"I was too drunk." Guns N' Roses man Duff McKagan on the "first and only" time he met Prince

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Guns N' Roses bassist and living rock 'n' roll legend Duff McKagan has discussed the one and only time he met music icon Prince while on tour for Gn'R's bombastic Use Your Illusion double album. Talking to Metal Hammer's Rich Hobson in their latest issue, Duff admits that he wasn't the best version of himself during the encounter, though seemingly made a decent enough impression all the time.

“The first – and only – time I met Prince, I was too drunk." he explains. "We were on the Use Your Illusions tour and got invited to see him play, then see him backstage and say hi. I went in the room and it was dark with all these candles around, and I just didn’t know what to say because I was too fucking drunk! Years later, I wrote a column in the Seattle Weekly about taking my girls to see Prince and how it was magic. I get this call a few days later from this manager, and it’s like ‘Prince loves your column, he wants to use it in his new tour programme.’ So clearly we had a positive interaction the first time!”

Elsewhere in the interview, Duff explains why Velvet Revolver - the supergroup featuring himself, fellow Guns N' Roses alumni Slash and Matt Sorum, plus Wasted Youth guitarist Dave Kusher and Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland - arrived at the ideal time when they formed in the early 2000s.

“Velvet Revolver were a perfect band for the time," he insists. "Around 2003, you started hearing this ‘rock n roll is dead’ chat and it’s like… fuck that! It ain’t dead. To who?! We formed that band and once Scott [Weiland] joined it really became a fire breathing, fuck you kind of band. We put that first record out and went on the road with a chip on our shoulders.”

Read more from Duff in the new issue of Metal Hammer, out now

Metal Hammer issue 390 — (Image credit: Future (artwork by Puis Calzada))

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Merlin was promoted to Executive Editor of Louder in early 2022, following over ten years working at Metal Hammer. While there, he served as Online Editor and Deputy Editor, before being promoted to Editor in 2016. Before joining Metal Hammer, Merlin worked as Associate Editor at Terrorizer Magazine and has written for Classic Rock, Rock Sound, eFestivals and others. Across his career he has interviewed legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Metallica, Iron Maiden (including getting a trip on Ed Force One courtesy of Bruce Dickinson), Guns N' Roses, KISS, Slipknot, System Of A Down and Meat Loaf. He has also presented and produced the Metal Hammer Podcast, presented the Metal Hammer Radio Show and is probably responsible for 90% of all nu metal-related content making it onto the site.