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The line-up were (from left): Steven Adler,
Slash,
W. Axl Rose, Izzy Stradlin',
and Duff "Rose" McKagan. In the following years, the band became the main
target for controversy.
W. Axl Rose: "I left Hollywood Rose and joined L.A.
Guns and the drummer and bass player freaked out and we kinda broke up.
We mixed what was left of the two band together and we got Guns N' Roses.
Then Tracii left and went back to L.A. Guns and we got Duff. This line
up was finalized on June 6th, 1985."
Guns N' Roses (left pic) was formed in 1985. Before that, Axl Rose was the singer in
a band called "LA Guns" with Tracii Guns. Axl, Tracii and Izzy Stradlin'
from "London" started playing together. They called themselves "Guns N´ Roses"
. Duff McKagan from "Road Crew" was recruited to play bass and Rob
Gartner was added for drums. As Rob Gartner and Tracii Guns rejected a gig, Duff
suggested Slash and Steven Adler from "Road Crew" as replacements, Axl agreed.
In their early days their only goal was to live out the dream of sex n' drugs n' rock n' roll to its fullest. It almost killed them, but in the end they did break through in a very big way.
In March 1986 they were noticed by The Geffen Records and signed a contract with them. Their first album, Live ?!*@ Like A Suicide, was released in December that year.
Songs from two different albums at the US hit-list - 1987
Guns N' Roses second album, Appetite For Destruction , was released in August 1987. It reached #1 in the US and became the biggest selling debut album of all time. Although this position has been challenged in the meantime, "Appetite" is, with over 21 copies million sold, still one of the most successful albums ever.
One year later they made GN'R Lies, where
the songs from Live ?!*@ Like A Suicide were included plus four new acoustic
tracks. A couple of songs from that album, "Used to love her" and "One in a
million", came under heavy fire from both Gay and Minority groups for their
graphic and racial content. Guns N' Roses had, at this point, songs from two
different albums at the US hit-list. They were the first band to do that in
15 years.
One of the worst concert tragedies happened Guns N' Roses while playing at "The Monsters Of Rock" at Donnington Castle, England in 1988. Two young fans died as they were crushed against barricades and trampled to death. The band stopped playing a total of three times in order to gain control and give the massive audience "a chance to chill out." After finding out, the band were visibly upset and shaken. While they had enjoyed the response, no one wanted anyone hurt. Upon leaving the stage and before they had found out that two fans had died, Axl Rose (right pic) told the screaming audience: "Have a good fucking day. And don't kill yourselves."
In 1989 Guns N' Roses won the heavy-metal video award with the song
"Sweet child o' mine" at MTV's Music Video Award contest. At the same
time, Guns N' Roses drugproblem became known. Steven Adler, the drummer,
couldn't get rid of his drug-habits. He was fired in July 1990. Matt Sorum
(left pic), former drummer of "The Cult", replaced him successfully.
Dizzy Reed was added for keyboards.
Two albums at the same time - 1991
In 1991 Guns N' Roses released two full length albums at the same time, Use Your Illusion I and II. That's something nobody had ever done before. The albums debuted at number one and two in the US Billboard charts and the hype surrounding the band reached its peak. Prior to the release of the two albums, the band had already started touring. The new line-up debuted in front of 140.000 fans at the Rock In Rio II festival in Brazil. The band played two nights to a total of 260.000 fans.
Near the end of a show in St. Louis, Axl spotted illegal videotaping among the crowd. Security didn't respond to Axl's request to remove the person so he jumped into the crowd. When he returned to the stage he complained about the security and left the stage. The rest of the band followed. The crowd then rioted, tearing the place down in the process. Listen to it in Real Audio. The band offered to come back on if order was regained, but it didn´t help. The band lost their equipment and Axl was charged for inciting this riot. He was arrested in 1992 after avoiding the arrest warrant that placed him responsible. He paid the man who had been injured by his leap between $160.000 and $2.000.000 for ear and back injuries.
