Book reveiw: 'It’s so easy (And other lies)'

It’s so easy (And other lies)
Author: Duff McKagan
Publisher: Hachette
Pages: 383
Price: Rs850

After Duff McKagan got thrown out of school in his junior year, he stole cars, was a cleaner at a restaurant, and worked as a pastry chef in Seattle before heading to Los Angeles, where he played in a series of punk rock bands and later joined Guns ’n Roses (GNR) as the bassist. From humble beginnings in Seattle — he was the youngest of eight kids brought up by a single parent — to playing onstage and partying offstage with some of the greatest rockers in the world, Duff lived the life of a rock star, replete with drugs, alcohol, parties, women, tours, recordings and more alcohol.

It’s So Easy is Duff’s story about his rise to fame and subsequent fall into drug and alcohol addiction. At age 30, his friend found the great GNR bassist alone, mute with pain, naked and writhing on the bed in his dream home in Seattle. He was rushed to the hospital where the patient next to him said, “Dude, I broke my back and I’m glad I don’t have what you have.” Duff’s pancreas, “swollen to the size of a football from all the booze, had burst” and as the ER doctor explained the surgery to him, he implored, “Please, kill me. Just kill me.”

Duff started drinking early in his teens. His father had an affair with a neighbour and later moved in with her, leaving Duff’s mother to take care of eight kids. The tense situation at home, coupled with acute panic attacks and “the need to hide a secret and to protect my mom” is what got him self-medicating with alcohol and drugs. But at age 20, after he lost a long-term girlfriend, his best friend, and his main band to smack, Duff was dead set against the use of heroin.

He was driven by the music GNR played. Before they were popular, or even known, GNR went on tour to prove something to themselves. They had absolutely no means to support themselves. Yet Axl, Duff, drummer Steven, and guitarists Izzy and Slash set off to test their commitment to the band and to the music. On the way to Seattle, their van broke down, and they found themselves “broke, hungry, and sweltering, hunkered down on the side of the highway.” But they didn’t give up, and though they only managed to play one gig, when they returned to LA, “we arrived home a genuine band — a gang with the shared experiences of a road trip gone wrong...”

While playing the bass for GNR, Duff also performed with other punk rock bands. To him, the people didn’t matter as much as the music. It was his dream to be “possessed by the music, shrieking”.  “I could hear and see exactly how rock was meant to be: raw and fucked up with nothing held back, raw and fucked up with no boundaries left unbroken, raw and fucked up.”

But as the band became more successful, they also started having problems. Axl Rose would turn up late on stage, making fans wait for hours on end, and as Duff and the others waited for their lead singer, they watched the crowds get antsy and at times violent.

So by the time GNR was a success , Duff had started drinking vodka first thing in the morning up until he faced a stadium full of irate fans. Then, at a concert where he was invited to play with Aerosmith, he realised that the effects of alcohol (a downer) could be neutralised with cocaine (an upper). That became his secret potion. “Cocaine was a nice supplement to my drinking. On cocaine, I could now drink twice as much as I had before. Fucking brilliant.”

Until his pancreas packed up. That’s when Duff turned his life around. In Seattle, he started mountain biking in earnest. Once he recovered and moved back to LA, he wanted to avoid the stressors that triggered his alcoholism. Izzy and Steven had already quit GNR. The band, with its new members, was still having problems. He needed something to look forward to each day, so he joined a kickboxing dojo. He also started studying again. He got married, had two daughters, quit GNR, and joined Velvet Revolver, a group of sobered up punk rockers, a group he still plays with.

While the book may not be as explosive as Motley Crue’s The Dirt and doesn’t include as many rock stars as in Keith Richards’ Life, It’s So Easy is just as riveting and candid as other great rock memoirs. It gives a sense of the rock scene of the ‘80s and ‘90s, mapping the important changes in the world of punk rock.

Despite the nonlinear narrative, it’s a gripping read. Duff has no airs about himself, and frankly admits to being weak willed — when GNR starts having problems, he knows he should sit everyone down and talk things out. Instead, he drinks more vodka. And like any addict, he has moments of self-loathing — at a Freddie Mercury tribute show at Wembley Stadium, too drunk to stand straight, he says to himself, “We are the champions! That’s right: Duff McKagan, king of beers, viscount of vodka, count of coke. Champion of the world. Asshole.”