Arnold Schwarzenegger was the only Hollywood star Slash and Duff McKagan failed to out-drink
Duff McKagan once uttered one of the most remarkable sentences in the history of humanity: “I literally didn’t have a glass of water for 12 years.”
The capacity for the developed world to have a constant supply of fresh water, quite literally ‘on tap’ in their own abodes, is one of the pinnacles of man’s achievements. But McKagan shunned this startling feat for over 4,000 days straight in a whirlwind of reckless hydrophobic abandon.
This is not something to celebrate, but it is something to marvel at. Substance abuse sadly dominated Guns N’ Roses’ prime years on the road. Perhaps they knew problems were afoot when they were touring with The Rolling Stones and sought sobriety advice from none other than renowned sessioner, Keith Richards, a fellow yet to be photographed without either a cigarette, drink, or both in hand since turning 16.
Richards claimed that Slash could consume enough ‘party materials’ to intoxicate the entire field at Aintree and yet his outward disposition would always remain the same. McKagan was capable of a similar stoicism. This imbued the band behind the rather more acerbic Axl Rose with a certain reputation. You sense Arnold Schwarzenegger was aware of this when he met the duo.
“That guy was awesome,” McKagan recalled in Classic Rock. “He had Slash and I over to his house after we’d met him when we did ‘You Could Be Mine’ for Terminator 2. He was drinking with us and we were all really drunk. Then he broke out this Austrian version of Everclear [a potent grain alcohol].”
It seems Schwarzenegger had prepared for this moment in advance. This was the equivalent of the actor/bodybuilder/politician sticking an extra 20kg onto a barbell that had already just about defeated the rest of the field at the gym.
“Slash and I could drink anyone under the table, but he was a challenge,” McKagan continues.
“He was smoking and swearing all the time. We met his wife, and she’s a Kennedy, and his kids. We ended up having this afternoon with Arnold, it was the craziest thing,” he said. It’s hard to imagine how this all happened in one afternoon. Alas, the bassist allays the craziness by adding that despite the heavy drinking, there was an undercurrent of calm to the unspooling day.
He’s one of the good guys,” he happily added. “I’ve met a lot of actors over the years and he was one of my favourites. He was a lot of fun.”
Interestingly, although Terminator 2 is the role he is perhaps best remembered for, and it may well be his most revered on-screen outing, Arnie was initially against the movie. He was worried about the inverse of type casting, that his character went a little too strongly against the grain.
“At first Arnold was absolutely against the idea,” James Cameron recalls in Arnold. “I go, ‘What’s the matter? You don’t like it.’ He says, ‘Jim, I don’t kill anybody. Can I shoot them in the leg?’ I said, ‘Yeah, lets just shoot ‘em in the leg, how’s that?’ He goes, ‘That’s good’.”
It might be dated, old machismo, but I suppose he was perturbed by the notion that drinking a man who hasn’t drank water for 12 years under the table and then being the ‘good, pacifist terminator’ just didn’t quite align.
