{"id":898986,"date":"2026-04-13T13:23:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/13\/i-quit-playing-music-for-two-years-i-was-done-then-i-got-a-call-from-stone-mike-mccready-followed-duff-mckagan-to-la-to-make-it-big-but-he-nearly-missed-his-shot-in-seat\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T13:23:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:23:48","slug":"i-quit-playing-music-for-two-years-i-was-done-then-i-got-a-call-from-stone-mike-mccready-followed-duff-mckagan-to-la-to-make-it-big-but-he-nearly-missed-his-shot-in-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/13\/i-quit-playing-music-for-two-years-i-was-done-then-i-got-a-call-from-stone-mike-mccready-followed-duff-mckagan-to-la-to-make-it-big-but-he-nearly-missed-his-shot-in-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI quit playing music for two years. I was done. Then I got a call from Stone\u201d: Mike McCready followed Duff McKagan to LA to make it big \u2013 but he nearly missed his shot in Seattle"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mike McCready<\/a> is currently prepping the release of rock opera Farewell to Seasons<\/em><\/a>. In its initial graphic novel form, it tells the story of the Pearl Jam guitarist and Seattle itself through four fictional bands. But there\u2019s one group that shares its name with a real band: McCready\u2019s first project, Shadow.<\/p>\n

The hard-rock outfit was formed when the guitarist was in ninth grade at Seattle\u2019s Roosevelt High School, and he feels they deserve more credit for what they were achieving at a young age.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like we never really got the props that we should have gotten over the years, because we were young and 16 and playing all around the Northwest and doing shows,\u201d McCready tells Guitar World<\/em>. \u201cWe broke up when everything started happening. I spent my 10,000 hours with that band.\u201d<\/p>\n

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By the tail end of 1986, McKagan and his band Guns N\u2019 Roses had built a reputation on the Sunset Strip and released their first EP, Live ?!\u2605\uaa5c Like a Suicide<\/em>. Things never quite took off for Shadow, however \u2013 and it wasn\u2019t for a lack of trying.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played a bunch of places. We opened up for Andy Taylor. I got to see some cool stuff \u2013 I saw Jane\u2019s Addiction at a club; I saw the Welcome to the Jungle<\/em> video shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n

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One year into the move, McCready got sick with Crohn\u2019s disease which, combined with a lack of record label interest, sealed Shadow\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a year of me working at Aron\u2019s Records, drinking too much, getting Crohn\u2019s, and going, \u2018I can’t do this anymore.\u2019 So I moved back and I gave up. I quit playing music for two years from \u201988, \u201989. I was done. And then I got a call out of the blue from Stone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guitarist Stone Gossard had recently lost singer Andrew Wood to a heroin overdose, bringing his own dreams of rock success to a tragic close. He was seeking a new musical sparring partner, and hit up McCready after seeing him playing along to a Stevie Ray Vaughan<\/a> record at a party.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had known him since seventh grade. And when we started playing together, selfishly, I was like, \u2018Okay, this seems to be my door. I better walk through it.\u2019 After going through LA and not making it and being depressed, all of a sudden this thing happens when I’m not looking for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, history was made. Pearl Jam<\/a> would go on to make Ten<\/em> and become one of the greatest success stories to emerge from the Seattle scene. But McCready never forgot about Shadow, the band who kickstarted his path to lead guitar stardom.<\/p>\n

Farewell to Seasons<\/em> is released on October 6 2026 via Z2 Comics<\/a>. Guitar World<\/em>\u2019s full interview with Mike McCready will be published in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mike has been Editor-in-Chief of GuitarWorld.com since 2019, and an offset fiend and recovering pedal addict for far longer. He has a master’s degree in journalism from Cardiff University, and 15 years’ experience writing and editing for guitar publications including MusicRadar<\/em><\/a>, Total Guitar<\/em> and Guitarist<\/em>, plus two decades of recording and live experience in original and function bands. During his career, he has interviewed the likes of John Frusciante, Chris Cornell, Tom Morello, Matt Bellamy, Billy Corgan, Kirk Hammett, Jerry Cantrell, Joe Satriani, Tom DeLonge, Polyphia, Tosin Abasi, Yvette Young and many more. His writing also appears in the The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar<\/em>. In his free time, you’ll find him making progressive instrumental rock as Maebe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Music (Image credit: Mat Hayward\/Getty Images) Mike McCready is currently prepping the release of rock opera Farewell to Seasons. In its initial graphic novel form, it tells the story of the Pearl Jam guitarist and Seattle itself through four fictional bands. But there\u2019s one group that shares its name with a real band: McCready\u2019s first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":898987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[131522],"class_list":{"0":"post-898986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business-news","8":"tag-podcast-music"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}