“I learned Irish history through Stiff Little Fingers and my worldview education through punk rock.” Guns N’ Roses star Duff McKagan on the history lessons you don’t learn in a school class room
Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan has revealed that he learned about ‘The Troubles’ in the North of Ireland via Belfast punks Stiff Little Fingers, and his mum.
In a new interview with the Belfast Telegraph newspaper, McKagan talks about his family connections to Ireland – his grandfather hailed from Cork – and recalls how his mother educated him about the political situation in the North after hearing him playing Stiff Little Fingers’ debut album Inflammable Material on the family stereo.
“I borrowed a Stiff Little Fingers record from a friend when I was 14 or so, and I was playing it on our living room stereo,” he remembers. “My mum’s dad came from Cork, so she was connected with what was going on in Ireland at that time, and she heard me playing this record. I didn’t know it was political. I din’t know what a Suspect Device was. I didn’t know it was a bomb.
“She heard this, and read the lyrics. She said, ‘Oh, these poor boys, they’re growing up in war in Belfast. So I learned history through Stiff Little Fingers and my mum. I got to get my worldview education through a lot of punk rock.”
In the same interview, McKagan talks about global unrest, and reveals how his mother passed on some wise words about such conflicts.
“Two of my brothers were in the Vietnam War when I was a kid,” he says. “I would ask my mum, ‘Why? What’s a war?’ She said, ‘Well, two old guys don’t agree, and they send all the young men to go fight. I’ve found no better answer than that. To this day, that is the correct answer. It’s still the old fucking men doing this for the most part… there’s just so much bullshit right now.”
McKagan will kick off his European tour promoting his current solo album, Lighthouse, in Dublin, Ireland, on September 30, at Dublin Academy.
After that, the tour will call at:
Oct 02: Glasgow Oran Mor, UK
Oct 03: Manchester Academy 2, UK
Oct 05: London Islington Assembly Hall, UK
Oct 07: Utrecht Grote Zaal, Holland
Oct 08: Cologne Kantine, Germany
Oct 09: Munich Freiheitshalle, Germany
Oct 11: Brno Sono Centrum, Czech Republic
Oct 13: Warsaw Stodola, Poland
Oct 14: Berlin Heimathafen, Germany
Oct 16: Milan Magazzini Generali, Italy
Oct 17: Solothurn Kofmeh, Switzerland
Oct 19: Liege OM, Belgium
Oct 20: Paris Trianon, France
Oct 22: Stockholm Nalen, Sweden