Top 55 Duff McKagan Quotes

I just don’t like reality TV.

I’m not Cormac McCarthy, but I can get my point across in a thousand words.

I can only write from a man’s viewpoint.

Attending Seattle Central was an awesome experience – it taught me a lot about discipline in a great way.

I read Slash’s book because we were on the road together with Velvet Revolver when that came out.

It’s a modern world we live in, with everything at our fingertips, and if it’s not at our fingertips, you can dot-com anything.

You become friends with your kids’ friends’ parents. That’s just the way it’s gonna be. And sometimes you luck out, and it’s great.

I started playing in punk-rock bands and touring when I was 15, so I missed high school.

Never in my life have I thought, ‘Man, I gotta get a Grammy.’

I went to business school in my thirties.

Is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that important to me? No. Is it something I’ve aspired towards? No.

You know what’s a great song that will be stuck in your head if I say it? ‘Single Ladies,’ by Beyonce. Killer song.

Going to talk to my little girl’s teacher is a far cry from what people probably think I spend my time doing.

I don’t know where I’m rated. I don’t pay attention to that. I’m really so just all into my craft. It’s not a contest. I try to play the best.

I didn’t graduate high school.

Lemmy Kilmeister is most certainly a rocker.

I made money in my 20s, became sober in my 30s, looked around, and didn’t know who I could trust for money advice.

I had a column for the ‘Seattle Weekly’ for five years, and there was one column that was called ‘How To Be A Man,’ and it was kind of tongue in cheek; it was really tongue in cheek. And I got a book deal from that column.

Left to my own devices, I tend to go darker and weirder, and it’s fun.

Words and titles can be used as dictums and guides for all of us. A certain word can suddenly snap us back to a good place. ‘Rocker’ works for me.

I have always been a huge sports fan, but more of the pedestrian and ‘homer’ sort.

Rock n’ roll is a volatile thing; at least, it’s supposed to be.

When I sing with Loaded, I can’t move at all. I’m playing guitar, and I’m singing.

Our family is mixed. My oldest sister married a black man in 1962, which was way out there then.

Sometimes, when you get into a record, it’s like writing a book, and you get so far inside the story you can’t tell anymore if it’s gonna be good to an outside listener.

I have panic attacks here and there, like in the weirdest places ever, and I’ve learned to deal with them.

Three weeks into being in Hollywood, I was playing with Slash through an ad in the paper.

I’m really not about changing my image.

When you start a band, you have to find people that are good, have the same sort of mindset as you musically.

Guns N’ Roses is a weighty subject, but in the same breath, I don’t take it that seriously.

I have a teenage daughter and a 10-year-old daughter. Things are pink and fluffy at my house, with two little dogs. It’s pretty funny to be me now. And I’m in on the joke that is my life.

Being in a band is the best place I can think of to be as up-front as possible. If you let something stew, it’ll grow into a mountain of nonsensical black mud in no time.

One of my first memories is marching with my mom. I was in kindergarten with with the Catholic ladies when Martin Luther King Jr. got shot. We wore the black armbands and marched downtown.

I’ve never been one to just play safe music and think that’s all there is to it.

Everybody in Seattle thought I was the chosen one, musically wise. You know, if anyone was going to make it, it was going to be that guy.

‘The Taking’ is the closest thing to a ‘concept’ record that I have ever been involved with. Pain, loss, triumph, and redemption. Life. Bring it.

If you don’t have a good rhythm section, your band is toast; you’re a bar band. Good rhythm section, you’ve got a chance to get out of the bar.

I’ve had a panic disorder since I was sixteen, and they always said that’s a subset of depression. And I’m like, ‘I don’t have depression.’

By the time Guns n’ Roses spent 28 months from 1991 to 1993 touring the ‘Use Your Illusion’ albums, the tour staff sometimes approached 100 people. We were carrying not only backup girl singers, a horn section, and an extra keyboard player, but also chiropractors, masseuses, a singing coach, and a tattoo artist.

We wrote the songs we wrote – we took from our own experiences, melded it together, and wrote what became ‘Appetite For Destruction.’

Playing with Iggy pulled me back in for a while and reminded me of what I love about music.

I find in my career that I never know what’s going to happen in two months.

Read books and keep informed. The conversation can get old if you don’t have some good new topics to bring to the table.

One of the first 45s I ever bought was the Stooges’ ‘I Got a Right.’ Probably one of my favorite singles, ever.

I went to Seattle U. Nice Jesuit school there.

Turn off the TV, turn off the Internet, just go out, and I bet you your life will get better really quick.

When you know you have a good song, when you’re onstage, even if it’s just a weird, basic energy, you know your song is good.

‘Mr. Brownstone’ is always a fun song to play because it’s got that beat, and you see people bouncing.

Not to name names, but a lot of pop female artists you see, they don’t write their own songs. Lot of top male artists and boy band artists, they don’t write their own songs. They’re just a product. They sell, they sell, they sell. They don’t care about musical integrity, any of that kind of stuff.

‘The Joshua Tree’ was the soundtrack of my life when we were making ‘Appetite.’

Writing’s another expression of art, really, that I’m just kind of discovering as I go.

I’m colour blind, a little hue-challenged.

You never know what’s around the corner.

I’ve been very fortunate. But rich? People make huge assumptions about the guys in Gn’R.

I think you can tell stories and give perspectives and yet still keep stuff for yourself, too. I keep a lot of my life private, even in a public forum like writing.