Ultimate Reason

This is one of three tracks on The Great Escape Artist that Velvet Revolver and former Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan co-wrote during the nine months that he was a full-time member of Jane's Addiction. TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek replaced him after his amicable departure in September 2010. Jane's Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins explained to Noisecreep the contrasts between the material they wrote with McKagan and the later songs they collaborated with Sitek. "When we worked with Duff, we didn't have that kind of time. So Duff's stuff on the album is the more straight-ahead rock style you would come to expect from that kind of collaboration. I've played with Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE) a lot through the years. With him, whenever you lock into a groove together, he'll change it up on you to try and come up with something cooler.

Sitek has that kind of attitude too. 'Cool, you're digging that groove? OK that's good, now f--- it up!' That's really fun for me as a drummer. I wish we had more time to work the material up with Duff, but I think there's an urgency in the songs we did with him that really gives the album an edge."

Speaking to Ultimate-Guitar.com, McKagan discussed his contributions to The Great Escape Artist: "My biggest concern was that if I was gonna be involved, it had be darkier and heavier and more vicious than they've ever been before. I can't be seen as the bass player who came in and made them light (laughs), or made these really crappy songs. They're getting a lot from me, because I gotta make sure of quality control, that my stamp is on it. Dude, do you understand that?"