Axl Rose
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W. Axl Rose is an American hard rock singer and songwriter. He was born William Bruce Rose, Jr. on February 6, 1962 in Lafayette, Indiana. His mother remarried when he was an infant and changed Rose's name to William Bailey, using the last name of her new husband Stephen Bailey. At the age of 17, he readopted the name William Rose, and would later legally change it to W. Axl Rose.
He is best known as the lead singer of Guns N' Roses, and is the only original member still part of the band's line-up. Although he is regarded by many as one of hard rock's all-time greatest frontmen, Rose is also infamous for his onstage antics, disputes with former bandmates, and for his constant rewriting of the still-unreleased Chinese Democracy album.
Biography
Childhood
Axl Rose was brought up in a deeply religious Pentecostal family. He had a troubled childhood and, as an adult, stated that repressed memories had revealed to him that his biological father, William Rose, had sexually abused him as a small child. William Rose left the family when Axl was two years old. He also suffered physical abuse at the hands of his stepfather, Stephen 'Beetle' Bailey.Growing up, Axl thought Bailey was his biological father; Axl's name had been "William Bailey" since his father had left. At age seventeen however, he learned of his biological father's existence and readopted his birth name, William Rose. He would only refer to himself as "W. Rose", however, as he did not wish to share a name with his biological father. The strict discipline and Pentecostal education he endured as a child led to his rebellion as an adolescent against both Indiana and society in general.
Because of his turbulent upbringing and his mother's reluctance to leave the abusive Bailey, Axl is said to have issues with women. He himself claimed in a Rolling Stone interview in 1992 that during his childhood he was made to believe that women and sexuality were evil and that due to the violent treatment of his mother by his stepfather he witnessed as an impressionable child, he had been led to think that domestic violence was the normal way of things [1].
Youth in Indiana
Rose showed strong interest in music, singing in the choir at church and studying piano. As a teenager he formed a band called Axl. He kept the band's name as his own, and adopted the name Axl as his own [legal name].Throughout his youth, Axl Rose was in trouble numerous times with the police and was arrested over twenty times on charges such as public drunkenness and assault. In his late teenage years Lafayette authorities attempted to have him locked up#redirect as a habitual criminal and on the advice of his lawyer, he left Indiana and headed to Los Angeles in the early 1980s to pursue a rock music career where he was re-united with close childhood friend and former Indiana bandmate, Izzy Stradlin.
Los Angeles: the rise of Guns N' Roses
The early 1980s music scene in Los Angeles featured both punk and heavy metal bands. Axl wanted to meld the two styles into a unique musical form. Rose moved through a number of bands, including Hollywood Rose, L.A. Guns, Rapidfire, A.X.L., and Rose. Then, after bringing in his former L.A. Guns bandmates, Tracii Guns (who was soon replaced by Slash, real name Saul Hudson) and Rob Gardner (who was soon replaced by Steven Adler), Guns N' Roses were formed in the summer of 1985.Desperately poor, the fledgling band struggled to survive in the streets of LA. Allegedy, Rose and Stradlin even sold drugs for petty cash.[link] According to Rose, they manipulated women for their money, an example being at a party at an unnamed woman's house and while one band member had sex with the woman, the others would raid her wallet for the little cash they could salvage.#redirect
They eventually rented a small apartment, dubbed the Hell House, which quickly became a den for sex, drugs and rock n' roll. LA promoter Vicky Hamilton allegedly managed the band and got them their first gigs.
With Axl Rose (vocals), Izzy Stradlin (rhythm guitar), Slash (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 Axl's shrieking vocals, the album was not an immediate success, but soon grew in popularity with the release of several singles from the album. 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". "Sweet Child O' Mine" was written for Rose's then-girlfriend Erin Everly .
Living on the edge
Although famous first for its music, Guns N' Roses soon gained notoriety for a wild lifestyle fueled by heavy use of recreational 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 despite its highly ironic nature was interpreted as insulting to gays, blacks, and immigrants. Axl was labelled racist and homophobic due to the lyrics of this song, charges he heavily denied. As for the homophobic allegations, Rose claimed he had had bad experiences with homosexuals, and, as such, he did not understand their way of life. In a surprising move, Rose performed "November Rain" with Elton John at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards. He claimed John was a big influence on his musical and lyrical outlook, and this claim is supported by many of the more operatic songs of the Use Your Illusion albums. He also paid tribute to Freddie Mercury, another huge influence, at the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, where he again performed with John.
