How to Be a Man

by Duff McKagan

  When we landed in Paraguay, we went straight to the show—the Jockey Club, the same racetrack I had just played with Kings of Chaos. Riding in the car, we could see those ominous black clouds of rain and lightning heading our way. That innocent scenery we saw below us from 39,000 feet was now very real and heading straight toward the 15,000 people waiting at the show, not to mention all of the electrical gear on the stage already set up. BOOM. Lightning struck very close. BOOM BOOM. Two more, and right there at the venue!

  Sound familiar?

  We went inside to the dressing rooms that were basically big tents. The rain came and it was torrential. A promoter got on the PA system and instructed the crowd to take cover under the cement bleachers, and our gear got covered in massive tarps and big pieces of plastic. We waited, just hoping the storm would pass. Nothing we could do except sit and wait.

  My always-too-active brain went straight to the scenario that we’d have to cancel the gig. By now, my understanding of these crazy weather patterns—and the fans’ unmatched fortitude—should have put me at ease. But I couldn’t help but worry that if we canceled, and the press in the States and UK got hold of the story (which they would in two seconds because of Twitter, etc.), that I’d get a million questions from all of those outside people about “GN’R CANCELS GIG IN PARAGUAY, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.” For certain, this rain and lightning was very real and pretty damn dangerous, and I was more worried about anyone getting hurt. But the reality of any given situation is the one thing that never gets portrayed correctly on Twitter or Facebook.

  Just then the promoter came backstage. Apparently, the local weatherman predicted that the storm would pass over and abate in about fifteen minutes and would completely disappear. It did just that. The gear was uncovered, the fans returned to what had become an extremely muddy field, and we played for three hours. It was victorious for everyone.

  Our next stop was La Paz, Bolivia, and because I have some experience with climbing mountains and the adverse effects of altitude, I was very aware of the fact that La Paz is perched at 13,000 feet. I know from experience that I start to teeter a bit mentally at 12,000 feet. Up there in La Paz, they recommend coca leaves and coca tea for the altitude, but this was just not an option for me and my pesky drug addiction thing.

  There aren’t that many shows up in La Paz. Many singers have a hard time performing in air that thin. As a result, the people of La Paz are absolutely starved for rock music. We landed at the airport above La Paz at about six in the morning, and the lack of oxygen was instantly apparent. We got in cars and wound all the way down to our hotel at 8,000 feet. Much better. I’ve been told I kind of seem drunk when I’m over 12,000 feet. I didn’t want to give any of these guys the wrong impression. I was relieved to get to that lower altitude.

  For Axl, this wasn’t just some other gig: at this altitude, it was more like an athletic feat. But even then, vocal cords are tiny, tiny muscles. Thin, dry, and cold air can rip up a person’s voice.

  The night before the show, Axl and I took some time to hang out and chill, just the two of us. We talked about how the altitude was affecting us, and then the conversation morphed into a discussion of some things past. It was a natural conversation of things we did and didn’t remember about our old band. It was a really good, cleansing experience that sort of gave me a second wind. Talking about things that may be lodged and stuck from the past, things that may still cause friction of sorts in your current life, always seems to have a lifting effect on us humans. I recommend it.

  Axl killed it in the altitude that night. We played for two hours and forty-five minutes. Manly stuff.

  The rest of those gigs went off without a hitch. There were moments on that stage when I was reminded of what remarkable songwriters we were together back when. Shit! We were only twenty, twenty-one years old when we wrote the lion’s share of that stuff!

  Playing “November Rain,” standing next to Axl every night, I flashed back to us recording that song at A&M Studios in Hollywood in 1990 during the monthlong tracking of Use Your Illusion. We still had our game then, and though we were often in altered states, we completed the music for twenty-nine songs or so, and that was with a new, last-minute drummer, Matt Sorum. It was a sweet but chaotic time for the band. It was perhaps the last period that we could all attain the status of being somewhere close to getting on the same page. It was before we all got infected with conflict and before I was completely lost to the drugs and alcohol.

