Duff McKagan
Believe In Me

My beautiful skeleton in the closet.

Rough enough, he wears a leather jacket, drinks Jack Daniel's, smokes Marlboro... and dangerously wobbles completely high in a giant champagne glass.
He is Micheal McKagan, but everyone simply calls him "Duff" because (it's a legend) he has always had a raspy voice like Duffy Duck.
Yes, you understood perfectly.
This time I would like to amaze you with special effects… I want to talk to you about Duff McKagan.
Are you crazy??? Yes, I am. Let me be at least here on Debaser.

When I was a kid and was totally crazy about the terrible Guns n’ Roses, I always felt attracted to Duff: Axl was unbearable, Slash was the idol of all guitarists, Izzy was the one loved by seventies rockers… and I, I don't know why, always rooted for Duff.
Those two-toned hair, that chain around his neck with the hanging lock like a new Sid Vicious, that bass with the strap hanging ridiculously low, that "strange" way of playing with a pick… all enormous nonsense… that, however, in my eyes set him a bit apart from the other hardrockers Guns.
The elective affinities I had with the blond bassist I only realized later by reading his story.
In fact, few know that Duff was born and artistically formed in Seattle!
It is here that he immediately starts playing the drums (!) in some punk bands like the “Fastbacks” and the “The Fartz” (“The farts”)! Meanwhile, he also learns to play guitar and bass, but in the state of Washington, there isn't much of a music scene, so Duff leaves for Los Angeles (where he will meet the other Guns) just as the "grunge" phenomenon is about to emerge in his hometown. But that is another story. A whole different music.

“Believe In Me” is his first solo album, and even though it's dated 1993, it was recorded during the breaks of the exhausting “Use Your Illusion Tour”… for this reason, the tracks were captured in studios in San Francisco, Dallas, Denver, London, and Los Angeles, each time in a different atmosphere.
This work doesn't resemble any Guns album, but each song is a piece of Duff's biography. Love, friendship, loneliness, drug problems... but also social denunciation, politics, and critique of the show-biz.
Our dear ex-“punk” decently plays all the instruments and sings so well that everyone forgets he's “just” Axl's bassist in civilian clothes.

Naturally, the album is filled with valuable collaborations: all the other Guns n’ Roses (except Axl and Izzy), Jeff Beck, Lenny Kravitz, Snake, Sebastian Bach…
Let's say it straight away, the tracks aren't anything original, but at least they seem to sound more genuine than the dull covers on “The Spaghetti Incident?”.
It starts well with the powerful title track “Believe In Me” where Slash's dominant guitar is recognizable from the first note.
“I Love You” is an acoustic ballad that roughens up in the chorus filled with AOR choirs.
Even fiercer is the following “Man In The Meadow” with West Arkeen's intense solo opening and closing the show.
“Fucked Up” is the boldest track: a long intro made of drums (by friend Matt Sorum), sharp riffs by Jeff Beck, and keyboards by Ted Andreadis… Duff sings through a megaphone and blasts society's ills.
“Could It Be You” is probably the most inspired moment of the bassisteus ex machina: acoustic guitars and romantic keyboards weave a soft bed where Duff's anguished love dreams stretch out wonderfully. Worth revisiting the classic string arrangement and Dizzy Reed's rapid and skillful hand in the end. If you liked “So Fine” from “Use Your Illusion 2” this is the track for you.
Note the visceral punk-trash “Punk Rock Song”, “The Majority” sung by a great Lenny Kravitz when he was still a singer, and the blues ballad “10 Years” with the unpleasant Gilby Clarke who nevertheless plays all the guitars well.
In the end, the level drops with the unnecessary “Swamp Song” and “Trouble” (here the annoying Sebastian Bach mimics the already irritating Axl Rose), but “Fuck You” proves intriguing in part (a street-new-metal sung in duet with the genuine black rapper) and the final dark blues “Lonely Tonite” complete with trumpets and talkbox.

All in all, it's a nice but sometimes naive album, romantic and aggressive, nostalgic, meticulously arranged but marred by unnecessary metal riffs.
Duff always sings very well and writes sincere lyrics, far removed from Axl's pseudo-transgressive ones... ("10 Years," for example, tells of a reunion with former classmates that Duff couldn't attend because he was on tour with the Guns).
The impression is that if they had made a mix of the best ideas from this album plus those from Slash’s (‘s Snakepit), combined with those from Velvet Revolver, they could have recorded a reasonable new album of the Guns even without Axl Rose.
If you like melodic hard rock and loved the less sly Guns'n Roses, this album will be a pleasant listen for you.

…I was still a child when my father one evening gave me a sip of whiskey… he said: "Take a sip and say your name".
After four sips, I couldn't say my name because I was completely, magnificently drunk…
Maybe it's because of that childhood drunkenness that I became a bit of a strange guy… Duff