VELVET REVOLVER’S DUFF MCKAGAN GETTING FINANCIAL WITH PLAYBOY MAGAZINE

Ex-Guns N’ Roses and current Velvet Revolver and Loaded bassist Duff McKagan shares his thoughts on getting approached to write a financial column for Playbo…

Former Guns N Roses and current Velvet Revolver bassist, Duff McKagan has been quite busy during the band’s hiatus. Besides releasing the album “Sick” by his side project Duff McKagan’s Loaded, he has also been writing a financial column for Playboy. Already with articles touching on subjects like The Pros and Cons of Capitalism, Ponzi and Madoff and When the Banks Go Bankrupt, Duff continues to draw on his financial knowledge in the reoccurring column. While Duff got his start writing weekly columns for Seattle Weekly, Playboy immediately recognized his talents and gave him the creative reigns over his column Duffonomics.

Artisan News caught up with Duff recently to get his thoughts on being approached by Playboy to write a financial column.

“They’re trying to pimp out Playboy.com and make it a place where people go for, not just to look at naked chicks but to also get music news and try to make it sort of young and hip I suppose. So for business news, they wanted to find somebody that was a little off kilter. ‘Huh? He’s writing about finance?’ So, they approached me. I’m kind of the guy that if I haven’t tried something and it’s put in my lap then I’ll try it once and see how it feels. So I’m in my tenth week with Playboy and I can write about whatever I want to financially.”

Duff also talked about Playboy wanting to find someone a little off kilter and hip to write their financial column.

“I was thirty years old and looking around and realizing, I thought I was alone in not knowing how money worked. I had made some money and I heard all the bad stories about bands getting ripped off and the artists getting ripped off and I didn’t want to be one of those guys. I was too embarrassed to ask anybody what all that financial news on T.V. meant. So I went to school. I got into a class. After that class I got into another class. Then I started eyeballing schools that I actually wanted to get into and I got into Seattle U, which has a high ranking business school there.”

We also wanted to know when Duff got his start in investing and what were a few of his early investment strategies.

“I started off simply and by that I mean, I looked around me at companies that seemed like they were working and people were buying there product and they were growing. I was living in Seattle at the time, this was ’94 or ’95 when I first started investing and Starbucks was growing. Microsoft was growing. They were building more building for their campus, The Microsoft campus is what they call it.”

Velvet Revolver continue to search for a vocalist to replace Scott Weiland.  Although there were earlier reports the band were set to announce a replacement, that never was the case and the search continues.  In the meantime, Slash continues to work on his soon to be released solo album, and Duff will head out on another tour in support of “Sick.” Duff McKagan’s Loaded tour dates kick off October 7th in Ireland and extending until October 24th in The U.K.