Dazed and confused …

Matt Snelling of Beat magazine in Australia got to talking with Duff about the new Velvet Revolver record.

Naturally, he brought up Axl and the whole “what happened with Guns ‘n’ Roses thing, asking whether [Duff] ever wishes that he had the same understanding of personal problems that individuals struggle with a little earlier so that maybe other, more well-documented estrangements (i.e. GUNS N’ ROSES singer Axl Rose), could have possibly been avoided:

Said Duff:

“Umm, I know what you’re getting at. I just think that that experience is where I earned my understanding, you know? I mean I was fucked up then, and so a lot of all that shit kind of fed each other. The machine was just so big. There was no way out, and there were just so many yes-men, and there’s a myriad of reasons. Mostly it’s because it was out of control. I know I self-medicated my way through the entire ‘Use Your Illusion’ tours. It wasn’t til it was done did I know I had a health problem, and I got sober. That’s where I got a lot of experience in dealing with people and strange situations — I got a crash course from ‘86 through ‘93, an expert education. There was a time where if it were up to me, I would have salvaged things, and even Slash tried many times. We all wanted to save it, it’s not like we all walked up one day and said ‘fuck you!’

“You see, he (Axl) was a singer in this meteoric rock band that sort of captured the imagination and hit some sort of nerve with a whole reputation, and while every member of than band was important to making that happen, he was the singer. The focal point. I know that more yes-men came his way, and I think that soon your sense of reality gets a little eschewed, and that the real friends you have either change on you or those other people close them out. I can’t speak for Axl now, and I haven’t hung out with him for a real long time now, but a lot of this happened to me… but I wasn’t the singer. So I was able to escape it. So yeah, it’s sad, man.”

What scares me is that I understand what he’s saying.

HT to Blabbermouth