Ex-GUNS N' ROSES Bassist Explains What It's Really Like To Play In Biggest Band In The World

January 7, 2010

VELVET REVOLVER/ex-GUNS N' ROSES bassist Duff McKagan has penned the latest installment of his weekly column, which appears on Reverb at SeattleWeekly.com. An excerpt follows below.

"Before the Internet was in common use, and before there was a computer in virtually every home, playing rock shows in faraway places like Brazil was an exotic endeavor, to say the least. Flying all the way down there to headline two nights at the Rock in Rio festival was pretty surreal. We just had no idea if GUNS N' ROSES had fans in this part of the world.

"My first trip to many foreign lands came as a result of the growing popularity of my band. In most of the places we visited, we had a good idea of the size of our fan base because of the well-tracked record-sales data from each region (yes, artists used to sell records!). In pretty much all of South America, though — back then and to this day — records, CDs, T-shirts, and whatever else were all pirated. As a result — and with no MySpace 'hits' or Twitter follower counts — we just had no idea how many fans were going to show up to see us."

Read McKagan's entire column at SeattleWeekly.com.

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