Guns ’n’ Roses biography
At a time when pop was dominated by dance music and pop-metal, Guns N'
Roses brought raw, ugly rock & roll crashing back into the charts. They
were not nice boys; nice boys don't play rock & roll. They were ugly,
misogynist, and violent; they were also funny, vulnerable, and occasionally
sensitive, as their breakthrough hit, "Sweet Child O' Mine," showed. While
Slash and Izzy Stradlin
ferociously spit out dueling guitar riffs worthy of Aerosmith or the Stones, Axl Rose
screeched out his tales of sex, drugs, and apathy in the big city. Meanwhile,
bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Steven Adler were a
limber rhythm section who kept the music loose and powerful. Guns
N' Roses' music was basic and gritty, with a solid hard, bluesy base; they were
dark, sleazy, dirty, and honest -- everything that good hard rock and heavy
metal should be. There was something refreshing about a band who could provoke everything from devotion to hatred,
especially since both sides were equally right. There hadn't been a hard rock
band this raw or talented in years, and they were given added weight by Axl Rose's primal rage, the sound of confused, frustrated
white trash vying for his piece of the pie. As the '80s became the '90s, there
simply wasn't a more interesting band around, but owing to intra-band friction
and the emergence of alternative rock, Rose's supporting cast gradually
disintegrated, as he spent several years in seclusion.
Guns N' Roses released their first EP in 1986, which led to a contract
with Geffen; the following year, the band released their debut album, Appetite
for Destruction. They started to build a following with their numerous live
shows, but the album didn't start selling until almost a year later, when MTV
started playing "Sweet Child o' Mine." Soon, both the album and
single shot to number one, and Guns N' Roses became one of the biggest bands in
the world. Their debut single, "Welcome to the Jungle," was
re-released and shot into the Top Ten, and "
Guns N' Roses began work on the long-awaited follow-up to Appetite for
Destruction at the end of 1990. In October of that year, the band fired Adler,
claiming that his drug dependency caused him to play poorly; he was replaced by
Matt Sorum from the Cult. During recording, the band
added Dizzy Reed on keyboards. By the time the sessions were finished, the new
album had become two new albums. After being delayed for nearly a year, the
albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II were released in September
1991. Messy but fascinating, the albums showcased a more ambitious band; while
there were still a fair number of full-throttle guitar rockers, there were
stabs at Elton John-style balladry, acoustic blues, horn sections, female
backup singers, ten-minute art rock epics with several different sections, and
a good number of introspective, soul-searching lyrics. In short, they were now
making art; amazingly, they were successful at it. The albums sold very well
initially, but while they had seemed destined to set the pace for the decade to
come, that turned out not to be the case at all.
Nirvana's Nevermind hit number one in early
1992, suddenly making Guns N' Roses -- with all of their pretensions,
impressionistic videos, models, and rock star excesses -- seem very uncool. Rose handled the change by becoming a dictator, or
at least a petty tyrant; his in-concert temper tantrums became legendary, even
going so far as to incite a riot in
Rose remained out of the spotlight, becoming a virtual recluse and doing
nothing but tinkering in the studio; he also recruited various musicians --
including Dave Navarro, Tommy Stinson, and ex-Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck -- for informal jam sessions. Remaining members were
infuriated by Rose's inclusion of childhood friend Paul Huge in the new
sessions when both Stradlin and Clarke were excluded
from rejoining the band. And a remake of the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for
the Devil" was essentially the straw that broke the camel's back, as Rose
cut out some of the other member's contributions and pasted Huge over the song
without consulting anyone else. By 1996 Slash was officially out of Guns N'
Roses, leaving Rose the lone remaining survivor from the group's heyday; rumors continued to swirl, and still no new material was
forthcoming, though Rose did re-record Appetite for Destruction with a new lineup for rehearsal purposes. The first new original G N'
R song in eight years, the industrial metal sludge of "Oh My God"
finally appeared on the soundtrack to the 1999 Arnold Schwarzenegger film End
of Days. Soon after, Geffen issued the two-disc Live Era 1987-1993.
2000 brought the addition of guitarists Robin Finck
(of Nine Inch Nails) and Buckethead. 2001 was greeted
with Guns N' Roses' first live dates in nearly seven years, as the band (who
consisted of Rose plus guitarists Finck, Buckethead, bassist Stinson, former Primus drummer Brian Mantia, childhood friend and guitarist Paul Huge, and longtime G N' R keyboardist Dizzy Reed) played a show on
New Years Eve 2000 in Las Vegas, playing as well at the mammoth Rock in Rio
festival the following month. A new album was announced for a summer release,
but the date came and went without any CDs hitting the shelves. A summer tour
of
2002 started with no new Axl news, instead
seeing former members Slash, Duff, and Izzy work
together on new material for Stradlin's new album. Rose
eventually ended up in music news as he fired producer Roy Thomas Baker from
the group's newest recording sessions, adding him to the superstar list of
producers that had been attached to the project at various points (including
Moby, Mike Clink, Youth, Bob Ezrin, and many others.)
Slash's contributions to Izzy's album didn't make the
final cut, but rumors of a new band featuring former
members McKagan, Sorum, and
Slash began circulating by the end of the spring. A slew of Japanese and
British festival dates were set in the spring, but the mysterious new album
continued to elude fans as the release date was pushed into the fall of 2002. Before
those concert dates rolled around, guitarist Paul Huge left the group, quickly
replaced by former Love Spit Love member Richard Fortus.
An appearance
at MTV's annual Video Music
Awards helped garner interest in the new lineup,
but a rusty performance from Rose and an
interview where he said his
new album wasn't coming out anytime soon didn't
do much to further their cause. That summer, the band started on their first tour in almost eight years, and they managed to fulfill all of their commitments in Europe in Asia. Sadly, they caused
a violent and destructive riot in Vancouver when Rose failed to show up for the first
date of their North American tour. Tour openers CKY
were especially inconvenienced, as Rose had only asked them days before to
reroute from
The years between albums have grown into a running joke in the music industry, Interscope's frustration
with the millions dumped into the recording has become secondary to Rose's
reclusive insistence to perfect his material. By leaving the industry on such a
strong note, Rose's image has been frozen in time as the frustrating, angry,
yet sensitive genius behind the microphone, an image he might not be ready to
live up to as the years go by. Despite what happens to most groups that have
stayed out of the limelight for ten years, the legend of Guns N' Roses
continues to grow with each year. Whatever may happen with the new lineup, the five original members continue to enjoy
celebrity status despite having their post-GN'R material show less than enthusiastic
sales. By writing one of the most critical hard rock albums of all time, they
have secured their status as the most vital force to
hit the mainstream rock scene in the 80's. ~
Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Greg Prato, All Music Guide