Duff McKagan has spent the past few years traveling the world with Guns N’ Roses on the band’s massive — and massively successful — Not in This Lifetime tour. The jaunt, which reunites the core Guns trio of Axl Rose, Slash and McKagan for the first time in more than two decades, has put the bassist on some of the largest stages and in front of some of the biggest crowds of his 30-plus year career. And while that’s been a thrill ride in and of itself, as McKagan tells it, the time in between the shows has often proved as impactful as the performances themselves.
“When Guns was out, we would only perform every third day, because we were playing huge places and we have a huge production that has to be set up,” McKagan explains. “So on the days between shows, I would go and see America and all these different parts of the world. Basically, I’d do nerdy tourist stuff.
“But because I would do that, I would also get to talk to people. And no matter where I was in the world, I began to realize that we all have so much more in common than we have things that separate us. And I wanted to explore that idea.”
Initially, McKagan thought he would examine that idea in book form. “I wanted to write about what I’ve witnessed traveling this planet for the past two and a half years,” he says, “and about how history informs the future, and how things right now — which is inarguably one of the most interesting times in our history — will pass and we’ll move on. And we’ll do it together.” Indeed, McKagan did begin writing what he calls “little vignettes,” but those literary sketches eventually morphed