Axl Rose
W. Axl Rose is an American singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses. He has been the band's only constant member since its formation in 1985. Renowned for his wide-ranging, powerful voice, Rose has been ranked among the greatest singers of all time by outlets such as Rolling Stone, NME and Billboard.
Born in Lafayette, Indiana, Rose moved to Los Angeles in the early 1980s, joining bands like Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns before co-founding Guns N' Roses. The band's debut album, Appetite for Destruction, sold over 30 million copies worldwide and remains the best-selling U.S. debut. Rose's relationships with Erin Everly and Stephanie Seymour inspired multiple songs, including the chart-topping "Sweet Child o' Mine", though allegations of abuse, and controversial lyrics on the band's next release G N' R Lies drew criticism.
The twin albums Use Your Illusion I and II, debuted at No.2 and No.1 on the Billboard 200, selling 35 million copies combined. Rose's volatile behavior during the Use Your Illusion Tour, with riots, media rants, and feuds with Metallica and Nirvana, fueled further controversy. The follow-up, "The Spaghetti Incident?", was less successful and drew backlash for including a Charles Manson cover.
After the tour, Rose disappeared from the public eye while Guns N' Roses stalled on making a new album. Rose reemerged in 2001 with a new version of Guns N' Roses, eventually releasing Chinese Democracy, the most expensive rock album ever produced. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, Rose declined to attend. In 2016, he reconciled with Slash and Duff McKagan for the record-breaking Not in This Lifetime... Tour, and also toured with AC/DC as a fill-in vocalist for two dozen shows. The band continued touring and releasing singles into the 2020s.
Early life
Axl Rose was born William Bruce Rose Jr. in Lafayette, Indiana, the eldest child of Sharon Elizabeth, then 16, and William Bruce Rose, age 20. His father has been described as "a troubled and charismatic local delinquent," and the pregnancy was unplanned. The couple separated when Rose was around two years old. His father abducted and allegedly molested him before disappearing from Lafayette. Rose's mother later married Stephen L. Bailey and changed her son's name to William Bruce Bailey. He has two younger siblings: a sister, Amy, and a half-brother, Stuart. Stuart Bailey later played guitar in several Los Angeles bands and worked as a music supervisor in Hollywood.Until age 17, Rose believed Bailey was his biological father. He never met William Rose Sr. as an adult; Rose Sr. was murdered in 1984 in Marion, Illinois, by a criminal acquaintance. Rose learned of the murder years later. Rose accused his stepfather of physically abusing the family and sexually abusing his sister.
The Bailey household was deeply religious. Rose attended a Pentecostal church multiple times per week and taught Sunday school. He later described the environment as oppressive, recalling: "We'd have televisions one week, then my stepdad would throw them out because they were Satanic... Women were evil. Everything was evil".
Music became a refuge. Rose sang in the church choir from age five and performed with his siblings as the Bailey Trio. At Jefferson High School, he joined the chorus and studied piano. A second baritone, he developed "different voices" during practice to confuse his teacher. He later formed a band with friends, including Jeff Isbell, and befriended future musicians Shannon Hoon and Paul Tobias, who would co-write songs with Rose and join Guns N' Roses in the mid-1990s.
At 17, Rose discovered his birth name while reviewing insurance papers and began using W. Rose, avoiding "William" to distance himself from his biological father. The revelation marked a turning point. He became involved in delinquent behavior in Lafayette, was arrested more than 20 times, and served jail terms of up to three months. After being threatened with habitual offender charges, he moved to Los Angeles in December 1982.
In Los Angeles, Rose immersed himself in the band AXL, prompting friends to suggest the name "Axl Rose". He legally adopted the name W. Axl Rose prior to signing with Geffen Records in March 1986.
