How to Be a Man

by Duff McKagan

  Copyright © 2015 by Duff McKagan

  Parts of these stories and descriptions previously appeared on Seattle Weekly.com, ESPN.com, and NFL.com.

  Letter on pages 237–238 printed with permission of Chris Gehrt.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, Third Floor, Boston, MA 02210.

  Designed by Linda Mark

  Set in 12-point Fairfield LT Std Light by the Perseus Books Group

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  McKagan, Duff.

  How to be a man : (and other illusions) / Duff McKagan, with Chris Kornelis.

  pages cm

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-306-82388-6 (e-book) 1. McKagan, Duff. 2. Rock musicians—United States—Biography. 3. Bass guitarists—United States—Biography. I. Kornelis, Chris. II. Title.

  ML419.M352A3 2015

  787.87’166092—dc22

  [B]

  2015002850

  Published by Da Capo Press

  An imprint of Perseus Books, a division of PBG Publishing, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  www.dacapopress.com

  Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail special.markets@perseusbooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For the women who have made me a better man Susan, Grace, and Mae

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER1:Start with a Strong Base

  CHAPTER2:Mind Your Business

  CHAPTER3:Don’t Burn Any Bridges

  CHAPTER4:Stay Humble

  CHAPTER5:Give Thanks

  CHAPTER6:Don’t Be Afraid to Get Your Hands Dirty

  CHAPTER7:Know Your Tunes

  CHAPTER8:Set Goals (and Boundaries)

  CHAPTER9:Be Smart with Your Money (and Your Talents)

  CHAPTER10:Make Time for Your Friends

  CHAPTER11:When in Rome . . .

  CHAPTER12:Convert Darkness into Productivity

  CHAPTER13:Skip the Stripclub, Hit the Bookstore

  CHAPTER14:Be Loyal

  CHAPTER15:Get a Dog

  CHAPTER16:Be the Man

  CHAPTER17:Find a Good Woman (or Dude) and Hold Her Close

  CHAPTER18:Parent. Even if It’s via Skype

  CHAPTER19:Date Like You Mean It

  CHAPTER20:Keep Your Friends Close

  CHAPTER21:See Something, Say Something

  CHAPTER22:Don’t Die Young, You’ll Miss Out on Being Fifty

  CHAPTER23:Innovate and Modernize. Then Get Up and Do It Again

  CHAPTER24:Know How Things Work (and What You Can Fix)

  CHAPTER25:Let Go of Resentments, Vol. I

  CHAPTER26:Let Go of Resentments, Vol. II

  CHAPTER27:Prioritize and Strategize

  Epilogue: Never Quit Doing What You Love

  Acknowledgments

  Index

  About the Author

  1

  CHAPTER

  START WITH A STRONG BASE

  I DIDN’T WEAR MY THONG, BUT I BROUGHT PLENTY OF oils and creams.

  As part of my preparation for a tour of South America with Kings of Chaos, my wife, Susan, helped me pack my bag and pointed me toward our local tanning salon.

  If I am good at anything at all, it is the complicated dance of international travel. After more than three decades on the road and in the sky, I’ve seen it all. Engines have fallen out of planes I’ve been in. Wars have broken out, and hurricanes have hit regions I’ve been traveling to. At this point in my life—just a few short months before my fiftieth birthday—I know how to take care of myself. I know what shots to get for malaria. I know how to prevent really bad jet lag. And I know how to avoid getting burned in the Southern Hemisphere.

  To start, you’ve gotta get a little base tan going before you head down. Our winter is their summer, and you can get completely roasted onstage when the sun sets on your face if you’ve got nothing more than a Seattle tan. I know firsthand how hard it is to play through a burn to my face, chest, and arms. And I’ve seen friends go through much worse: I once saw the alabaster Melissa Auf de Maur suffer second-degree burns and have to be carted away in ice by paramedics.

  I went in. I applied the cream. I rubbed in some oils. I listened to sports radio. I got brown.

