[Welp! This picture’s a little blurry, but it was the best I could do]
Tonight, I spent my evening in my school’s auditorium sitting just feet away from former Guns N’ Roses member, Duff McKagan, as he participated in a Q&A session to promote his new memoir. Is this a typical Friday night for me? Not really, but it was school related in that I actually kind of needed to be there for an assignment of mine. Duff McKagan is a rock god. I can’t think of any other way to describe him. I didn’t have the best attitude when I arrived at the event tonight, but by the end of the night, I sure was glad that I came. I’ve never personally been a fan of his because I was never interested in rock and roll growing up, but I knew a little bit about his background. Aside from being a touring musician, McKagan struggled with drugs and alcohol while involved with the industry. During his time of sobriety, he decided to change his habits by keeping himself busy and the only solution he found was to enroll in college. Specifically, my college – Seattle University. There he pursued an undergraduate degree with hopes to learn more about the business program so that he could sort out the financial statements belonging to Guns N’ Roses.
The event was supposed to begin at 7:30, but it started about fifteen minutes later and I was getting impatient. Today is the start of family weekend at Seattle University and apparently this was one of the events on the agenda, which didn’t make all that much sense to me. Half of the crowd was associated to Seattle University, I assumed – being students, (there were like eight at most) faculty and parents of students. The other half were what I assumed to be die-hard Guns N’ Roses or Duff McKagan fans. It was pretty easy to distinguish the two; it was also very cool to see people from outside of our community attending a campus event. When the event started, the Q&A facilitator walked out first followed by a gangly Duff McKagan clad in dark skinny jeans and a black wife beater – tattoos visibly exposed. As I sat there listening to him talk about how much his family means to him and how hard school was for him, I was impressed by his humility. Duff McKagan is a guy that had everything that people dreamed of having – musical talent, fame, a career that people will always remember him by, but he wanted more. He wanted substance in the form of a family and an education. Sometimes we want the lives of those who wish their lives were not that at all.
School didn’t come easy for McKagan, but he always put forth his best effort and to this day still remembers his former professors and courses even going on to mention them when asked during the Q&A session. I think one of my favorite stories from the night was him recalling his days at Seattle University – how he cut his hair so that he could not be recognized because it was important to him to remain present while in school and entirely focused on his education instead of his musical career. McKagan was intimidated by other students because “they were smart!” – he says and knew how to study. They could pick something up in 45 minutes, but for McKagan, it would take him eight hours.
“These students were coing from Matteo Ricci, Holy Names, Seattle Prep and they’d been studying all their lives, but I didn’t know how to study,” he confessed.
When asked by an audience member on what motivates him to do all of the things he does today ie) write this book, write two columns for Playboy Magazine and ESPN, McKagan credited his daughters. He knew that he could have easily been done with his career and be covered the rest of his life, but he didn’t want his daughters to see him as a bum in front of the television not doing anything else. He does all of these things today for his daughters and even mentioned that his daughter Grace will begin writing a mini column for Seattle Weekly in the next few weeks taking after her dad.
I forgot to mention that before this question, there was a crazy outburst by someone in the crowd who verbally attacked McKagan about something involving Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. I didn’t quite catch it because I was too focused on the actual outrage that was going on, but at first McKagan took it well accepting the criticism and speaking in a calm voice. Apparently, this wasn’t enough for the audience member who started making his way towards the stage shouting with his video camera. My heart was racing a little bit because I was actually worried that this person might actually attack him, but McKagan put it all to rest when the crazed (getting pushed towards the exit by other faculty) was told by McKagan “Get the fuck out, motherfucker.” It was pretty badass.