Career
1983–1986: early years
Shortly after his arrival in Los Angeles, Rose met guitarist Kevin Lawrence outside The Troubadour in West Hollywood in March 1983 and joined his band Rapidfire. They recorded a five-song demo in May 1983 at Telstar Studios in Burbank, which, after years of legal action, was released as an EP, Ready to Rumble, in 2014. After parting ways with Lawrence, he formed the band Hollywood Rose with his childhood friend Izzy Stradlin, who had moved to Los Angeles in 1980, and 16-year-old guitarist Chris Weber. In January 1984, the band recorded a five-song demo featuring the tracks "Anything Goes", "Rocker", "Shadow of Your Love", and "Reckless Life", which was released in 2004 as The Roots of Guns N' Roses. Guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler, future members of Guns N' Roses, joined Hollywood Rose before the band's dissolution. Rose then joined L.A. Guns. While struggling to make an impact on the Hollywood music scene, Rose held down a variety of jobs, including the position of night manager at the Tower Records/Video location on Sunset Boulevard. Rose and Stradlin also smoked cigarettes for a scientific study at UCLA for the reported wages of $8 per hour.In March 1985, Rose and his former L.A. Guns bandmate Tracii Guns formed Guns N' Roses by merging their respective bands Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns with Stradlin, drummer Rob Gardner and bassist Ole Beich. By June, after several lineup changes, the band consisted of Rose, lead guitarist Slash, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan, and drummer Steven Adler. The lineup debuted at The Troubadour and proceeded to play the L.A. club circuit, eventually building a devoted fan following. The band attracted the attention of several major record labels, before signing with Geffen Records in March 1986. The following December, they released the four-song EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide on the Geffen imprint UZI Suicide.
1987–1989: breakthrough with ''Appetite for Destruction''
In July 1987, Guns N' Roses released their debut album Appetite for Destruction. Although the record received critical acclaim, it experienced a modest commercial start, selling as many as 500,000 copies in its first year of release. However, fueled by the band's relentless touring, a grassroots campaign for the "Welcome to the Jungle" music video, and the mainstream success of the single "Sweet Child o' Mine", the album rose to the No.1 position. To date, Appetite for Destruction has sold over 30 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which sold in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S.During the band's performance at the Monsters of Rock festival in Castle Donington, England, in August 1988, two fans were crushed to death when many in the crowd of 107,000 began slam-dancing to "It's So Easy". Rose had halted the show several times to calm the audience. From then on, he became known for personally addressing disruptive fans and giving instructions to security personnel from the stage, at times stopping concerts to deal with issues in the crowd. In 1992, Rose stated, "Most performers would go to a security person in their organization, and it would just be done very quietly. I'll confront the person, stop the song: 'Guess what: You wasted your money, you get to leave.'" As a result of the deaths at Monsters of Rock, the festival was canceled the following year.
In November 1988, Guns N' Roses released the stopgap album G N' R Lies, which sold more than five million copies in the U.S. alone. The band – and Rose in particular – were accused homophobia, nativism, and racism for the song "One in a Million", which featured Rose using the slurs "nigger" and "faggots". During the controversy, Rose defended his use of the racial slur by referencing the rap group N.W.A and the John Lennon song "Woman Is the Nigger of the World" saying, "it's a word to describe somebody that is basically a pain in your life, a problem. The word nigger doesn't necessarily mean black." In 1992, however, he conceded that "I used a word that was taboo. And I used that word because it was taboo. I was pissed off about some black people that were trying to rob me. I wanted to insult those particular black people. I didn't want to support racism. When I used the word faggots, I wasn't coming down on gays." In response to the allegations of homophobia, Rose said he considered himself "pro-heterosexual" but is "not against doing what they want to do as long as it's not hurting anybody else and they're not forcing it upon ". He blamed this attitude on "bad experiences" with gay men, citing an attempted rape in his late teens and the alleged molestation by his biological father. The controversy led to Guns N' Roses being dropped from the roster of an AIDS benefit show in New York organized by the Gay Men's Health Crisis.
