for morale—and an opportunity to score a night off in Madrid.
Looking at a sixteen-hour drive from Lille, France, Ben and I noticed that the drive would be our one and only day off. Fuck that. Instead of spending our day off in the van, we decided to hop a European econo flight and spend the day in the beautiful city of Madrid.
It wasn’t just that we needed a few hours to ourselves. Ben needed new pants, and my boots were worn through. The day off would give us a chance to take advantage of Spain’s dire economy, do a little shopping, and maybe even find a good hotel gym (a welcome change from working out at cold venues, with just jump ropes and yoga mats).
Ben is a handsome man and knows how to carry himself. Being cool and confident travelers is key to a band getting along. Fitting in and going with the flow and speaking a little bit of the local tongue become second nature to world citizens such as ourselves. Ben is all of these things. He’s also extremely handy. In the cab ride to the airport in France, he told me he had made us reservations at a really nice restaurant in Madrid for the following night and that the paella at this place was “to die for.” A nice quiet dinner is not something you get on tour very often. I was looking forward to this getaway already.
I was pleasantly surprised by Ben’s short bursts of French to the cab driver. I somehow felt safe and taken care of. I realized that Mr. Anderson had a sort of effortless debonair quality that had previously eluded me. Really nice skin, too.
Perusing the little airplane menu on the flight, Ben and I both ordered some low-fat yogurt and a bag of raw almonds. We are ultra-aware of the need to keep our girlish figures as a main focal point of our tour fitness regimes. Sure, you want to feel good and healthy out there, but, let’s be honest, we want to look good, too. You know, keep them glutes high and tight (am I right, guys?), maybe a better pectoral set, and good hair and the right skin products.
After landing, Ben informed me that he had already booked us hotel rooms in the city center, right off of the stunning and picturesque Plaza Majore (Main Plaza) in the shopping and restaurant hub of the “lighted district” of Madrid. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and found ourselves smack in the middle of the shoe-shop area. Perfect.
I’m not much of a shopper. My preferred method is to know exactly what I want, go in the store, grab it if they have it, and leave. But I found the experience much more pleasant with Ben. He kept talking to me about what kind of boots he thought looked good on me, and he wasn’t satisfied with going into just one shop (like me). He actually seemed to want me to look good and feel good about my purchase, and he wasn’t just paying lip service to that notion. I fe
lt a little special.
I didn’t end up finding anything, but the fact that he was so interested and patient let me in on an intriguing side of Ben Anderson. I even commented on the nice scent of his new cologne. Mild, sweet, but strong . . . and a little mysterious.
Next, we were off to do a little pants shopping for Ben. Look, we are your typical dudes. Buying clothes lies somewhere on the bottom of my list of important things in my life. I have a family to think about: their schooling, their safety, the dogs, health insurance, the Seahawks, my next book to read, getting to a gym, and keeping up with baseball scores. They all rank way above shopping for clothes. I think Ben is the same. But, man, he really needed a new pair of pants. His existing pair were not long for this world.
Black pants for tall, thin fellas can be hard to come by, as khakis and boxy jeans dominate the men’s section of most stores. Finally, we happened upon a store that had promise. We noticed more of a “Euro” vibe with the cut of clothes and the clientele: lots of scarves, skinny jeans, V-neck T-shirts, and men dancing to Madonna.
Ben found a couple pair of pants his size and I followed him back to the changing area. I wanted to be as much help to him as he’d been to me in my boot search. He asked me if his butt looked good in the first pair that he tried on. “No,” I said. “Too boxy.” But the next pair was perfect. “Nice, Ben. Those pants give you a great butt.”
He made his purchase as I got on the store Wi-Fi to check the MLB scores back home.
Our day off had a packed schedule. Once shopping was out of the way, it was time to hit the hotel gym and get a good workout in before our dinner reservation. Lucky for us, we discovered that we had the whole gym to ourselves. It’s not uncommon to go without air conditioning in Europe, and we’ve learned how to deal with it. The sun had been beating down through the windows of this top-floor gym all day, and it was pretty much like a sauna. No problem.
On tour, you have to make a point of keeping your clothes clean. You can’t just wear whatever you want at any time like at home. There isn’t a washing machine everywhere you go. This is why you end up washing gym clothes in the hotel sink and hanging them to dry on your shower rod. The less clothes you have to dry, the less moisture you have in that bathroom, and the quicker whatever clothes you have in there will dry. Make sense?
This is a long way of explaining why Ben and I decided to go shirtless in the empty gym. A sweaty gym shirt would just be one more thing to wash and dry.
At the end of our rigorous workout, we did some assisted stretching. I helped him stretch, and he helped me. We were fairly soaked through with sweat, and Ben’s hamstrings were really tight. I had him lie on his back, and I took his whole left leg and stretched it down toward him. Just then, a male hotel worker came through the gym, and his eyes got huge as he rushed uncomfortably and quickly past us. Weird.
Seeing as this was our first night off and that Ben and I were feeling rather civilized and refreshed from our cosmopolitan day, we both threw on the best clothes we had for dinner. I shaved, washed my hair, and used face moisturizing stuff. I put on my good-smelling cologne that makes me feel like part of the human race and dressed in my newer black stretch pants (with just a hint of a boot cut). I threw on a clean black Calvin Klein ribbed wifebeater, a black leather jacket, and a black scarf I had found, with just a wisp of silver (you know, to bring out the silver zipper of my jacket).
Madrid is known as the city of lights, and we were stunned by the overwhelming amount of light bulbs illuminating our walk to dinner. I imagine it is quite romantic.