  When I went back to the counter, the dude-ish fella stopped me by name. “I heard you on the Jim Rome show.” There were tears in his eyes.

  I don’t remember the ’80s. I remember being in a band. I remember my family. I remember the friends I lost to addiction. I am fully aware that I am lucky to have emerged. But I have no cultural touchstones to speak of. I never saw Cheers. I didn’t go to the movies. I didn’t have any meaningful relationships with women, although I romanticized romance itself. My skin peeled away from my hands and feet. My nose bled. My kidneys hurt when I pissed. I woke up thirsty. I drank vodka.

  When I finally got sober, I grabbed on to anything I could that would fill an hour, half hour, minute, or moment of not drinking and drugging. I read books on the Civil War. I devoured Ernest Hemingway. I bought VHS tapes on history: Roots, Ken Burns’s The Civil War, Oliver Stone’s JFK—anything that would keep my mind off the gnawing monster in my head that was trying to convince me that I needed narcotic relief. I learned to play golf because it took up five whole hours of a day. I rode my mountain bike. I became ravenous in my quest for martial arts knowledge and conditioning.

  For the first time in my life, I was getting up at seven and going to bed at a decent hour. I was trying to find out what normal people did during the day.

  The minute I got sober, I realized I had to get rid of my little black address book. It was full of names and numbers of people that I either drank heavily with or who supplied me with drugs. When I was in the thick of it, I had no shortage of companionship. Once I was sober, I realized I had no teetotaling friends.

  Golf, reading, and hitting the dojo are all well and good, but I quickly realized that a man needs someone to talk to—some intellectual discourse.

  A friend told me about an AM sports radio talk show host named Jim Rome. He hosted a new show that aired primarily in Southern California. He used “Welcome to the Jungle” as his intro music, and I started listening to make sure it wasn’t some bullshit show. (As an artist, you want your songs to be heard in the right light, or said songs may be seen in a negative way afterward.)

  At first, I wasn’t quite sure how to take Jim’s harsh slant on sports. He was brash, and his jokes and references all seemed directed toward regular listeners. But I followed up the next day. And the next. By the end of the first week, I got some of the inside jokes Jim Rome was on about. I discovered that us Rome listeners were dubbed the “Clones.” When the weekend came, I missed my time with Jim Rome between nine and noon. I looked forward to Monday.

  I got myself a ridiculous AM radio headset with the antenna rising high above the right ear speaker. The only set I could find was, of course, bright yellow. I didn’t give a shit. Now I could listen to Rome while I was riding my mountain bike or running or playing golf. I made sure I went to the dojo before or after “The Jungle.” I found that if I could just listen one more day to his show, it would be another day sober. Jim Rome helped keep me
on the wagon.

  As the months became years, I kept my ear tuned to Jim’s show as it became widely syndicated and blew up nationally. I was always proud to be a Clone.

  My sports knowledge grew through the show. Jim Rome always seemed to be the smartest guy in the room. But the thing about him is that he doesn’t suffer fools lightly. When callers aren’t clear and concise, Jim takes their heads off. As a listener, it’s pure entertainment to laugh at the poor suckers that get pummeled by Romey. I was pretty goddamn sure I would never, ever, be one of those poor souls.

  Until 2012, when I was promoting my first book, It’s So Easy (and other lies).

  I undertook a pretty meaty promotional campaign. I did Dr. Phil, the BBC’s HARDtalk, and whatever CNN was calling its morning show at the time. Then I got the call that Jim Rome wanted me to be a guest on his show. Oh, shit. What if he tears me a new one? What if he throws me under the bus for being a bad writer or too full of myself or having bad posture and a crappy first name and teenage acne? What if he does to me what I’d heard him do to so many guests on his show who didn’t rise to the occasion?

  But I promised myself at the beginning of 2012 that I’d say yes to things I’d previously said no to. This was the year to get over some fears that I hadn’t attended to in my sober life. OK, what the hell? I’d go on The Jim Rome Show.

