Guns N' Roses bassist has revealed that he learned about 'The Troubles' in the North of Ireland via Belfast punks , and his mum. In a new interview with the newspaper, McKagan talks about his family connections to Ireland - his grandfather hailed from Cork - and recalls how his mother educated him about the political situation in the North after hearing him playing Stiff Little Fingers' debut album on the family stereo. "I borrowed a Stiff Little Fingers record from a friend when I was 14 or so, and I was playing it on our living room stereo," he remembers.
"My mum's dad came from Cork, so she was connected with what was going on in Ireland at that time, and she heard me playing this record. I didn't know it was political. I din't know what a was.
I didn't know it was a bomb. "She heard this, and read the lyrics. She said, 'Oh, these poor boys, they're growing up in war in Belfast.
So I learned history through Stiff Little Fingers and my mum. I got to get my worldview education through a lot of punk rock." In the same interview, McKagan talks about global unrest, and reveals how his mother passed on some wise words about such conflicts.
"Two of my brothers were in the Vietnam War when I was a kid," he says. "I would ask my mum, 'Why? What's a war?' She said, 'Well, two old guys don't agree, and they send all the young men to go fight. I've found no better answer than that.
To this day, that is the correct answer. It's still the old fucking men doing this for the most part..
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