The restaurant that Ben picked completely kicked ass—cloth napkins and cool art in a really old building in an ancient part of the city. After sitting down, we both ordered a different paella so that we could sample from each other. The customers were nice, and we kept getting smiles and little waves.
When it was time for dessert, we decided to order just one to split (you know, tour fitness and all). But it was so damn good, that we just had to order another to share. Afterward, we agreed that a long walk was in order to work off that extra dessert.
Our walk took us down the beautifully lit main shopping street of the Plaza Majore, ending down at the nineteenth-century Banco de Espana, which is still mostly gaslit, and a focal point for nighttime tourist photo ops. There was a group of college girls trying (and failing) to take a collective selfie. Ben, being the sweet dude that he is, offered to take the picture for them. This beautifully lit old bank building behind them was a grandiose backdrop, and it was clear why it is so popular with tourists at night.
When Ben got done snapping the photo on one of the girls’ iPhones, they offered to take a photo of the two of us with the same backdrop. We posed for the shot, and one yelled: “Okay, put your arms around each other!”
Wait, what? What could possibly have given them the idea that we were a couple? Can’t a couple of dudes walk off shared paella and dessert after a long day in one of the most romantic cities in the world without the smell of sex hanging in the air?
11
CHAPTER
WHEN IN ROME . . .
“Life is tough, but it’s tougher if you’re stupid.”
—John Wayne, Sands of Iwo Jima
SINCE I’M IN THE MIDST OF TELLING YOU ALL A STORY about a trip across the world, I want to give you all a few pointers that I’ve gleaned from my years spent on the road (and in the air). But, before I do, I want to make sure we’re all on the same page. If you’re going to be flying at all, there are some basics that those of us who do this for a living would love for you to check off your list.
Nobody wants to be “that guy.” If you’re not sure what to do these days with all of the extra security measures, do us all a favor and bone up a bit before you go. You look like a real dumb-dumb if you don’t. Yes, we are all judging you as you make us wait longer in line, because you didn’t take off your belt or shoes or didn’t empty your pockets of change. Yes, we are wondering what rock you just crawled out from under.
TSA and Customs and Immigration agents have become numb to the fact that we are all human beings with feelings, probably in the midst of a trip that we have been looking forward to for a while. I believe their numbness is a condition of simply dealing with an unbelievable amount of head-scratching dumbness. That, or they’ve been pretrained to think that when we step inside an airport we suddenly become the dumbest people who have ever walked the earth. Don’t give them fodder that might add weight to their training.
Sure, we can be all punk rock and throw our thumbs at the man, but, look, there are some rules that should be followed. We’re not kids anymore! Here are a few things you can do to help us all out:
Know the rules of where you’re flying. Some countries have crazy rules. Before I flew to a gig in Dubai a while back, our manager sent us all an e-mail that said: NO MARIJUANA, NO COCAINE, NO PRESCRIPTION CODIENE, NO PRESCRIPTION VALIUM OR XANAX: ONE YEAR IN JAIL THEN DEPORTATION. Wow, OK, well, I’ve been clean and sober for a long time but still I think this through: “how ’bout deporting me first?!” Of course, the next line in the e-mail reminded me of a much larger problem, NO ISRAELI PASSPORTS OR ISRAELI STAMPS IN YOUR PASSPORT: INSTANT DEPORTATION. Really? Good to know, at least.
Empty your pockets. Yes, yes, by now everyone should know to take metal and questionable objects out of their pockets before they go through security. But it’s amazing how many people don’t! For those of you with an, um, checkered past, consider getting rid of some of those old pockets altogether. I ended up getting held in customs in Dubai for close to three hours. I started to panic. I thought, maybe they’d found some fifteen-year-old bindle of drugs lost in a dark recess of a coat pocket. It turned out to be nothing, and our passports were stamped and we were on our way. But there’s a lesson here: because of this kind of paranoia and my history with substances that TSA frowns upon, I discarded all of my old luggage and most of my old (but KILLER) rock clothing when I got sober, for situations just like this. Now that pot is le
gal in a number of states—including my home state of Washington—the last thing you want is to find yourself on the wrong side of the law when you’re flying to Phoenix. So give those pockets a deep clean, or get rid of them!
Leave something at home. Kind fellow traveler, please don’t bring everything you have as carry-on. Of course that piece of luggage won’t fit in the overhead bin. Now we must all wait while the flight attendants have to call the ground staff to put your shit underneath the plane. That’s not inconvenient for the rest of us at all.
And when you bring all of that crap onboard, you do know to put it above your seat, right? How many times have I gone to my seat to find my overhead bin filled by someone who was just sick of carrying all of their shit down the aisle and apparently dumped it up in my space? Where the hell am I supposed to put my backpack? My legs are thirty-two feet long!
Be courteous. If it’s a small plane, and the guy behind you is 6'3", don’t be that guy who reclines the seat. You do feel the knees in your back, don’t you? Think, man. Think!
In my twenties, when I saw the world for the first time, I behaved less like a traveler and more like a pirate, plundering about with my bandmates in search of treasure and booty. My experiences in some of the world’s most beautiful places at the time consisted of visiting darkened bars, seedy alleyways, squats, and Italian tailors who didn’t speak English but accepted American Express. (That’s a book unto itself. In fact, it’s called It’s So Easy (and other lies), and it’s out now in paperback.)
After I kicked the inebriates and found my wife, Susan, we put together our own band of travelers. Along with our two daughters, we’ve seen the world with our brothers in Velvet Revolver, Loaded, and Kings of Chaos. With small children, of course, you have to visit the places that they will enjoy. As a result, I could probably write a whole book on just places to take children when traveling (I’ll call it It’s Not Easy (and I need a drink), release date TBD).