Duff McKagan says he inspired The Simpsons’ “Duff” beer

The Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan once again said that he is the inspiration behind The Simpsons famous beer brand “Duff”. According to him, at the time the cartoon was created, he was approached by people who asked him if they could use his name for a character. The musician talked about this in an interview with Stereogum and said that although the creators of the show deny that, they would be doing that to keep the commercial side of it as it is.

Duff McKagan says he inspired The Simpsons’ “Duff” beer

“Yes, yes (it’s true)! Well, here’s the deal. So I was Duff, the King of Beers. But this is 1988, 1989 and our management, I remember they called me and said some arthouse-like cartoon wants to use your name as the beer, like a college arthouse cartoon. There weren’t any adult cartoons at this point.”

“I didn’t know about branding or anything like that, but that show took off. And then they started selling merch and stuff. I never went after him, but I’m like, ‘Hey, motherfuckers,’ you know?”

“So I think it’s very probably business savvy of them to say that’s not true. But if you just do your own math behind it, look at when they started off with the King of Beers, and I had my King of Beers belt I wore all the time,” Duff McKagan said.

Although Duff said that, he said during the same conversation that is all cool and that he won’t ask them for money. Guns N’ Roses was never featured as character in the show but their music appeared a couple of times in the Springfield universe.

Duff is currently promoting his latest solo studio album “Lighthouse” released in 2023. He has many scheduled tour dates this year in Europe and the United States. He is also working alongside Slash and Axl Rose on a new Guns N’ Roses studio album.