McKagan shoots down biographer's GNR reunion plot

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Duff doesn't buy Marc Canter's rehearsal room theory – and says he manages his career like an ageing boxer

Duff McKagan has dismissed Guns N’ Roses biographer Marc Canter’s claims that he could reunite Slash and Axl Rose.

Canter previously said he could get the estranged duo back on talking terms simply by having them meet in the LA rehearsal room where the band first honed their sound. And the reunion rumours grew even louder when Slash recently said he’d “never say never” to a potential classic era lineup return.

But former GNR bassist McKagan doesn’t think it’ll be as simple as that.

He tells Billboard: “That came out of left field for me. My manager sent me the link and I looked at it like, ‘What the hell?’ Little weird. But Marc is a good guy. He’s been around forever, and if that’s what he thinks, it’s his thing.”

While discussing his latest book, How To Be A Man (And Other Illusions), the 51-year-old says his body is more susceptible to sickness after years of drug and alcohol abuse and that he has to be smarter about his workload as he gets older.

Recalling a time when he got pneumonia after a heavy round of touring, McKagan adds: “It’s not like I have to slow down because I’m getting older. I refuse to go to that level, but I have to be smarter. Maybe like an older boxer doesn’t take the punches as much. And I think I have to learn more from that.

“The mistakes – I guess you call them mistakes – were assumptions I made up until this point. Going too hard. I learned that when I got pneumonia, going really hard and sacrificing my body for rock, and my wife was telling me, ‘Babe, you’re going to get sick.’

“Because of past drug use I have a lower tolerance for germs that are on planes and that kind of stuff. And I’ll just keep going, and I got pneumonia. If I do it again, I think if I see two tours back-to-back I might go, ‘Maybe let’s revise that. Can we put like a week in between so I can recuperate from the first one?’”

McKagan released an EP called How To Be A Man as a companion to the book.

Stef Lach

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.