With the success of Appetite for Destruction and G N' R Lies, Rose found himself lauded as one of rock's most prominent frontmen. By the time he appeared solo on the cover of Rolling Stone in August 1989, his celebrity was such that the influential music magazine agreed to his absolute requirement that the interview and accompanying photographs would be provided by two of his friends, writer Del James and photographer Robert John. MTV anchorman Kurt Loder described Rose as "maybe the finest hard rock singer currently on the scene, and certainly the most charismatic".
1990–1993: international success with ''Use Your Illusion''
In early 1990, Guns N' Roses returned to the studio to begin recording the full-length follow-up to Appetite for Destruction. Recording sessions initially proved unproductive due to Steven Adler's struggle with drug addiction, which made him unable to perform and caused sessions to be delayed for several days at a time. Adler was fired the following July and replaced by Matt Sorum of the Cult. Keyboardist Dizzy Reed also joined the band that year at Rose's insistence. Sorum and Reed played their first show with Guns N' Roses at Rock in Rio 2 in January 1991. The group fired its long-time manager, Alan Niven, in May of that year; Rose reportedly forced the dismissal of Niven against the wishes of his bandmates by refusing to complete the new album until Niven was gone. He was replaced by roadie Doug Goldstein, whom Izzy Stradlin described as "the guy who gets to go over to Axl's at six in the morning after he's smashed his $60,000 grand piano out of the picture window".In May 1991, still without an album to promote, the band embarked on the two-and-a-half-year Use Your Illusion Tour, which became known for its financial success and myriad controversial incidents that occurred during shows, including late starts, on-stage rantings and even riots. Rose received much criticism for his late appearances at concerts, sometimes taking the stage hours after the band was scheduled to perform. In July 1991, 90 minutes into a concert at the Riverport Amphitheater near St. Louis, after on-stage requests from Rose for security personnel to confiscate a fan's video camera, Rose himself dived into the crowd to seize it. After being pulled back on stage, he announced, "Well, thanks to the lame-ass security, I'm going home!" and departed, following which some 2,500 fans staged a riot, resulting in an estimated $200,000 in damages.
Image:Axl Rose at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv, Israel -- May 1993.jpg|thumb|Rose at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv, Israel, in May 1993
In September 1991, with enough material completed for two albums, Guns N' Roses released Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No.2 and No.1 respectively on the Billboard 200, a feat not achieved by any other group. By the albums' release, however, Rose's relationships with his bandmates had become increasingly strained. His childhood friend Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the group in November 1991; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. Of his reasons for leaving, Stradlin said, "I didn't like the complications that became such a part of daily life in Guns N' Roses," citing the riot and Rose's chronic lateness as examples, as well as his new-found sobriety making it difficult to be around other bandmates' continued alcohol and substance abuse.
On April 20, 1992, Rose performed with Elton John at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" as a duet with John and also sang "We Will Rock You".
Another riot occurred in August 1992 at Montreal's Olympic Stadium, during a co-headlining tour with Metallica. Prior to Guns N' Roses' appearance, Metallica's set was cut short after singer-guitarist James Hetfield suffered second-degree burns in a pyrotechnics accident. However, the shortened time between sets did not allow for adequate tuning of stage monitors, and the band members could not hear themselves. In addition, Rose claimed that his throat hurt, causing the band to collectively leave the stage early. The riot resulted in an estimated $400,000 in damages. In November of that year, Rose was convicted of property damage and assault in relation to the Riverport riot; he was fined $50,000 and received two years' probation.
Guns N' Roses played its final show of the Use Your Illusion Tour on July 17, 1993, at River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires; it proved to be Rose's last live performance with the band for seven and a half years. The following August, Rose testified in court against Steven Adler, who had filed a lawsuit contending that he had been illegitimately fired. When the judge ruled against Rose, he agreed to an out-of-court settlement of $2,500,000 and 15% of the royalties for everything Adler recorded prior to his departure. In November of that year, Guns N' Roses released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. Rose had included the hidden track "Look at Your Game, Girl", a song written by convicted murderer Charles Manson, which he intended as a personal message to his ex-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour. Controversy ensued, and the band subsequently pledged to donate any royalties to the son of one of Manson's victims.