It’s still early in LA when Duff McKagan calls. He’s got a pre-tour doctor’s appointment to attend after we’ve finished talking, although it’s just to get the all-clear for the next leg of Velvet Revolver’s ongoing world tour. Since he’s cleaned up he’s been in rude health and his only habit now is a ritualistic dose of martial arts that’s given him the torso of an action hero.
Given that Duff wasn’t born until 1964, we were going to skip asking him if he’d ever met , but he cuts us off to tell us, surprisingly, that he nearly did...
I actually came close to meeting Hendrix when I was a kid in Seattle. His family were best friends with my best friend’s family. My friend actually did meet him.
He was, like, four at the time, and I think I was five. This was in ’68 or something. Jimi had come back to town to see some of his friends and family, and even though I was five I was cognisant of who Jimi Hendrix was.
You have to understand I was the last of eight kids – we were a big family – and there was always music playing in our house, so we were all aware of Hendrix. Guns N’ Roses was actually the first band I played bass in. Before that I’d been playing guitar and drums in punk bands in the northwest like the Fastbacks and Ten Minute Warning, and all my licks and stuff were fashioned after and Steve Jones.
When I first met Jones he had that long, swept-back hair thing going on and the leather pants, you know? But he was still very much Steve Jo.