DUFF MCKAGAN LOOKING FORWARD TO BEING NOT PARTICULARLY FAMOUS. AGAIN.

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Here’s a good Duff McKagan story for ya, and a true one, too: the guy once took his dog to the vet, who asked him what he did for a living. He told her he was a musician, and they got to talking about music, and somehow it came up that “Paradise City” was a favorite song of the vet’s from her youth. “Do you know that song?” she asked Duff.

“Uh, yeah,” he responded. “I wrote it.”

So now that Scott Weiland is going back to rehab to a) get cleaned up for what seems like the eight trillionth time and b) make sure his name is in all the tabloids just in time for a very profitable Stone Temple Pilots reunion, Duff McKagan has to make other plans. Slash has already announced plans for a solo album, so keeping Velvet Revolver going with a new singer is out of the question, and I think it’s pretty obvious that even Axl Rose ain’t broke enough yet to do the GN’R reunion of Steven Adler’s dreams; and, besides, why shouldn’t the Duffster sit front n’ center himself for a change? It worked last time, right, guys?

Guys?

So, uh, anyway, Duff is re-starting Loaded (re-loading?), and the band may release an album as early as this summer. In case you don’t remember Loaded – and there’s no reason you would or should – they were a “punk” outfit McKagan started sometime after his other post-GN’R projects all failed (McKagan’s career sans Axl and Slash was only slightly less humiliating than Gilby Clarke’s). Dave “Not Izzy” Kushner was playing with Loaded when he was invited to join VR; it’s kind of telling of how that band’s members feel about one another that Kushner is no longer in Loaded*.

It’s also kind of telling that this isn’t the first time Duff has raced to be the first out of the gate with a band other than the one that actually pays his checks: his laughably bad Believe in Me (which featured guest appearances from everyone from Jeff Beck to Sebastian Bach to Lenny Kravitz to, no joke, a rapper named “Doc from the Mob” who I’d never heard of before nor since the album’s release) was the first GN’R solo album back in the day. Could it be that bassists play such a large phallic instrument for a very specific reason?

So now that three of VR’s five members officially know what they’re doing after the band breaks up, all we have to do is wait for an announcement from Matt Sorum, and say a little prayer for Dave “Slash Doesn’t Actually Know My Last Name” Kushner.

-AR

*Then again, maybe someone just showed Kushner that video for “Seattle Head” (above), which was filmed in Japan ’cause that’s where people still pack it in for dudes like Duff (Either that, or Japan’s venues are incredibly small. And no, that wasn’t a joke about Japanese people**.)

**Okay, maybe a little bit.