Duff won't rule out main role in Velvet Revolver

Duff McKagan says he would consider fronting Velvet Revolver, but admits he'd rather bring in a specialist singer.

The bass player revealed the band – in which McKagan and former Guns ‘N’ Roses colleague Slash both star – are still looking for a replacement for Scott Weiland, who was sacked in 2008.

McKagan sings in his own project Loaded and wouldn’t rule out taking over main mic duties in Velvet Revolver too.

He tells TotalRock Radio: “I would consider it, but I think it’s the type of band that it’s best if we have a lead singer. I like rocking with Slash. When we play, I like rocking with the guitar players and the drummer and being able to fly around.

“When I sing with Loaded, I can’t move at all. I’m playing guitar and I’m singing. I wrote too many lyrics in the songs. There’s just too many goddamn lyrics, and you can’t ever move away from the mic, except when I jump into the crowd, and then the band’s playing and I get back up and I have to sing more.”

According to McKagan, he and Slash have been put in touch with a number of potential frontmen, with one being particularly interesting – although it didn’t work out.

He says: “We tried out a guy, actually, just a couple of weeks ago. A really good guy, good singer, but it just wasn’t the right fit. I get e-mails all the time, ‘Hey, check this guy out.’ And we have internal e-mails going around.”

It appears the singer McKagan is referring to is the same person Slash spoke about last month.

In the rest of the interview, McKagan discusses his upcoming book and the documentary based on his memoirs

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.