Jerry Cantrell was about to throw a Guns N’ Roses album out the window while high.
“Boy, I think I probably told him like… When I finally connected with this band, I mean I was aware of the band and a lot of my favorite bands I don’t like instantly,” the guitarist revealed when asked by Broken Record Podcast what he first asked Duff McKagan about Guns N’ Roses.
“So, because they were so huge and blowing up, I mean I like rock and roll and they have roots of all the stuff,” Cantrell continued. “I love Aerosmith, good funky, R&B, f*cking nasty rock and roll. So, overtly I liked it and it was blowing up but I didn’t connect with the record. I think I listened to it for about a week and I don’t know, I think I told him a story.”
“I was living in an apartment downtown behind Seattle Center and I still hadn’t connected to the record. So I decided to drop acid and listen to the whole thing one more time. I decided on that trip and I listened to the record. If I still didn’t like it I was going to throw it out the window,” the rocker shared.
He went on to talk about how he connected with GNR, “And by the time ‘Rocket Queen’ came on, that bass, the drums in the bass got me. That’s when it all came into focus and I was just coming on to an acid trip and I think I told him that story. It was a good one and I got it. The doors of perception were open and I connected.”
Cantrell also discussed his relationship with McKagan in a 2021 chat with BBC Radio. “Yeah, yes, we’re old. It’s all right, you can be a leathery old dog and still rock ‘n’ roll,” he responded when asked about his history with Duff.
The Alice In Chains founder also shared how they met, “Probably late-’80s, we’ve been friends ever since. He and Slash, I made a real close connection with both of those guys. They were a very important band to us and inspired us. They were part of a bigger change in the music of the late-’80s where it was making a turn, bands like Nine Inch Nails, Jane’s Addiction, and Guns N’ Roses… There was a change on the horizon.”
Cantrell released his fourth solo album ‘I Want Blood’ on October 18, 2024, bringing in McKagan for bass. He will start his North American tour in a few days to promote the record. It starts on January 31 in Niagara Falls.
