Why DUFF MCKAGAN Left Seattle For Los Angeles

December 24, 2009

VELVET REVOLVER/ex-GUNS N' ROSES bassist Duff McKagan has penned the latest installment of his weekly column, which appears every Thursday on Reverb at SeattleWeekly.com. An excerpt follows below.

"In the autumn of 1984, I moved from the familiar comfort of the Seattle punk scene to Los Angeles. Many assume that leaving the oft-stormy weather of the northwest for the more tranquil and sunny Southern California would be a no-brainer. A guy like myself could throw caution to the wind and basically go anywhere I wanted, well, anywhere that my beat-up car could get to, and anywhere that had a music scene that had more infastructure and less heroin than Seattle did then.

"Let me first explain that I did not leave Seattle because there was a lack of talent or originality. Seattle in the early '80s probably had the most diverse and supportive scene in America. If the place where your band rehearsed at got shut-down or was otherwise made unavailable, it was never a problem to find some other band to help out. At a gig, if any piece of some band's equipment broke down, replacement gear was as close as the next band's gear on the bill."

Read McKagan's entire column at SeattleWeekly.com.

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