Quotes from Duff McKagan

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

Lemmy Kilmeister is most certainly a rocker.

Being a rocker, to me, is equal to living as much of the truth as possible.

I went to Seattle U. Nice Jesuit school there.

I saw the Clash in '79 at the Paramount in Seattle, and it changed my whole life.

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

Axl did sometimes have volatile actions, but I knew that guy as a whole - all the good stuff, too.

It's volatile with GNR. Every night, it's anarchy on stage. Who knows what's gonna happen? That's rock n' roll, man.

I think after 9/11, here in America, I saw something extraordinary. I saw neighbors looking after neighbors. I don't think anybody asked who anybody voted for. It was people taking care of other people.

I don't shop.

I never had a personal beef with Axl, truth be told.

When I started going to business school, I started getting calls from my peers asking for my help. I thought, 'Well, there are a lot of people like me who make a bunch of money and just get so scared of it and don't know what to do with it.' I just didn't want to be 60 years old and broke.

When you're a musician, you are around your peers a lot, like Slipknot and Alice In Chains... you name the band. We're all just kind of friends.

Being from a big band is great because you can do other bands.

Whenever Boston comes on, I play air guitar.

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

Music was going to be my thing. Was I going to make a living at it? That was kind of a joke. It was just my passion, and if I was broke doing my passion, so be it.

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.

It's funny: when I started playing bass in 1984, you had guys like Paul Simonon fron the Clash, John Paul Jones, Lemmy, and Nikki Sixx was the head guy in Motley Crue, and you had all this post-punk stuff like Magazine and Killing Joke where the bass sort of lead the way. Not that I picked it to sort of be a main dude, but it intrigued me.

When you're in a band, a marriage - whatever, it's kind of the same deal - there's a lot of things that you see, and people trust you with information about their lives. Call it a 'bro code' or whatever you wanna call it, but there are certain things you do not tell. At least, I don't.

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

You never know what's around the corner.

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.