Duff McKagan on Guns N’ Roses Biographer’s Plan to Reunite the Classic Lineup: ‘Little Weird’

As one of Slash's best childhood friends — and an obsessive documenter of Guns N' Roses' early rise to fame — Marc Canter understands the turbulent relationships that destroyed the group's classic lineup better than most. But that doesn't mean his plan to get the old band back together has a prayer of working.

As Canter shares in the above short documentary, he believes all the years of animosity between Slash and GNR bandleader Axl Rose would be put aside if he could just get the two to meet up and jam in their old rehearsal space. Of course, that's far easier said than done, as former Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan laughingly noted during a recent interview with Billboard.

"I have no comment on that," chuckled McKagan. "That came out of left field for me. My manager sent me the link and I looked at it like, 'What the hell?' Little weird. But Marc is a good guy. He’s been around forever, and if that’s what he thinks, it’s his thing."

As his interviewer noted, McKagan appears in interview footage during the documentary, but he claims he was completely caught off guard when he saw himself in the film. "I’m like, 'What the hell’s that from?' It’s from a while ago, and I don’t know what the interview’s from," he insisted. "Marc’s a dear friend, but he didn’t ask me if he could use that piece. So there’s a little like, 'Dude, I don’t know where that ... I’m wearing a Von Dutch hat, so that’s gotta be like 2007' ... So I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s doing, to be honest."

Whatever the actual odds of Canter's plan working, it's easy to see he's always been, and remains, a huge fan and staunch supporter of the guys who went on to record Appetite for Destruction. He may have another big opportunity to remind Slash and Rose of their early years, too: Canter claims that his band biography Reckless Road, which chronicles their activity during 1985-87, is being made into a feature film.

As for McKagan, he has his own projects to think about — his new book, How to Be a Man, is out now, along with a companion EP.

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