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, with Rose's increasingly erratic behaviour. In July 1991, in the early stages of the 28-month-long Use Your Illusion Tour, Rose jumped off stage during a concert in St. Louis to take a video camera away from a fan. The concert was aborted as Rose and the other band members left the stage, sparking an intense riot, for which he was later arrested in 1992. A judge later ruled that he was not responsible for the riot and dismissed the charges against him. Another riot was spawned on August 8, 1992 at the Montreal Stade Olympique during a summer concert co-headlining tour with Metallica, when Rose, already late for the band's stage appearance, walked off stage and left the stadium after playing 9 songs. Rose claimed he had problems with his voice and decided to cancel the band's set. Before 'Double Talkin' Jive,' Axl said that this will be “our last show for a long time.” At the end of 'Civil War', their last song, Axl said “Thank you, your money will be refunded, we're outta here.” This led to yet another riot, nearly city-wide, and authorities were barely able to bring the mob under control. Coincidentally, James Hetfield of Metallica was burned in a pyrotechnics accident that same night.
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 strange and aggressive when he caused long performance delays and challenged Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain to a fight during the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, after Cobain's wife, Courtney Love, jokingly asked Axl to be the godfather to their daughter, Frances Bean. For months there had been an intense rivalry between Rose and Cobain and among both bands' fans. Axl had been a big fan of Nirvana and asked Cobain to have Nirvana be openers for Guns N' Roses during the Use Your Illusion Tour, to which Cobain declined. After declining Rose's offer, Cobain began to talk about Guns N' Roses and Axl to numerous media sources, claiming that they were untalented and that Axl was a homophobic loser, to which Axl said of Nirvana, "They would rather sit home and shoot heroin with their bitch wives than tour with us."
In an interview with Michael Azerrad in the unofficial biography Come As You Are, Cobain admitted there was one thing he did like about Guns N' Roses: "They totally mess things up and then they sit back and look at what they messed up and then try to figure out how they can fix it, whereas we mess things up and just dwell on it and make it even worse."
Cobain further commented on Rose's rock star persona, claiming, "His role has been played for years. Ever since the beginning of rock and roll, there's been an Axl Rose. And it's just boring. It's totally boring to me. Why it's such a fresh and new thing in his eyes is obviously because it's happening to him personally and he's such an egotistical person that he thinks that the whole world owes him something."
Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan was one of the last people to see Kurt Cobain alive before his death in 1994. Fans of both groups continue to heatedly dispute the undocumented events that transpired between Cobain and Rose. Over time, however, some of the bad blood has subsided. Courtney Love has privately apologized to former Guns bassist Duff McKagan for their heated past. In addition, the two have performed["It's So Easy"], live together, and Velvet Revolver, the current band of McKagan and original Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash, have played Nirvana's "Negative Creep" in concert.
In another short lived feud, Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil and Rose traded insults and challenges for confrontations for a number of months. The animosity stemmed from another unseen and controversial incident, where Izzy Stradlin allegedy assaulted Sharice Neil, Vince's wife, leading Vince to literally run off stage at the MTV Video Music Awards to confront him. Axl helped break up the fight and later publicly challenged Vince to a one-on-one brawl. The fight never happened. The lyrics to the GNR song 'Shotgun Blues' are allegedly written about Neil.
Decline of Guns N' Roses
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 guitarist Gilby Clarke and hired old friend Paul Tobias. Together with the rest of the band (at this point: Slash, McKagan, Sorum and Reed), Rose and Tobias recorded a cover of the song "Sympathy for the Devil" for the Interview with the Vampire movie soundtrack. Unbeknownst to Slash and Clarke, Rose had Tobias re-record some of Clarke's guitar parts. When Slash found out, he was quite upset; this is one of the things that fuelled his desire to leave the band.
The band returned to the studio and allegedly recorded 13 tracks for a new album. These tracks may still exist today but have never been released. Duff McKagan has variously said in different interviews that the album either does or does not feature some soft ballads and acoustic-style songs.
