GNR’s lead singer Axl Rose became well known for his tardy nature when it came to stage times. Not the most reliable frontman at showtime!
However, it’s a totally different ballgame with the rocker’s reunion tour and bassist Duff McKagan was quizzed about how different Axl is nowadays.
In a recent interview with Q104.3 via Antimusic. McKagan explained the new regime for Rose:
“I can’t speak for him. I’ll just tell you what I know about… what I’ve observed that’s really made me work so much harder. His work ethic is… he’s an animal.
Duff continues: “He’s in the gym. He starts an hour and a half before the show, vocal warm-ups. We do a three-and-a-half-hour-long show. He broke his foot at the beginning of the tour.” McKagan shed light on Axl’s unstoppable resolve to keep gigging:
“He had to do that show, he didn’t say, ‘Let’s stop.’ He said, ‘Let’s continue. I’ll do it sitting down.’ Just singing sitting down – I don’t know if either of you are singers, but singing sitting down is super hard.”
The bassist admitted that Roses regimen was having a positive effect on him:
“He does an hour-and-a-half vocal warm-ups; he sings these shows; he does an hour-and-half warm-down. I’m already in bed reading my book, man – like, I’m done – and he’s still warming down. I can hear him sometimes. And that makes me work harder. I get up; I go to the gym; I start playing my bass extra early; I’m doing vocal warm-ups.”
“That guy’s really chest-out, head-up… he’s the real deal. Him and Slash both, just this tour, showed me how… we’re hard workers. And it reminded me of how hard we worked back in the day.
“We’d have two-day rehearsals, and we would… People, I think, probably thought we were a bunch of eff-ups. But people don’t know… You do the work when people aren’t looking. And that was that band that did that, for sure, and we still do.”
Transcript: Antimusic
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