Izzy Stradlin' couldn't stand touring, so he left the group. He left during the crucial filming of "Don't Cry", which put the band in a very awkward position. Quite understandably, they were very upset, Axl more than others because of their long friendship. Gilby Clarke, from the band "Kill For Thrills", became the new guitarplayer and he had to learn all the songs in only one month.
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In 1993 The Spaghetti Incident?
was released. The album contains varied covers originally made of
Guns N' Roses idols. |
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In 1994 the single "Sympathy For The Devil" was released as a soundtrack for the movie "Interview With A Vampire". The song was originally written by the Rolling Stones. After that Guns N' Roses couldn't get on well. Duff and Slash made their own albums.
In 1995 Gilby Clarke left the group, and Slash too. Slash leaving Guns N´ Roses is made official in 1996.
In 1997Axl buys the rights to the name Guns N' Roses. Since then, various rumors have surrounded the band, but nothing seems certain.
W. Axl Rose: "Nothing ever really works right for this band. Slash once said that God didn't want this to happen, and sometimes I believe that."
W. Axl Rose - vocals, pianoAt the age of 5, Axl started playing the piano and singing in a choir in church. He has had a very tough childhood. It was terrible and such a living hell that he often wondered if the world hated him so, why someone didn't put him out of existence. He was sexually abused by his biological father, and his stepfather drank a lot and used to hit him and his mother.
When Axl was 17, he found out about his stepfather, L. Stephen Bailey, and changed his name to William Rose, his biological father's last name. Then he changed it to just W. Rose. His name was legally changed to W. Axl Rose before signing the contract with Geffen Records in 1986.
Axl: "I wasn't told I had a real father until I was 17. My real father was my stepdad, as far as I knew. But I found some insurance papers, then I found my mom's diploma with the last name Rose. I was never born Bill Bailey. I was born William Rose. I am W. Rose because William was an asshole."
Axl had an abover average IQ and he was a loner in school. He dropped out of Jefferson High School in his junior year. His bad attitude soon became bigger than Indiana could handle. Later on, he had some troubles with the juevinile officials and decided to get the fuck out of dodge. In 1982, Axl hitch hiked to Los Angeles in a Greyhound bus and caught up with an old friend from Lafayette, Jeff Isabelle, more known as Izzy Stradlin'. Izzy had left for L.A. two years earlier.
Axl: "When I came to L.A. five years ago (in 1982) from some hellhole in the Midwest, I was wearing cowboy boots and everyone said I looked like I just came off the boat. All of a sudden, it's become a fashion, so now I guess I drive the boat."
Izzy, Axl and a guitarist called Chris Weber formed a band called AXL. The band soon changed its name to Rose, before changing again to Hollywood Rose.
Axl have had some problems with the law in Lafayette. He was arrested over twenty times by his count and once spent almost the entire summer in jail. He always represented himself at trial, citing his distrust of the system and the public defendants as the reason.
Borned as Saul Hudson on July 23, 1965 in Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire,
England.Hudson was an energetic, BMX-bike racing kid nicknamed 'Slash' because he was forever whizzing around the place. His mother, Ola, was a black, American clothes-designer and his father, Anthony, was an English graphic-artist. Once, they were living together with David Bowie, who was Slash's male rolemodel.
Slash and his mother moved to Los Angeles in 1977. He soon hooked up with the skateboarding Steven Adler, and the two young teens skipped school, hung out and practiced a little guitar at Stevie's grandmother's place. The pair got a little more serious when Adler moved over to the drum stool. They formed a band called Road Crew before joining Guns N' Roses.
Slash started to use drugs in the early Guns days. At one time, he was walking around in L.A. at night, begging for drugs. He quit taking drugs in 1985 when he has to choose between the drugs and tha band. Slash isn't even drinking that much anymore. When he is, he makes sure it is a good old Jack Daniels.
Slash married Reneè Sulan in the summer of -92.
Slash has played with many great artists through the years. Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Lenny Kravitz, Jeff Beck and Steven Tyler just to mention a few.
