Duffonomics Rocks

By Lauri Apple in News on Feb 6, 2009 7:40PM

As you might have noticed, the 1980s hard rock scene produced very few great scholars. There is no Kip Winger, Ph.D., or Mark Slaughter, M.Ed. Vince Neil implored us to call Dr. Feelgood, but never himself M.D.'ed. (Nikki Sixx OD'ed, though.) Blackie Lawless is not an Esq.

However! Duff McKagan is an exception. After a pancreas explosion incident in 1994 caused him to drop drugs and his gallon-a-day of vodka, the former Guns 'n' Roses bassist realized that, despite his sobriety, he still couldn't interpret all of his confusing financial statements. No longer a Duff Six-Pack American (Homer Simpson's fave beer was named after him), Seattle-born McKagan -- currently the bassist for Velvet Revolver, and 45 as of yesterday -- took control, enrolled in school and pursued a degree in finance, which he eventually obtained from Seattle University.

And now he's a finance columnist for Chicago-based Playboy! This week marked the launch of Duffonomics [link technically NSFW since it links to Playboy's site], in which McKagan shares his "appetite for investment" with all those guys who read PB just for the articles; disses "The Man"; and makes the prescient observation that "those boneheads on TV" who report on financial news "just want to make themselves come off as smart anyway…hoping to maybe score some pussy that they didn’t get in their youth!" We're pretty sure that he's right on this last one.

Duffonomics isn't McKagan's only writing gig: He also produces Reverb, a Thursday music blog for Seattle Weekly. It's there that we learn this tidbit about how the Playboy column came to pass: "PBS's 'Frontline' interviewed me about the 'valuation of a rock band' and the cork was officially off the top of the bottle as far as me being an ersatz 'go to' guy for anyone looking for financial insight from inside the music industry. Sometimes I DO wish more artists would go to business school just so I wouldn't always be getting the calls to do these interviews."

And we wish more former GNR members would become blog contributors. So, Duff -- while you're at it, you wanna help out with Pencil This In? I'll show you how to use Movable Type. It's so easy! All you need is just a little patience.

"Duff McKagan Is a Superhero" by Lauri Apple