  The tour was emotional and joyous but also somewhat bittersweet. I’d just been to South America. I’d just played the Jockey Club—I’d just played “Paradise City” in front of these fans, out to brave a rainstorm and a mountain of mud to see “their band” play at a racetrack. Barely six months ago, I’d been here with Slash, Matt, Gilby, and my brothers in Kings of Chaos, the balance of our Use Your Illusion–era Guns N’ Roses. I wished they could have experienced this with us. And I hope that one day we can all get together for a handshake, a smile, and a good laugh at the whole thing.

  It was so awesome to have that opportunity to sort out some things from my past. I realized when I was in it that not very many of us get that chance. It was right and righteous and completely grown-up and professional.

  It made me a better man.

  27

  CHAPTER

  PRIORITIZE AND STRATEGIZE

  HOME FOR A FEW DAYS DURING THE BEAUTIFUL Seattle summer, my hands got restless.

  There never seems to be enough time in the Seattle summer. If you live in a milder climate, then you also have the luxury of having many more months of the year to do summer things. In Seattle, summer starts on July 5 and ends just after Labor Day. That means we only have about ten weeks to

  1.have a proper summer where we spend time on the lake as a family,

  2.see those outside summer concerts,

  3.put on our own summer concerts,

  4.wear our summer clothes that are about fifteen years old but look new because we barely wear them, and

  5.fix all of the shit on the outside of our house.

  That last one is critical. There are only a couple months of better-than-average odds that you’re not going to get rained on. So everyone rushes to get their outdoor projects done at the same time that they’re rushing onto the lake to soak up some rays and fire up the barbecue to cook up a few precious outdoor meals.

  Yes, there’s always a rush of activity and fear of the oncoming rainy season.

  But, with no rock shows or commitments coming up, I cast my gaze at my house and asked, What can be fixed? As I’ve said before, I like to do my own work around the house as much as possible. And if I’m actually fixing a problem rather than making one worse, all the better.

  I noticed that the lawn pavers I put down (by hand!) out back in 1999 were overgrown with grass. Job 1: Recut the path. Heck, maybe then we’d USE that path (that I put down by hand!). Job 2: Put in a new subelectrical fuse panel for our basement. No problem. Job 3: It was definitely time to clean out the garage. Happy to do it.

  Then I took a look at my back deck.

  The backside of my house in Seattle gets hit by the weather twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Thankfully, the house is made of brick, and for the most part the brick can take the Pacific Northwest elements head-on. My wood deck and dock down on the lake, however, do not fare as well. Every three or four years, I have to strip and restain the entire surface. If I don’t, it looks ghetto. Worse, the wood goes to rot if it’s not taken care of properly. I took a look at my deck and dock and realized it was time. This was the project of the summer. This was a once-in-a-presidential-term project that I could check off my summer bucket list. I was thrilled.

  Although I didn’t have any gigs of my own coming up, Slash was going to be opening for Aerosmith at the Gorge in a few days. Now, listen: I always go and see Slash or any of my other friends when they come through Seattle, but the Gorge really isn’t in Seattle. By any reasonable standard, it’s not near Seattle a
t all. Most touring bands just see “Washington” on their tour itinerary, and rightfully assume that the Gorge must be near or in Seattle. The Gorge is in the center of the state, 130 miles from my house.

  Slash e-mailed me and asked if I’d be in town and if I wanted “to get up and jam.” I love to get up and jam whenever I can, but driving 130 miles each way to do it, not to mention that I really had to get after staining my deck, was going to make this simple jam something more than I could probably take on with Pacific Northwest rain imminent. I said I’d try to make it, and then thought about how to tell touring Slash that I’d have to miss his gig because my path needed mowing and my deck needed staining.

  Funny enough, Matt Sorum was also in Seattle at the time for a wedding, and he and I were trying to figure out a day and time that we could go out to dinner with our wives. Matt has friends all over the world, so I wasn’t surprised when he suggested we have dinner at his friend’s house in a very exclusive area outside of town. And when I say “very exclusive,” I am talking straight-up baller exclusive. Microsoft and Boeing president exclusive. “Who the hell do you know who lives there?!” I asked Matt.

