Axl Rose

W. Axl Rose (born February 6, 1962) is an American hard rock singer and songwriter, born William Bruce Bailey in Lafayette, Indiana. He is best known as the singer and leader of the band Guns N' Roses.

Biography

According to his account, he had a deeply troubled family life, with abuse at the hands of his father and stepfather. His biological father, William Rose, left the family when Axl was two. His mother later married Stephen Bailey, and his surname was changed to Bailey. The strict discipline and religious Pentecostal education he underwent as a child, was followed by numerous brushes with law enforcement as an adolescent. He had a strong interest in music and as a teenager is said to have formed a band named Axl. Around the age of 17 Rose made two important choices. Firstly, he changed his name to W. Rose. Axl was later added (possibly due to "Axl Rose" being an anagram for "Oral sex"). Secondly, he left home and eventually ended up in Los Angeles, California, where he joined his childhood friend Izzy Stradlin (born Jeffrey Isbell) to pursue a rock music career.

Guns N' Roses

The music scene in Los Angeles during the early 1980s featured both punk and Hair metal/heavy metal bands. Axl Rose wanted to meld the two styles into a unique musical form, which he called Pie. Rose moved through a number of bands, including Hollywood Rose, L.A. Guns, Rapidfire, Axl, and Rose. Then, after bringing in his former L.A. Guns bandmates Tracii Guns (who was soon replaced by Slash) and Rob Gardner (who was soon replaced by Steven Adler), Rose formed Guns N' Roses around 1985. With Rose (vocals), Izzy Stradlin (guitar), Slash (real name Saul Hudson/lead guitar), Duff McKagan (bass), and Steven Adler (drums), Guns N' Roses signed a recording contract with Geffen Records in 1986. The band released its first full-length album, Appetite for Destruction, in 1987. Mixing blazing power chords with Rose's shrieking vocals, the album represented a new musical style that took some time to catch on. But by 1988, Guns N' Roses shot to the top of rock music, helped by the massive popularity of the songs "Welcome to the Jungle", "Paradise City" and "Sweet Child O' Mine". 'Child' was written for his then girlfriend (later ex-wife) Erin Everly, daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers; she was also featured in the video for the song.

Deterioration of the Band

Although famous first for its music, the band soon gained notoriety for a wild lifestyle fuelled by prodigious use of drugs. Instability followed, with concert cancellations and rumors of a breakup. In 1988, the band released G N' R Lies, which also was hugely popular. But criticism also came for the song "One in a Million", which was interpreted as insulting to gays, blacks, and immigrants. After a string of delays, the group released two albums called Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II in 1991. These albums were also huge hits, but the band soon ran into trouble. Rose jumped off stage to attack a fan in St. Louis, Missouri during the 28 month-long Use Your Illusion Tour, and sparked a Riot. Another riot was spawned on October 8, 1992 at the Montreal Stade Olympique when Rose, late for the bands stage appearance, walked out after playing only a couple songs.

These incidents, along with the appearance of a new stripped-down musical style known as grunge, led to a growing impression of Guns N' Roses as a self-indulgent and out-of-date act. Rose himself came to be seen as erratic and strange when he caused long performance delays and challenged Kurt Cobain to a fight during the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, after Cobain and his wife, Courtney Love, egged him on. Axl Rose was a huge Nirvana fan and asked Cobain to have Nirvana open up for GN'R. Kurt turned Axl down and taunted him in the press.

Although most people consider the fight between Axl and Kurt to be due to Axl's violent behavior, all evidence points toward Kurt as being the one who "started" the fight. In an interview during the early 1990s, after turning down the opening gig for GN'R (and prior to their backstage squabble), Cobain claimed that GN'R was the most talentless band in the world and a complete waste of music. Yet Cobain stated the following about Guns N' Roses in an interview to Michael Azerrad in the unofficial biography Come As You Are’’: "They fuck things up and then they sit back and look at what they fucked up and then try to figure out how they can fix it, whereas we fuck things up and just dwell on it and make it even worse."

In 1993 Guns N' Roses issued an album of cover tunes, The Spaghetti Incident?, which received mixed reviews. The album sparked a minor controversy due to the inclusion of a hidden track, "Look At Your Game, Girl” that was written by Charles Manson.

