At the previous spinning of the record, talking bout Nazareth I mentioned Axl Rose and right after that I stumbled into Duff’s new album… In this life nothing is accidental. Duff is quite a figure. (Michael Andrew) McKagan was born in Seattle, Washington, his brother Bruce taught him his first bass lines and while growing up, McKagan was a fan of such acts as James Gang, Sly Stone, Led Zeppelin, Vanilla Fudge, Jimi Hendrix, and New York Dolls. His idol at the time was Johnny Thunders. Later he being a huge fan of Sex Pistols, Ramones, and The Clash. He cites Paul Simonon of The Clash as his favorite bassist, and is also particularly fond of Sid Vicious. At the age of 15 in 1979 he joined the pop-punk band Fastbacks as drummer and between 1979 and 1982 he led and played guitar in punk band The Living. Answering an ad for a bass player in a local magazine, McKagan headed to California, at age nineteen. In California, he met guitar player Slash and drummer Steven Adler of the band Road Crew and in 1985 he joined Guns N’ Roses replacing Ole Beich.
McKagan was the last one – except Axl, of course – of the famous “Appetite for Destruction” lineup to leave GN’R in August 1997. But before in 1990, McKagan and Slash co-wrote and played a few songs on Iggy Pop’s “Brick by Brick” and after a half-hearted attempt at drug rehabilitation, he kick-started a solo career with 1993’s release of his album “Believe in Me”. The album was a project in which McKagan played almost every instrument on every song. In 1995 he collaborated with Slash on his solo project “Slash’s Snakepit” and formed the group Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran and fellow Guns N’ Roses band mate Matt Sorum. They recorded and released one self-titled album one year later.
In 1997, McKagan moved back to Seattle, where he met with many of his old friends, including Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam and he encouraged the members of Ten Minute Warning to reunite and they released a nine tracks album in 1998. McKegan started recording his second solo album called “Beautiful Disease” and it was released through Geffen in 1999. McKagan formed Loaded, initially as The Gentlemen to be his band for the tour supporting the album. Following the merger between Geffen and Interscope Records, Duff was dropped from the label and lost all commercial rights to release the record, but Loaded continued to tour and released a live album, “Episode 1999: Live”, independently. The group soon disbanded with McKagan and Bentley becoming part of Izzy Stradlin’s rhythm section for his tour of Japan supporting “Ride On”.
By early 2000, McKagan had begun working on a new project with singer Mark Lanegan[15] and drummer Geoff Reading.Though they recorded a number of songs, Lanegan left to join Queens of the Stone Age and Duff being convinced to take over lead vocals. The resulting album, titled “Dark Days” was released in July 2001 as the second Loaded album.
Because of this, Loaded’s tour of Europe was cancelled in 2002, McKagan began collaborating with his former Guns N’ Roses band mates, Slash and Matt Sorum, on a new project, it was the beginning of Velvet Revolver.
While on tour with Velvet Revolver in 2008, McKagan stated that Loaded were to release a new album in the summer. Actually it’s not quite a secret that Duff never was pleased with the participation of Scott Weiland and originally he was supposed to be the singer of the band.
Loaded signed a deal with Century Media and, at the suggestion of the label, voted to change the name of the group to Duff McKagan’s Loaded. Well, Duff’s name and GN’R memory for sure sale a few more records even now days. Loaded’s next album, “Sick”, was released in March 2009.
In February 2010, Loaded parted ways with Century Media and finally singed a deal with Eagle Rock Entertainment. “The Taking” was produced by Terry Date and the curent lineup of the band consist of Duff McKagan – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, Mike Squires – lead guitar, backing vocals, Jeff Rouse – bass, backing vocals and Isaac Carpenter – drums, percussion.It kind of reminds me of the British band The Almighty. It’s a blending of rock, metal, pop punk and post grunge like sounds, little bit dark, but quite pumping. 12 different colored songs finally make this album quite interesting.There’s something for everybody, but it makes the album kind of eclectic. I like a few songs such as “Executioner’s Song” , “Easier Lying”, “She’s an Anchor”, “Wrecking Ball”, “Your Name”, and others less. I mentioned The Almighty, but also it’s like a crash between Foo Fighters and Alice In Chains. Not outstanding, but still, a good rock album, old and new approaches are blended smoothly together and well, fuck, I was a huge GN’R fan and I always like Duff…
“Democracy is such a whore…” Yes, it is.