  I don’t really remember what happened on the show. I know that he kept me on for a really long time. I told him that his show had kept me sober and that without it I may not have survived. I told him that things had gotten so bad that I would drink my throwup for the alcohol in it. I explained that I was better now and had a wife and two really great girls and that I love the Seattle Seahawks.

  He didn’t tear me a new one, even after I was sure I blew it. He thanked me for the call, and that was it. I had a really great week in book sales afterward, and people on the street came up to me to thank me for what I’d said on the show. For my part, I was still in a bit of shock. I hate the sound of my own voice, so I don’t go back and listen to interviews. To this day, I don’t really know—nor do I want to know—what happened on the show. I’m just glad I made it out alive.

  At the tanning salon, the dude behind the counter told me that the day he heard me on Jim Rome he was struggling with opiates and strung out in a big way. He went into rehab the same day, and if he hadn’t heard the show, he told me, he may not have made it. Sixteen months sober, he was in a program. As tears filled his eyes, I felt mine well up too.

  Jim Rome saved us both.

  This life is crazy. It’s the little things that can be absolute game changers. This guy in the tanning salon hugged me before I left, and I now have a deep bond with an absolute stranger. That bond is much deeper than anything I had with the people—my best friends—that were in my little black address book that I threw out into the rubbish bin of my darkest years.

  2

  CHAPTER

  MIND YOUR BUSINESS

  Like the people you work with. Or at least use the animosity within your band, office, or team as a springboard for great fucking art (or commerce).

  Have a kick-ass name. Unless your crew is so good that your name is THAT secondary, choose a name that means something and has some sort of imagery that is a reflection of what you do.

  Watch how the business works around you. Ask questions constantly, and never be embarrassed to do so. “How much does a T-shirt cost to make?” or “What does publishing really mean?”

  From the start, try to ascertain that you and your colleagues have the same goals. Back when Guns N’ Roses first started, there was a different lead guitar player and drummer. When Axl, Izzy, and I booked a punk rock–style tour of the West Coast in 1985 and these two other guys didn’t want to leave the comfort of LA, we went and found guys who DID! Thankfully and serendipitously, we found Slash and Steven Adler.

  Be on time. Uh-huh.

  Turn problems into opportunity. If your guitar breaks, jump into the crowd and say hello to your peeps. If your van goes tits up, become a better V-8 engine mechanic. If a promoter is being a dumb-dumb, make that a time for enlightening said prick to the better side of humanity. Walk away, and thank the gods of rock and roll that you are not a dick. And, really . . .

  Don’t be a dick. This is the most important step to having a positive experience in any business (especially rock and roll).

  Don’t climb up onto a speaker cabinet unless you are really going to jump. Have you ever seen that gig where the performer gets all the way up to the top of a cabinet and then realizes it is just too damn high? The awkward climb down is one of the most embarrassing moves in rock and roll (and every other profession).

  Remember why you’re there: You’re doing what you love. You’re feeding your family. Go kick some ass.

  Shut it. Never miss an opportunity to keep your mouth shut. Whether you are talking to an audience, boring them with your banter, or regaling stories on the tour bus, don’t talk too much.

  Don’t smoke crack on a leased private jet. Seriously, the smell gets into everything.

  3

  CHAPTER

  DON’T BURN ANY BRIDGES

  A FEW DAYS AFTER MY MAN-TAN, I WAS ONSTAGE AT the Avalon Hollywood playing “Paradise City” with Kings of Chaos. Slash was to my left, Gilby Clarke to my right, and Matt Sorum was behind the drums. I’ve been through heaven and hell with these guys. But the character wrapped in scarves who wandered up onstage? I’d never seen him before.

  Everyone was singing, having a good time. But I couldn’t understand why a stranger had just joined the band. I nudged my bass tech, McBob. “Who’s the guy with the scarves? Get him out of here!” He whispered something back that I couldn’t understand.

