McKagan’s first new solo music in close to four years, This Is The Song follows his critically acclaimed sophomore solo album, 2019’s Tenderness, named by Loudwire as one of that year’s “50 Best Rock Albums” and hailed by Rolling Stone in a three-and-a-half (out of four)-starred rave as “an album full of beauty and heart…It’s music of conscience, heavy songs with a light touch.”
In 2019, Duff McKagan moved into his own recording studio, allowing him a long hoped-for opportunity to “finally explore songs that I may have written the night before or some of those old riffs from years ago. This is a big deal for me.” Along with THIS IS THE SONG, the new EP includes the soulful IT CAN’T COME TOO SOON (featuring guest vocals from Seattle, WA-based singer, songwriter, music educator, and community organizer Shaina Sheperd) and PASS ME BY, the latter inspired by distinctly modern confrontation with a gun-toting horsewoman while on a motorcycle trip through the Cascade Mountains.
A founding member of both Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver, Duff McKagan is, at his heart, a songwriter, penning a growing canon of vulnerable, confessional, and authentic material. Produced by 3x GRAMMY® Award-winner Shooter Jennings, Tenderness marked a powerful new chapter for the ever-evolving artist, taking on societal ills and his own personal transgressions against a rich sonic backdrop of Americana-fueled arrangements. Among the album’s many highlights is the volatile rocker, “Chip Away,” which earned extraordinary praise from the Maestro himself, Bob Dylan, who recently declared the song a personal favourite.
“There’s a Duff McKagan song called ‘Chip Away’ that has profound meaning for me,” Dylan told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s a graphic song. Chip away, chip away, like Michelangelo, breaking up solid marble stone to discover the form of King David inside. He didn’t build him from the ground up, he chipped away the stone until he discovered the king. It’s like my own songwriting, I overwrite something, then I chip away lines and phrases until I get to the real thing.”
Along with his prolific musical efforts, McKagan is the New York Times best-selling author of 2011’s It’s So Easy: And Other Lies and 2015’s How to Be a Man: (And Other Illusions), and the co-host (with Susan Holmes McKagan) of Sirius XM’s popular Three Chords & The Truth radio show on Ozzy’s Boneyard (Ch. 38). McKagan currently serves as a core member of a modern day “Wrecking Crew” alongside GRAMMY® Award-winning musician/producer, Andrew Watt, and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith, recording and co-writing on such recent albums as Ozzy Osbourne’s Ordinary Man (2020) and 2x GRAMMY® Award-winning Patient No. 9 (2022) and Iggy Pop’s acclaimed Every Loser (2023). What’s more, McKagan – with Watt, Smith, and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Josh Klinghoffer – is part of the recently unveiled Iggy Pop & The Losers lineup, who made a high-profile televised debut earlier this year with an electrifying performance of the feverish “Frenzy” on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! Watch it HERE.
Guns N’ Roses will be traveling on an epic global tour kicking off on June 1 in Abu Dhabi, AE and is set to touch down in the Middle East, Europe and North America until October 16. For complete details and remaining ticket availability, please see www.gunsnroses.com/tour.