  Says Matt, “It’s a friend of mine who owns fish-processing ships up in Alaska. He has done very well for himself and just loves rock music. I’ve jammed on his yacht before and at his house. He’s got a helicopter in his backyard and a jet down at Boeing Field, but you would never know by meeting him. He’s a cool dude, and he was in a Norwegian prog rock band in the ’70s!”

  Wow. OK. Nice guy. Into Norwegian prog rock. Sounds interesting. But I told Matt that I just couldn’t invite Susan and myself to this guy’s house for dinner and that we’d feel more than weird about it. Matt assured me that we were by all means invited and that this dude was a bass player and was happy I was coming over.

  I wasn’t surprised to hear that Matt had a friend in the fishing business who lived in Seattle. Fishing has always been a huge industry in my town. The lifeblood, really. Native Americans enjoyed as much fish as they liked for generations upon generations. In the late 1800s and early part of the 1900s, a huge Scandinavian diaspora filtered into the Puget Sound region to take advantage of the seemingly never-ending supply of fish. The supply, sadly, inevitably, did have an ending.

  When the Puget Sound started to get fished out in the 1950s, the seafood industry began to turn its gaze north to Alaska. Seattle remains the business head of the massive salmon, crab, halibut, and whitefish industry. The world’s fish sticks come from here. Think of just how many McDonald’s are in the world, and multiply the amount of fish sandwiches they sell, and all of the frozen fish sticks there are in the countless freezer sections of the countless grocery stores in North America and Europe. The lion’s share of this processed fish comes from Alaska via Seattle nowadays. It’s a huge business.

  I got directions to the house from my new friend, whom I’ll just call Espen here (we’re not quite to the “I’m gonna mention you by name in my memoir” kind of level yet, but I’m interested to see how it goes). Susan and I drove down a very long and beautiful driveway that led past a regular-sized and very nice house that I knew from Espen was the caretaker’s house (as big as my house). The driveway went on, opening up to a massive mansion. This was some next-level shit.

  Espen, along with Matt and his wife, Ace, came out to meet us, and Espen started to show us around. There was cool art and beautiful furniture, secret stairs to a studio, and more secret stairs to a gym. On the back lawn facing the sound, there was a jet helicopter. A jet fucking helicopter. The whole time Espen was showing us his house, it became apparent that he was as stoked as a kid about all of the cool shit. He wasn’t born into it, that was evident. I needed some more info, and so I asked Espen his story.

  In the early ’70s, Espen was in a prog rock band in Norway. He and his wife were in their early twenties, and she got pregnant. His musical ambitions were suddenly stunted, as his wife brought up the fact that he needed to earn some dough now that they were going to have a child. Apparently, prog rock in the Norwegian language has a limited audience.

  Espen started to fish on a small boat off the coast of Norway. Soon after, his brother joined him. It dawned on them that if they could buy their own little boat, they’d make a lot more money. They worked their asses off, saved, and finally bought a boat. Then a second one. Flash forward a few more years: Espen realized that if they had another boat to process the fish in, they could keep their fish fresher AND they could keep the fishing boats out at sea more often. The fish-processing boat thing caught on in a big way, and his reputation as a smart fisherman who produced came into play. His processing venture moved to Alaska, and the rest is history. But the point is, Espen worked his ass off, gambled, innovated, and it paid off. Helicopter, jet, yacht, and mansion paid off (oh, and Espen is a true Seattleite. He drives an electric car to and from work and loves the Seahawks!).

  Humbled and amazed, I kept listening, and Espen treated us to a very nice salmon dinner. Espen’s full-time chef is a funny guy—a culinary shitkicker, if you will. And I discovered it was he and his wife who lived in that nice house up the driveway. Matt and Ace had never really experienced Alaska salmon so fresh, and all in all it was a great evening that culminated in a big jam in Espen’s studio. Susan and I were more than glad that we had done this night and made a new friend.

  That was a Thursday night, and I knew it would be my last night of socializing before I tackled my deck on the last full weekend of sun we were going to get. The reality of making a trip out to the Gorge to jam with my bud was quickly becoming an unreality. On Friday, I went and got all of my supplies, bringing a little piece of the stained wood so that they could get a match at the paint store.

