McKagan sneering onstage with his “lightning white” Sparrow Rat Rod. Photo by luizfelipeleite.com
What about effects and
amplification?
No effects for me—I just plug
straight in. On the record, I used
a hot-rodded 1991 Marshall
JCM900, which I usually
use with a beat-up old 4x12
Marshall cab that I love. I even
wrote this song about it called
“Seattle Head” [from Loaded’s
2003 album,
Dark Days]. For
touring, I’ve been using various
amps from Engl—a German
company that makes really great
stuff if you like an aggressive
sound and don’t want to worry
about things breaking down on
the road. Unlike other amps I’ve
tried, which sound good in some
rooms and shitty in others, Engls
sound great in every venue.
What about your bass gear?
I essentially just use one kind of
bass, my white Fender signature
P bass, which is basically a copy
of the instrument I used all
those years back in GN’R—an
’80s Jazz Bass Special. It’s kind
of a mutt, with a Precision-bass
body and a Jazz-bass neck. The
sound is tight, and it plays really
well. Also, I sometimes play
a semi-hollow Duesenberg that
I had filled in to prevent feedback.
You can hear it on [Velvet
Revolver’s] “Fall to Pieces.” But
really, I’m a Fender guy.
The Taking isn’t just a collection
of random songs—it has
a narrative arc. What was the
inspiration for that?
When we wrote the record as
a band, we were watching this
relationship between two of our
friends fall apart. We couldn’t
take sides, since we were so
close to both people. It was
kind of like Zen Buddhism: We
just had to sit back and observe
the whole thing passing—
y’know, be the river flowing
down the stream and not the
rock holding up the river. It’s
kind of corny, but true. In the
end, our friends got divorced
and became much better friends
than when they were married.
We didn’t set out to make a
concept record, and we weren’t
even cognizant at the time that
we were writing songs about the
relationship dissolving. But after
we wrote 11 or 12 tunes, we
saw that our observations ended
up in most of the songs—all the
heartbreak, the deceit, and the
anger. In other words, it wasn’t
necessarily a cool and carefully
thought-out concept record like
the one Mastodon did based on
Moby-Dick [2004’s
Leviathan],
but one that came after the fact.
What was the writing process
like?
It was mostly done on the road,
which is one of the best places
to write: You’re not in a room
somewhere alone—you’re with
your bandmates in a bus, fueled
by caffeine, testosterone, and
adrenaline. It’s kind of chaotic
being in such close quarters
with other dudes, and with us
there’s a sort of rub—sometimes
I don’t get along with Mike,
because we’re both kind of
hardheaded. Not that I go out
of my way to create friction,
but the energy and tension can
translate to some killer songs.
Mike, Jeff, and I have been
playing together for more than
a decade—this is the longest
I’ve been in a band. We’ve
helped each other through a lot
of shit, and we’re like family.
Since we know each other so
well, it’s natural to write together.
Our song ideas can pop up
anywhere, from the things we
witness in our lives—like that
messy breakup—to a cool riff
that I stumble upon in sound-check
or chord progressions we
discover in an all-acoustic jam
in the back of the bus.
To give you a more specific
idea, on “Easier Lying”
Mike brought us this complete
song—the lyrics, everything—
and we all tinkered with our
own parts until it jelled. For
“We Win,” Isaac and I drank
way too much coffee and
fiddled around in GarageBand
until we came up with the bare
bones of the song to present to
everyone else for input. In the
end, everything seemed to come
together magically.
Did you write your songs on
guitar or bass?
I write on guitar and always
have—since even the days
before GN’R. Though I play a
lot of bass, I’m a rhythm guitarist
at heart.
You worked with Terry Date on
the record. How did that come
about and what was it like?
Terry and I are both from
Seattle, and although we
have many mutual friends
and sometimes see each other
at the SeaTac airport, we’d
never even been to a barbecue
together before
The Taking. In
preparation for the album, we
recorded a bunch of complete
demos in Isaac’s studio. Terry
heard them and jumped on
the project.
One cool thing about Terry
is that he’s extremely forward-thinking.
A lot of major-label
producers these days just aren’t
getting those big paydays like
they used to. So, Terry decided
to take a great and novel business
approach—he offered
to partner up with us on the
album and record it for nothing,
banking up on the back
end. Because of that, he was literally
as invested in the project
as we were—so he had incentive
to see it succeed.
Terry really brought out the
best in all of us, and he recorded
the band in much the same way
he did for Soundgarden: He
carefully mic’d things in such a
way that we got this brutal, dry
sound. Because we went into
the studio with the whole record
written, it didn’t take very long
to record, and it didn’t feel like
hard work. On the 11th day
in the studio, it was just like,
“Whoa, we’re done!”