Slash left the band while the "new album" was being recorded in the Fall of 1996. In late 1997, Matt Sorum was fired from the band after an argument with Axl at the recording studio. In early 1998, McKagan became the final charter member other than Axl to leave the band. The lost Guns N' Roses album was never released. Some people mistakenly think that material from this album was used on the Slash's Snakepit CD, It's Five O'Clock Somewhere. Actually, Slash wrote some songs for GN'R in the mid-'90s, but Axl disliked them. Before leaving the band Slash asked Axl if he could use them for Snakepit. Axl had no interest in the songs Slash had written, so Slash reused his lyrics from those songs (with different music) with his new band.
The "lost album," on the other hand, remains a mystery amongst die-hard fans to this day. Some claim it will be released as a "Beatles Anthology"-type gift set in the future.
Chinese Democracy
Axl ended up owning the rights to the Guns N' Roses name after the other founding members had signed the rights to the name over to him in exchange for large cash payments before a concert during the UYI tour. As a result, even after Slash's and McKagan's departures, Axl Rose was (is) able to continue on under the "Guns N' Roses" moniker. One Use Your Illusion-era member stayed on with Axl: keyboardist Dizzy Reed is still with the band, and in fact has now been a "Gunner" longer than anyone other than Axl himself. Many notable musicians have passed through the band over the years. Arguably the most famous of these musicians are bassist Tommy Stinson (formerly of The Replacements) and guitarist Robin Finck (formerly of Nine Inch Nails), who have been in the band since 1997 and 1998 respectively.1999 passed without a new album, and the original title of "Chinese Democracy", "2000 Intentions", lost its relevance at the turn of the millennium.
In 2001, the new incarnation of GN'R appeared at Las Vegas and Rio de Janeiro, where Axl and his new band played in front of 250,000 fans at Rock In Rio III. It was here that he introduced new songs "Chinese Democracy", "Madagascar", "The Blues", "Silkworms" and "Rhiad and The Bedouins", as well as playing the band's earlier hits.
In August 2002, the revamped Guns N' Roses did six shows (Hong Kong China, Tokyo and Osaka Japan, London and Leeds England and Pukkelpop festival in Belgium), and Axl made a special surprise appearance at the 2002 Video Music Awards, officially unveiling the new line-up of Guns N' Roses. It was one of the highest rated musical performances in MTV history, and Ozzy Osbourne said that in terms of the energy alone, it was one of the greatest performances ever. However, many viewers noticed Axl was often singing off-key, which he later attributed to earphone malfunctions, which left him unable to hear his own voice during the performance[[Citing sources citation needed]]. A North American tour including 16 shows followed, but it fell apart halfway through in December of 2002 when Axl did not appear for shows in Vancouver (first show of the tour) and Philadelphia, resulting in riots
Guns N' Roses were scheduled to show at Rock In Rio Lisbon festival in early 2004, but this appearance was cancelled in official message by Axl Rose, who apologized to the fans blaming guitarist Buckethead because of his departure.
Return to the spotlight
On April 1, 2005, a new GN'R track, titled "I.R.S." was leaked onto the internet by an anonymous source. It was described 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. 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. Piazza is allegedly a friend of Axl Rose, which led some fans to believe Rose had given him the album himself. By this time, Axl had experienced extensive plastic surgery and hair extensions. [link]In September 2005, an internet rumour surfaced that 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 verified, GN'R manager Merck refused to say if it was true or false. Also, as of December 2005, there are unconfirmed rumors that Sanctuary Music Publishing 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. Most recently, former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash said of Chinese Democracy in a radio interview that "it definitely sounds like it's coming out in March." Some tracks from Chinese Democracy have leaked onto the internet, and by 2006, an enhanced version of "I.R.S". was on the internet as well as a song called "Better". Axl has recently played these songs in New York in addition to "T.W.A.T" (there was a time), "Chinese Democracy", "Madagascar" and many others.
-->On January 13th, 2006 (Black Friday), Axl Rose was photographed for the first time in over three years at a KoRn launch party. He is currently sporting a beard and still has braids.
"We're working on 32 songs, and 26 are nearly done," he said at the party in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine. 13 of these will be included on the 1st album, and the rest on two subsequent "sequels." According to Rolling Stone, Rose's favorites so far are "Better," "There Was a Time" and "The Blues."
