Billboard recently spoke with Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver alumnus, Duff McKagan, who is now working in the band Seattle’s Walking Papers. Below are some highlights:
McKagan on working with Jeff Angell and Barrett Martin: “Jeff is a guy I’ve known since about ’99; he’s a guy that everybody in Seattle knows about and has thought should be the next big whatever. He came and tried out for Velvet Revolver before Scott (Weiland) so I’ve been close to him for awhile. When Jeff and Barrett started putting some of these (Walking Papers) songs together, Jeff called me and said ‘Would you come up and play bass on some songs’ and one thing led to another after that. It happened in kind of a right way; it wasn’t like a pre-planned, ‘We’re gonna put a group together’ thing.”
McKagan on using a bass guitar again: “I hadn’t played bass, really, in a band for a little while, so I loved the idea of me playing bass with Barrett playing drums and being in a really fiery rhythm section. WE have this really cool, perfect restraint, which is sort of cool. I think you know Barrett’s capable of going off at any second on his drums, but he doesn’t — although live we go for it quite a bit more than on the record. It’s a much more thunderous band live. I’m really excited about the prospects for this band.”
McKagan on the group writing 20 new songs, some of which will be played live: “The songs are a little bigger I suppose, because when you write with a band it’s always bigger than if one guy sits down and writes a song. It’s just progressing.”
McKagan on Velvet Revolver not being a dead issue: “We talk about it every now and again. Slash and Matt (Sorum) and Dave (Kushner) and I played in South Africa at the beginning of June…and of course we talked about it. We’ve tried out a bunch of singers, but I think we’re just waiting for the right person to come along. It’ll just happen. But the chemistry of Matt and Slash and Dave and I is really good, so you don’t want to let that just go away.”