Duff McKagan "It's So Easy" 72 page excerpt revealed.

Sunday, 11 September 2011

Duff McKagan "It's So Easy" 72 page excerpt revealed.
duffmemoir.jpg
"Slash and I christened the plane on our maiden journey by smoking crack together."


Duff's book "It's So Easy and Other Lies" is full of the dark tales of his life with Guns N' Roses. And it's sure to rattle some feathers inside the camp. Duff starts with this...

AUTHOR’S NOTE

My Friends and old band members may remember some of the stories I recount differently than I do, but I have found that all stories have many sides. These are my stories. These are my perspectives. This is my truth.

SECTION I
"KNOCKIN’ ON HEAVEN’S DOOR"
CHAPTER ONE

I’ve known a lot of junkies. Many of them have either died or continue to live a pitiful existence to this day. With many of these same people, I personally witnessed a wonder fullust for life as we played music together as kids and looked toward the future. Of course, no one sets out to be a junkie or an alcoholic. Some people can experiment in their youth and move on. Others cannot. When Guns N’ Roses began to break into the public consciousness, I was known as a big drinker. In 1988 MTV aired a concert in which Axl introduced me—as usual—as Duff “the King of Beers” McKagan. Soon after a production company working on a new animated series called me to ask if they could use the name “Duff” for a brand of beer in the show. I laughed and said of course, no problem. The whole thing sounded like a low-rent art project or something—I mean, who made cartoons for adults? Little did I know that the show would become The Simpsons and that within a few years I would start to see Duff beer glasses and gear everywhere we toured.

Still, given what I’d seen, a reputation or drinking didn’t seem like a big deal. But by the time Guns N’ Roses spent twenty-eight months from 1991 to 1993 touring the Use Your Illusion albums, my intake had reached epic proportions. For the round-the- world Illusion tour, Guns leased a private plane. It wasn’t an executive jet; it was a full-on727 we leased from MGM casino, with lounges and individual bedroom suites for the band members. Slash and I christened the plane on our maiden journey by smoking crack together. Before the wheels had left the ground. (Not something I recommend, incidentally—the smell gets into everything.) I don’t even remember Czechoslovakia; we played a stadium show in one of the most beautiful cities in East Europe not long after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the only way I knew I’d even been in the country was because of the stamp I found in my passport. It wasn’t clear anymore whether or not I would be one of those who could experiment in his youth and move on.

Every day I made sure I had a vodka bottle sitting next to my bed when I woke up. I tried to quit drinking in 1992, but started again with a vengeance after only a few weeks. I just could not stop. I was too far gone. My hair began falling out in clumps and my kidneys ached when I pissed. My body couldn’t take the full assault of the alcohol without bitching back at me. My septum had burned through from coke and my nose ran continuously like a leaky faucet in a neglected men’s-room urinal. The skin on my hands and feet cracked, and I had boils on my face and neck. I had to wear bandages under my gloves in order to be able to play my bass.

There are many different ways to come out of a funk like that. Some people go straight to rehab, some go to church. Others go to AA, and many more end up in a pine box, which is where I felt headed.