Besides Axl Rose, the Guns N’ Roses that has been touring with in recent years includes none of the original members responsible for the band’s classic 1987 debut Appetite For Destruction. (Incidentally, I watched the inverse of that lineup — all the original members minus Axl — perform at the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction a couple years ago, but it just wasn’t the same with Myles Kennedy at the mic.) Anyhow, it looks like bassist Duff McKagan, who left the band in 1997, will be joining up with Axl and company for five gigs in South America this month to cover for current GNR bassist Tommy Stinson, who has Replacements reunion duties to attend to. Stinson told Billboard:

I had those Replacement shows come up the same time the (South American) tour came up, and it got to be a scheduling issue right out of the gate. I didn’t want to fuck anyone up in Guns by saying, ‘Hey, I can’t do this tour’ or anything like that. Luckily someone was able to reach out to Duff and he was amenable to the idea and was into doing it. It’s Duff being the kind of good sport he is, trying to help Axl (Rose) out. So I’m like, ‘Thanks dude, for covering my ass on this one.’ I think people are gonna be really stoked about it. It’s gonna be fun for everyone.

McKagan added his own statement through a publicist:

It’s pretty great to play these songs again, and looking forward to playing some gigs with my pal again. South America is always a radical place for rock n roll…and I’m honored to be doing this thing, in that place.

Does this mean all it would take to get the original GNR lineup back together is all the current members becoming indisposed at the same time? Tom suggests that maybe it’s time somebody passed out mono-infested blankets on the tour bus. As a wise man once said, “It’s so easy.”

[Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images.]