Duff McKagan on Asking ‘Poo Permission’ and Other Vital Travel Tips
Few people travel as much as musicians. So it’s no surprise that Duff McKagan – who has spent time playing with Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver, Loaded and several other groups over the past three decades – has amassed a number of habits and routines to get him from point A to B: Always take your shoes off in the security line at the airport, have some backup stories for when you grow tired of laughing at Germany’s “exit” signs (which read Ausfahrt) and have a modicum of respect for the person in the seat behind you.
And then there’s the following bit of wisdom. “If you’re sharing a room and you’ve only got so much time to sleep, it’s really all about sleep,” McKagan tells Rolling Stone in the video above. “So either get permission to poo in the room before you go to sleep or keep the door closed or just go down to the lobby. . . . Don’t poo in the room if you’re sharing it. Unless you get poo permission, like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s cool dude. I don’t care.’ Then you know you’re really close with that guy.”
The bassist detailed many of his hard and fast rules of the road in his latest book, How to Be a Man (And Other Illusions), which is a time-hopping memoir that chronicles his life between a tour with a cover band featuring Slash to his temporary reunion with Axl Rose last year. Although the tome is not a self-help or advice book per se, it’s littered with entertaining and hilarious aphorisms.
He also complemented the release with a new EP of songs, including one titled “How to Be a Man” (streaming here), some of which feature Alice in Chains singer-guitarist Jerry Cantrell, Stone Sour drummer Roy Mayorga and McKagan’s fellow ex-GN’R pal Izzy Stradlin.
Both the book and EP are out now.