DUFF McKAGAN - "I Hate To Fly"
December 3, 2009, 14 years ago
DUFF McKAGAN has issued his latest blog for Seattle Weekly. It deals with, among other things, GUNS N' ROSES flying to the Rock In Rio Fest in 1991. An excerpt follows:
"I hate to fly. I have always been claustrophobic. A plane is a metal tube with no way out. I used to self-medicate my condition with whatever was available. And after a long trip like this, the constant to-and-fro and drag and frum, I am exhausted. The plane lands, and thousands of really emotional fans are waiting. I am overwhelmed. They are overjoyed. I feel like a fucking Martian after traveling for so long and feeding my body with mind-numbing intoxicants. I've got to get to my hotel so that I can get my head around this whole thing.Funny as it sounds now, BILLY IDOL was a touchstone for me. Not that he ever knew this, and it wasn't like we were real close, but I knew him enough and I knew that he was also playing at the RIR. Sometimes even in my own band, I would feel completely alone and alienated. The fact that Billy was down there gave me a sense of solidness somehow. I have never talked about this, and now it seems a little funny and goofy.
If I could really paint a picture of what things are like constantly touring and being claustrophobic and being adored and loved and being tugged around and loving back as hard as you can... and filling my body with all the bad stuff, the picture that I'd paint would resemble some kind of upside-down stairs manned by a bloated U.S. Customs agent. With my name in large letters on top his list of people to apprehend. I suffered a gradual-but-steady loss of sanity during about three or four of those early years. Things that are plainly insane to me now were absolutely normal, ho-hum events back then."
To read the rest of Duff's blog, click here.
