Duff McKagan: biography, career and personal life

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:42

Michael "Duff" McKagan is an American journalist, songwriter, and musician. He rose to prominence through his performances with Guns N' Roses (GNR), in which he spent about 13 years. The band was successful from the 1980s to the 1990s when hard rock was quite popular. Duff played bass and sang.

Biography

Duff McKagan was born on February 5, 1964 in Seattle, USA. In addition to him, the family had seven more children, and all of them knew how to play musical instruments. Duff Michael got his nickname as a child and called it the "Irish thing". His older brother, Bruce, taught him to play the bass guitar, gradually studying with him. Soon Duff McKagan independently played songs from the albums of Prince "1999" and the American punk rock band "Black Flag" Damaged. Later, in an autobiographical documentary called It's So Easy (And Other Lies), the musician admitted that he was influenced by the English singer, writer and journalist Barry Adamson.

Duff McKagan was an A student, so he graduated from Roosevelt High School in tenth grade. After that he workedpastry chef at Great American Food and Beverage Company.

Duff McKagan is 191cm tall

Career

When the singer was 15 years old, he founded a musical punk band called Vains. A year later they released their first single, School Jerks. In parallel with this, Duff McKagan was a member of The Living, which opened some concerts of famous bands.

In 1980, the singer played drums in the American punk band Fastbacks. His sound can be heard on the band's single "It's Your Birthday" and on the song Someone Else's Room, released in 1981.

In 1982, Duff performed as part of a new musical group - The Fartz. Eight years later, they released the album You, We See You Crawling, five singles of which featured McKagan's playing. Some time later, the group was renamed 10 Minute Warning. In it, he already played the guitar.

In 1983, Duff McKagan moved to Los Angeles with his brother and began working at the Black Angus restaurant. He searched newspaper ads for bass players and thus met guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler. Having become friends, the guys decided to create a musical group called Road Crew, which broke up very quickly. The reason for this was that they could not find a singer and there were disagreements between the band members from time to time.

With GNR

In 1985, Duff McKagan joined Guns N 'Roses to replace the departedbassist. The founders of this group were Axl Rose, Izzy Stradlin, Tracey Ulrich (Gan) and Rob Gardner, who also had experience in public performances as part of musical groups. After the departure of Tracy and Rob, Duff's friends Slash and Steven Adler joined Guns N' Roses. Soon the guys gave their first concert in one of the nightclubs in Hollywood.

In 1987, Guns N' Roses released their debut album Appetite for Destruction, which sold over 28 million copies worldwide, most of them in the US.

A year later, the band released a new album of just 8 tracks called GN 'R Lies, which sold over 5 million copies in the United States.

In 1990, Steven Adler was kicked out of Guns N 'Roses because he dabbled in drugs and was replaced by Matt Sorum.

In 1995, GNR became less active and popular, and Duff created a new one - Neurotic Outsiders, whose members were Steve Jones, John Taylor and Matt Sorum. Their first album was Maverick Records. The guys went on tour in Europe and North America, but their activities did not last long, the group broke up after two years. In 1997, Duff McKagan leaves Guns N' Roses and returns to Seattle to see family and old friends.

Duff has a large number of albums to his credit. Some of them were recorded while he was in the group, and others he released as an independent artist.

Private life

In 1988, Duff McKagan marriedsinger of the punk band Lame Flames Mandy Brix. However, their marriage proved fragile, and the couple divorced two years later.

In 1992, the musician marries Linda Johnson, but everything also ended with her in a divorce after 3 years.

In 1999, Duff McKagan marries American model and TV presenter Susan Holmes. This time the marriage was strong. The couple had two daughters: Grace Elizabeth and May Marie.

The musician claimed to have been one of the last people to see Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain shortly before his death. Duff admits that, sitting next to him, he felt that Kurt wanted to do something bad, as he was angry and tense.

When McKagan was 30 years old, he contracted alcoholic pancreatitis, which caused his pancreas to swell to an enormous size. He was examined at the medical center, and the doctor said that death would occur in a month if he did not give up alcohol. In his autobiography, Duff admits that sports and martial arts helped him overcome addiction.

For some time, the musician claimed that the fictional drink "Duff Beer" in The Simpsons was named after him, but he did not receive any roy alties from this. However, series creator Matt Groening disagreed, saying it was absurd.

Books

Duff McKagan even wrote fiction books. He is credited with such works as It's So Easy And Other Lies, which was made into a documentary film about the musician's life, How to Be a Man: (and otherillusions) and Behind the Player: Duff McKagan.