In 1994, Rose fired guitar player Gilby Clarke and hired an old friend of his named Paul Tobias. Together with the rest of the band (at this point Slash, McKagan and Sorum), Rose and Tobias recorded a cover of the song "Sympathy for the Devil" for the Interview with the Vampire soundtrack. Unbeknownst to Slash, Rose had Tobias re-record some of his guitar parts.

The band returned to the studio and recorded 13 tracks for a new album (which still exist today but have never been released). However due to tensions Slash shortly thereafter left the band, followed by Sorum and McKagan in 1997.

The Wilderness Years

For a few years Axl retreated into solitude. The new album was never released and he began work on another album without Slash. In 1996, he hired guitarist Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails. In 2000, the guitarist Buckethead joined the band (he would leave in 2004) along with drummer Brian Mantia. In 2002 Richard Fortus joined on guitar and Dizzy Reed returned to the keyboards yet again.

In 1999, Axl released an album of concert recordings, Live Era: '87-'93.

Sheryl Crow covered the song "Sweet Child O' Mine" for the Big Daddy film soundtrack in 1999. Axl himself secretly recorded a new version of the song with his new band lineup. (The new version plays during the closing credits of the film) On November 8th, 1999 Rose revealed the title of the upcoming album: Chinese Democracy.

Chinese Democracy

In 2001, the new incarnation of GN'R appeared at Rio de Janeiros when Axl and his new band played in front of 250,000 screaming fans at Rock in Rio III. It was here that he introduced new songs such as Chinese Democracy, Madagascar, The Blues, Sossego and Silkworms, as well as playing the classics for enthusiastic fans.
In 2002, Axl made a special surprise appearance at the 2002 VMAs. It was here that Axl officially unveiled the new lineup of GN'R to the rest of the world. Although Axl suffered earphone malfunctions and was not able to hear his own voice as he sang (hence his uneven pitch), the overall energy of the performance was great. It was one of the highest rated musical performances in MTV history. Ozzy Osbourne said that just in terms of the energy it was one of the greatest performances ever.
A North American Tour followed, but fell apart halfway through in December of 2002 due to Axl not showing up to a show in Philadelphia.
In September 2004, a new GN'R track, titled "I.R.S.," was leaked onto the internet by an anonymous source. It was defined as being an authentic poor quality demo tape, obtained through the radio program, Friday Night Rocks with Eddie Trunk, a New York City based program airing on Q104.3 Friday nights 11pm-2am. It was on this program where the song originally had aired earlier. Trunk had received a copy of the track from his close friend Mike Piazza, who had received it anonymously in the mail. Despite it's poor quality,"I.R.S." easily stands beside "Madagascar" and "The Blues" as the strongest of the new material. Clearly, with these songs in mind and Axl's previous statement that "The big guns were being held back”, “Chinese Democracy" has the potential to surpass all previous Guns N' Roses efforts, including "Appetite".

As of October 2005, the album Chinese Democracy has allegedly cost over $15 million dollars, which would make it the most expensive album of all-time. Axl has reportedly recorded over 70 tracks with the new band and has enough material to release at least three CDs, which he plans on doing.

In September 2005, the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall into place, finally, after many years of waiting. Axl met fans in Malibu and told them the album would be out by early 2006 and a song would be featured on the soundtrack for the Tom Hanks/Ron Howard movie The Da Vinci Code. Although this rumor was never 100% verified, GN'R manager Merck refused to comment, indicating it bore some truth. Also, rumblings from an inside source at Sanctuary Music Publishings confirmed that the company was beginning to take the early steps of release for the album and was planning on spreading news to reintroduce the band to the world.

Trivia

Axl plays the voice of Tommy Smith, radio DJ of K-DST in the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

The character Axl Low in the Guilty Gear series of fighting games is clearly named and designed from Rose. In addition, one of the enemies in Final Fight is named after him (another is named and patterned after Slash).

Axl plays Acoustic guitar on the Guns N' Roses song "Dead Horse" and Rhythm guitar on "Shotgun Blues." The songs appear on the albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II respectively.