  The whole room was singing. We all kept playing. But I couldn’t stop looking at the stranger in scarves.

  Halfway through “Paradise,” I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Who is this guy? Get him out of here!”

  This time I hear him perfectly: “Dude! It’s Billy Ray Cyrus!”

  Welcome to Hollywood.

  I hate the word “supergroup.” It’s a cheap way out.

  Lazy journalists love to put tags on things to sum up a whole genre or movement with a one- or two-word phrase that will make their job a little easier. If the tag can take a little backhanded swipe at a band—even better. We’ve seen this a million times: “stoner rock,” “grunge,” “indie,” “hair metal.”

  The supergroup tag is something Velvet Revolver had to deal with in our first year. Fans never called us a supergroup, mind you, only the journalists. To label an act a supergroup suggests that they were formed for the sake of cashing in on their superstar power.

  Critics couldn’t handle the fact that a few of us from an internationally famous band (GN’R) were getting together with the lead singer of another internationally famous band (Stone Temple Pilots) to make music together because we love the results. To them, GN’R + STP = $$$.

  But let’s be frank: when you have been playing music in successful bands for a while, your friends and comrades in the field are others like you. These are the people you know! Enough with the tags! Enough with the hate! You’re better than that!

  Kings of Chaos is a supergroup.

  It’s a chance for a bunch of us old-school musicians to get together with our friends and jam. It’s a conglomeration of rockers who had hits in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s who go out and play huge shows in faraway places. And we get paid.

  There is me, Slash, Matt Sorum, and Gilby Clarke from GN’R, Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple), Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Ed Roland (Collective Soul), Dave Kushner (Velvet Revolver), Steve Stevens (Billy Idol), and Myles Kennedy (Alter Bridge). We play songs from all of our collective catalogs—from “Smoke on the Water” to “November Rain.” It’s a blast.

  We’re all professional business travelers—to say the least—and know how to pack and prepare for international business (I’ve alr
eady told you about my tender skin). So we were at the Avalon warming up for a tour of South America. There have been times in my life when a tour of South America with some of these guys would be enough to send me into a panic attack and a bottle of vodka. That night, I couldn’t have been more excited.

  I went through my twenties with a scorched-earth policy. Most of us don’t have the tools or experience to deal with personal carnage that a busy and ever-changing life of being young can bring. I could have just written people off, and they very well could have done that back to me. Especially my good friend Gilby.

  In the maelstrom that ensued after GN’R’s Use Your Illusion tour, Gilby was somehow chucked from the lineup. I say “somehow” because, in all honesty, I don’t remember precise details about the second half of 1993 and the beginning of 1994. All I know for sure is that we had a new Guns N’ Roses pinball machine.

  I don’t intend to get into a whole video game versus pinball machine war here, but it’s hard to deny the romance of the blinking lights of a pinball machine. The sound of the pinballs dropping into the catch still raises the heart rates of us ’70s kids. We can still picture the other kids gathering around the glass as we took our turns. If you were good, you gave off a Steve McQueen–like mystique. The kids who were good at pinball got laid more (kind of like video gamers of today, right? Oh, wait . . . ).

  Slash was always one of those Steve McQueen–like pinball studs. He was good at every pinball game out there. Not that this should come as a surprise: whether it’s guitars, snakes, dinosaurs, or pinball, Slash studies and excels at the things he is passionate about.

  Sometime during the Use Your Illusion tour, Slash—a collector as well as a player—hooked up with manufacturer Data East, and the idea of a Guns N’ Roses game started getting floated around.

  We grew up with some great pinball machines. The Playboy machine was epic. The Rolling Stones had one. KISS had one. There were gambling-themed games and Western-themed games. For our band to actually be entered into a conversation of having our own game was a totally cool and unbelievable step in our otherwise totally unbelievable ride up the rock-and-roll escalator.