  (Note: I’ve guessed at stain color in previous years, which apparently is not a good idea when you are a hue-challenged person like me. I started a stain job a few years back with the wrong color, a color I thought was “mission brown” but turned out to be some weird bright green that made my wife and daughters howl with laughter. That wasn’t the “ooh-ahh” reaction I was hoping for.)

  A couple hours later, I got a call from Espen. “Hey, Duff. Do you and Susan want to go over to see Slash and Aerosmith with me?” It was a kind offer, but I explained to Espen that I had stuff to do, and that there really wasn’t time for me to make the drive. I didn’t mention that it was a stain job, because at that point I really think I was the only one who thought it was a good idea that I do it myself instead of hiring someone. “No, man. We can take the jet. It’s a twenty-minute flight each way. Just drive your car down to the field and park inside. You’ll be back by midnight.” Oh, right. The jet!

  This I could do. If I was back by midnight, I could still get up at 7 a.m. and get to work on my chores. Besides, it was pretty generous of Espen to ask us along. I started to think of where the actual airfield was by the Gorge. Hmmm. I’ve played the Gorge a bunch of times, but I’ve never actually heard of anyone flying there. Espen’s plan had one slight hiccup: he didn’t have a way to get us from the airfield to the Gorge. The nearest airfield was about twenty miles away in a town called Quincy. There ain’t no Uber, taxis, or car services in that part of the country. But, like I said, I’m very familiar with the Gorge and the logistics of getting to and playing at it. I may not be able to reciprocate my friend’s flight with a turn on a private jet of my own, but I was sure I could handle getting us from the airfield to the show.

  My friend Juan is the head of security for most of the big shows out there, so I gave him a call. “Hey, Juan. Can you get someone to pick us up?”

  That’s when things got interesting.

  Juan wasn’t actually working this particular gig, and, hence, he wouldn’t be able to send someone from the site to get us. OK. No problem. I have friends at Live Nation, the owners of the Gorge. I called one, explained the situation and that I’d be sitting in with Slash and just needed to get from the airfield to the show. Did they have a runner who could come get us? Sorry,
they said. No runners for the show.

  OK. Hmmmm. I called Juan back. He works MOST of the shows. Do you know ANYONE who could come get us? Actually . . . he did. He knew a dude from Kirkland named Andrew who was going to the show. He was sure that Andrew wouldn’t mind giving us a ride. Boom. We were set. I called Espen and told him I had a ride for us. “Splendid, Duff!” I felt like I’d just pulled some real rock-and-roll jiu-jitsu.

  Susan and I drove south of downtown Seattle to Boeing Field. Wheels-up time on the plane was 5 p.m., and Susan and I get there at 4:45. We were led into a private and totally pimpin’ airstrip parking area just next to a tricked-out jet, just fifteen minutes before takeoff. Our guest wasn’t even there yet. At about 4:48, Susan and I start to wonder where Espen was. We asked the lady at the private air desk, and she explained that Espen was just circling above in his helicopter. Oh, yeah. The helicopter.

  The flight over the Cascade Mountains was awe inspiring. I was beginning to be pretty glad that we were on the trip. Espen can actually fly the plane and does all of the time, but he wanted to drink some wine at the gig, so he hired a pilot to take care of us on the trip. Descending to the tiny airstrip, I could already see Andrew’s white Jeep Cherokee parked outside the fence. We were all set.

  Andrew turned out to be a really nice guy, a huge rock fan, and seemed to be happy to have a story to tell his friends back home. Off we went to the gig. I texted Slash that I was on my way, and he asked if I’d play “It’s So Easy,” a song I also sing. Cool. No prob.

  As we drove, I asked Andrew where he was sitting during the show. “Oh,” he explained, “I don’t have tickets to the show. But Aerosmith is my favorite band. So I thought I’d come out and camp at the campground and see if I could find a way in.” The guy had hit the jackpot. I thanked him for his help by securing full-access backstage passes.