Duff doesn't want your money

Money? Duff McKagan doesn't care about your money:

Duff McKagan isn't in rock 'n' roll for money.

The legendary former Guns N' Roses bass player - who is also a member of Loaded - says nobody who gets into music for the wrong reasons will succeed and all his riches mean nothing compared to the buzz he gets from playing.

Oddly, he doesn't appear to be playing for free anywhere at any time.

He told Classic Rock magazine: ''Rock 'n' roll, for me, was never a money making endeavour it was pure passion. And just because you've been successful, money has nothing to do with it. Okay, it's great that I don't have to worry about paying the goddamn gas bill, but this is still motivated by passion. Money hasn't changed my sensibility about rock 'n' roll.''

He also doesn't have to fret about the sodding electricity bill, the shitting water rates or the the buggering life insurance payments.

It's an interesting claim, and he may well believe it, but it's clearly bollocks. Of course being paid large sums of money to play changes your relationship with music.

Right, he might play just for the 'buzz' if there was no paycheque lined up - but wouldn't the very nature of the buzz be different if he was thinking about having to be up at eight the next morning to prepare a Powerpoint about the Schmidt order?

How is it possible that all you have to do is rock could not change the way you think about music, and create music?

Unless you're made out of squidgy potato paste, I suppose.

"I don't need to sell my soul..."

So, by the time it became official there was no surprise left: The Stone Roses are coming back.

There's two sorts of reunions; the ones where the band who returns is picking up where it left off; a split which left things hanging, a sense of unfinished business.

And there's the other sort. The sort where the band hope we forget that they'd given up flogging the dead horse.

New material? Really, John? Are you telling us you had songs that were just so good they were beyond Chris Helme's vocal range?

In all the time since the Roses split up, there's been an ongoing debate between people who would have quite liked to hear the band play the songs again, and people who knew what that meant. Nowhere have you come across people who wondered what sort of third album the band would have made.

Maybe it'll be amazing; maybe the magic didn't vanish around the time they flung the last can of paint round the Silvertone offices.

But for now, the future seems to be little more than a man in a beanie hat bellowing "Manchester Vibes In The Area" in a human face, forever.