During a conversation with Rolling Stone, bassist Duff McKagan was asked to comment on Izzy Stradlin’s absence on the ongoing “semi-reunion” tour of the classic Guns N’ Roses.
“It wasn’t from us not trying, for sure,” the musician said about Izzy, adding:
“I don’t know if have a take beyond that. I know what we tried to do and how hard we worked at that. Touring in a big rock band is not for everybody. That’s my take on that. It’s a thing – this is a thing.”
Asked about Stradlin’s comment that he stepped away from the reunion because the group didn’t want to “split the loot equally,” Duff replied:
“I don’t even know. At the end of the day, we just couldn’t figure it out. … There’s a lot of coming and going, so this was one more chapter of that coming and going.
“I don’t wanna say anything that’s untoward, because I love the guy. Slash and I are sober guys, and we went at it with a solution-based [attitude], like, ‘Let’s make this work.’ But it just didn’t. And who knows? Maybe some other time.”
Asked if the GN’R reunion is finite, Duff replied:
“I don’t have that feeling at all, [that] it’s a finite thing. Because we’ve done no press yet, nobody knows. And I kind of dig it, to be honest with you. I’m not trying to keep you in the dark.
“I don’t dig the feeling of keeping you in the dark, but it’s kind of nice. It’s a thing where nobody needs to know our business. I think that’s… We got into trouble a long time ago, where people knew all of our business… So we talk about things to each other now – something that maybe we never did before.”