The Manics have done so many excellent songs featuring guests that you could compile a Manics Best Of The Guests albums – maybe Guest Of The Manics could be the title? The Welsh icons have recorded killer tracks with John Cale, Mark Lanegan, Richard Hawley, Lucy Rose, Cate Le Bon, Nina Persson, Ian McCulloch, The Anchoress and more, but in terms of working with their heroes, you imagine nothing comes close to the time that Guns N’ Roses legend Duff McKagan played bass on one of their songs (well, maybe it’s tied with John Cale). McKagan took over bass duties on the Postcards From A Young Man cut A Billion Balconies Facing The Sun, and a few years ago the band’s Nicky Wire told this writer how the collaboration came about. It’s because he was being lazy.
"I couldn’t be arsed and James said, ‘Why don’t we ask Duff McKagan’,” Wire explained. Elaborating on Duff’s guest spot to Bass Magazine, Wire said, “Duff was an absolute blast. We sent the track over to him and he played such a fantastic bassline. The trouble then was that I had to copy it live! He’s very much a plectrum man and I hadn’t used one for around 15 years, as I can’t connect with my bass without using my fingers.” Wire said Duff told the band he loved the song. “He was like, ‘You guys have done it again – it sounds like Lindsey Buckingham mixed with The Clash’. You can’t get better than that, can you?”
“Duff is such a lovely, cool dude,” Manics singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield said a few years later. “I don’t use the word dude much, but for someone like Duff McKagan, it’s entirely appropriate.”
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The Manics are currently in the middle of a co-headline UK tour with Suede. The groups play Leeds’ Millenium Square tonight (July 13), before the tour concludes next week at London’s Alexandra Palace Park (July 18) and Margate’s Dreamland (July 19).
Listen to A Billion Balconies Facing The Sun below:
