Duff McKagan, Velvet Revolver bass player, dodges a bullet and is ready to rock

Typical morning for Duff McKagan, circa 1990: "Well, morning didn't really mean much to me — time of day didn't mean much to me. I would go on three-to-four-day benders, in differing states of inebriation, then crash for 10 hours or so. ... I was full-on raging back then, and having a grand old time."

Morning for Duff McKagan, Sept. 5, 2007: "I got up at 8:30 — which is late for me, I sleep really good at home. I had some coffee, not a lot going on, so I just kind of eased into the day. My daughter likes watching the news, so I did that with her. Played with some Tinker Toys. Had some oatmeal. And I'll be going to the gym pretty soon."

McKagan was calling from his home on Lake Washington, just hanging out with his wife and two kids, getting ready to start touring again with Velvet Revolver. The garrulous bass player started Velvet Revolver — fronted by former Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, with Slash on guitar — in 2002. This is McKagan's second helping of rock stardom, after a decade-plus in Guns N' Roses.

He is 43, which means he has beaten the odds. A recent Liverpool John Moores University study looked at more than 1,000 pop-music stars and concluded the average age of death for the Americans was 42. (The European pop stars had an average age at death of 35.)

After hitting the music lottery with Guns N' Roses, McKagan was racing down the road to becoming another statistic, another early rock death.

"Part of you romances it: live fast, die young," the Seattle native said. "For a large part of my 20s, I was comfortable with the fact that I would live till I was 30 and that's it."

This despite the fact that he moved to Los Angeles to get away from a gnarly Seattle scene. "I went down to L.A. to see what would happen. I was 19 — this was 1983 or '84, and a lot of drugs had come into Seattle. It was affecting my life. My girlfriend was doing dope, my roommate was doing dope, people I was in bands with were doing dope. Then there was a recession and all these clubs were closing, there were no places to play and heroin was everywhere.

"I was like, 'What the [expletive] am I doing here?' So I packed up my [stuff], had 350 bucks in my pocket and drove to L.A. Didn't have a place to stay, but I was 19, I didn't care."

He answered a musician-wanted ad and met up with guitar player Slash, and soon after they were playing in Guns N' Roses, behind flamboyant singer Axl Rose.

After rocketing to fame — and a bit of infamy, here and there — and living the life of a decadent rock star, McKagan had a near-fatal reality check in 1994. At age 30, "my pancreas blew up. I survived, but it was pretty black-and-white: You drink, you die."

He has been clean and sober since — except for a dangerous relapse. Three years ago, Velvet Revolver's debut, "Contraband," unexpectedly hit the top of the Billboard album sales chart. While touring, McKagan said he let the stress of trying to be the band's decision maker get to him.

"I've had panic attacks since I was 17, so I keep a pack of Xanax on me, for stress. But I'm a drug addict and an alcoholic, a guy like me can't take anything for stress. I got myself caught up in a nice habit for two weeks. Luckily, I had my kids and my wife; I didn't let myself go too far. But I didn't see that stuff coming. I've learned relapsing is part of recovery.

"I did 20 of those [Xanax] pills a day, and I'm thinking, 'Hey, I'm not doing blow, I'm not drinking, I'm not doing heroin or Vicodin ... .' "

He decided that part of his recovery is not to be the one "holding things together and being the go-to guy. I've been able to pull back from that."

Did he just casually slide out of that role, or let the other Velvet Revolver members — Weiland, Slash, Dave Kushner and Matt Sorum — know what he was doing?

"I just did it casually." He laughed, then added, "We don't communicate well with words. We communicate great, musically."

That goes for the one-name wonder Slash, who McKagan has been writing music with for 20-some years now. "He and I have never talked about music," McKagan mused. "But he and I have this definite musical connection."

Velvet Revolver's second album, "Libertad," came in at No. 5 on the Billboard charts in early July. It was still in the Top 100 this week, but just barely, at No. 97.

The band is touring with Alice in Chains, now with William DuVall in place of original singer Layne Staley, who died of an overdose in 2002. He was 34.

Tom Scanlon: tscanlon@seattletimes.com