It's So Easy - Duff Mckagan [123]
I had to relearn the learning process. I kept at it even when I felt I wasn’t getting any better at studying. I knew I could do it. And the process of formal education sparked me. Suddenly the world of finance became a fascinating, living thing for me. Again I got an A. And I immediately signed up for another class—introductory economics.
By early 1998, I began to record music again, too. I poured myself into it, working every day. Despite my departure from Guns, our old label, Geffen, remained supportive of my solo career.
“We’re backing you, Duff,” I was told at a meeting with Geffen staff. “This album will be our top priority for the first quarter of 1999.”
Despite my songwriting and recording, my latest class, and my workouts, Susan and I managed to find time to constantly shuttle back and forth between L.A. and Seattle—it was great to be able to share Grace’s first year with my mom. During my teenage years, my relationship with my mother had really blossomed when I quit taking drugs after my first panic attack. We had sat down over tea together nearly every day back then, and I had been able to come clean to her about some of the things I’d gotten into—like stealing cars—while struggling to find my way. It had been like that since my pancreatitis, too, and now, in 1998, we were becoming even closer as I learned to be a parent. I wanted to be around Mom as much as possible.
I was also beginning to think I really did want to attend a proper university. By the middle of 1998, I had completed three different business classes with a 4.0 GPA. I figured any school would most certainly see that I was a genius, right? Shit, with those grades I thought Yale and Harvard would fling open their doors.
Then I remembered: there was a grand old university situated atop Capitol Hill in Seattle, the school my uncle John had attended, Seattle University. When I was very young and still doing well in school, my mom would have liked nothing better than for me to have followed her brother to Seattle U.
A plan was starting to take shape in my mind.
By fall, I had an entire album done, which Geffen planned to release as Beautiful Disease on my birthday, February 5, 1999. An index of some lyrical themes explored on the songs:
Number of lines about getting kicked in the head: 2
Number of veiled references to GN’R breakup: 2
Number of drug deaths mentioned: 2
Number of songs about a person whose drug habit imperils his or her ability to parent: 1
By the end of 1998, promotional copies of Beautiful Disease had been sent out to magazines and the press campaign was in full swing. I ducked into Tower Records one afternoon and saw my album on their big list of upcoming releases. Cool. I formed a band in anticipation of touring the record. This group became the first incarnation of Loaded, the band that’s been a constant in my life ever since.
For most of the press interviews, I would go to the Geffen office and talk on the phone with writers planning to cover the album. One day in December, I headed over to the office for another round of phone interviews. When I walked in, everyone was in hysterics, crying.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We were just bought. There are going to be mass layoffs.”
A few days later, I went to the office again—this time to meet with an executive of the new corporate entity. I was ushered into a conference room. He came in and shook my hand.
“Here’s the story,” said the exec. “I’m going on a ski vacation and I’m going to listen to all the upcoming