Duff McKagan Sets Release for New Book; Details Guns N’ Roses Finances

As a member of Guns N' Roses, Velvet Revolver,  Loaded and Walking Papers over the years, Bassist Duff McKagan certainly knows his way around the music industry, but the rocker is taking on a different subject with his upcoming book, 'How to Be a Man (And Other Illusions).'

The book started out from one of his Seattle Weekly columns that caught the eye of a book publisher and turned into something much bigger. During an interview last year, McKagan told Total Rock Radio, "There was one column that was called 'How to Be a Man,' and it was kind of tongue in cheek. It was really tongue in cheek. And I got a book deal from that column. It's a how-to guide of things I've learned about life -- being a dad, being a husband and being in a rock band. And it's, like, a city guide in it, but a very tongue-in-cheek guide, like how I see cities. It's got all kinds of stuff and other stories and hopefully it's gonna be a funny book."

The book is now on schedule for a May 12 release date via Da Capo Press. For more info and to pre-order the book, check here.

In other news, McKagan was recently a guest on 'The Jasta Show' and his expertise in financial matters turned to a discussion on Guns N' Roses' money issues during his time with the group and their continued issues with Geffen Records.

He explained, “Guns N’ Roses, it’s a big catalog item for the Universal Music Group. It still is. It’s, like, the second biggest catalog item they have, it sells. In 1994, I’d just gotten sober and I was kind of figuring some stuff out, and our lawyer said, ‘We’re gonna audit Geffen,’ audit our record company. Before that, I lived in this sort of fantasy world that they were our partner in this thing. We were going out and attacking the world together."

He adds, "They didn’t pay us on something like six million records. Six million records! That’s what we found. And they said, ‘Okay, fine. We’ll pay you for two. Or you can sue us.’ This is our record company. ‘You can sue us for the rest, but it’s gonna cost you. We have lawyers on staff.’ So you do an audit settlement. So you settle for about a third of what’s owed you. And we’ve done now an audit every three years. And it’s the same [procedure]. It’s not six million anymore. But it’s a hefty number. But you have to settle.”

The rocker went on to say that there's a perception that the Guns N' Roses members made millions while supporting their 'Use Your Illusion' albums, but he explains, "Our crew was 130 people … 130! We had two stages going -- we had an 'A' stage and a 'B' stage going -- around the world at all times. That's why we toured for two-and-a-half years, cause it too us two years to break even -- just to break even -- on that tour."

You can check out more of Duff McKagan's interview on 'The Jasta Show' by listening to the player below.

Listen to Duff McKagan on 'The Jasta Show'

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