"People will hear music this year," he said. "It's a very complex record, I'm trying to do something different. Some of the arrangements are kind of like Queen. Some people are going to say, 'It doesn't sound like Axl Rose, it doesn't sound like Guns N' Roses.' But you'll like at least a few songs on there."[link]
On February 15, 2006, a higher quality version of I.R.S. was released, as well as a 1:20 second long demo version of "Better". Just a few hours later, an extended version of "Better" was leaked along with another track, "There Was A Time". A few days after that, the full version of "Better", along with a 9-second long clip from the song "Catcher in the Rye" was released. The full version of "Catcher" found its way to the internet not long after, when an anonymous German woman began e-mailing members of GN'R message board forums with the song. The band's management has tried to prevent the tracks from being posted or traded on the internet with some success. After the release of "Catcher" it was made known that they were operating on forums trying to find the source of the leak, and had been given full cooperation by Here Today Gone to Hell (a GN'R fan forum), where they were being given access to private messages to trace the links.
Since the release of these tracks, Axl began making more public appearances, showing his face at various parties all around Los Angeles. He also performed at Rock in Rio in Lisbon. This has led many fans to believe that the release of Chinese Democracy is indeed imminent.
The band performed their first live concerts in the United States in over three years on May 12, May 14, May 15, and May 17, 2006 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.[link]. They also performed in Madrid on May 25th and in Lisbon (Rock in Rio) on May 27th - this concert was attended by 50,000.
On May 6, 2006 Axl Rose appeared on the Eddie Trunk radio show and promised that the album would be released sometime in the fall or late fall 2006. Axl has said that "it will come out this year (2006)."
Many fans and critics are touting the European tour of summer 2006 to be a major comeback for, a noticeably slimmer Axl Rose, with many of the gigs already taken place being viewed as some of the best Rose has performed since the early days of the band. Many of the gigs have been sold out and well received by critics.
It is noted that Axl's voice has improved significantly during the mid part of 2006. Performing live in Leeds 2002, Axl's voice was weak and somewhat out of tune. This was also the case at the 2002 Video Music Awards performance. When the band re-emerged in 2006, at the Rock in Rio Lisbon concert, this was again the case. However subsequent performances in June and July 2006 have shown a clear improvement in his vocal abilities, and Axl now has skills comparable to those he posessed during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the original Guns n' Roses was operational.
Recent controversy
In March 2006 Axl Rose's lawyer released the following statement: "In October of 2005 Slash made an unannounced 5:30 AM visit to Axl Rose's house. Not appearing to be under the influence, Slash came to inform Axl that: 'Duff was spineless,' 'Scott Weiland was a fraud,' that he 'hates Matt Sorum' and that in this ongoing war, contest or whatever anyone wants to call it that Slash has waged against Axl for the better part of 20 years, that Axl has proven himself 'the stronger.' Based on his conduct in showing up at Rose's home, Axl was hopeful that Slash would live up to his pronouncements that he wanted to end the war and move on with life. Unfortunately that did not prove to be the case."Slash on May 13, 2006 appeared on Camp Freddy Show on Indie 1031 FM and denied having visited Axl's house or saying anything that Axl claimed.
Slash said: "I'm not gonna go into the whole long thing. It was just something that he [Axl] decided he was going to… It was a lot of this stuff was built to promote the next Guns record and the tour and all that kind of stuff, 'cause there was this blatantly fabricated thing in there that I'd gone to his house and that he and I had a conversation in which I said all this stuff about my bandmates. And it's just blatantly untrue. For one, I have not talked to the guy in any way, shape or form since 1996, so it's going on 11 years. [Laughs] So that's basically it. There's just no truth to it. And all things considered, it put lot of whatever in people's minds that I was that kind of a guy, so it's… there you have it. So it's not true."
In May 2006, Rose had a close encounter with Tommy Hilfiger at the Plumm in New York City. Hilfiger reportedly took a couple of swings at Rose, before being carried away kicking and screaming by his own security guards. Rose made the claim that the attack began when Rose moved the drink of Hilfiger's girlfriend so that it wouldn't spill. [link]
Club owner Noel Ashman stated "Axl was a gentleman and had the good sense not to retaliate as he would have done some serious damage to Hilfiger."... Guns N' Roses were playing an acoustic set at Rosario Dawson's birthday party. Later that night Rose dedicated the song "You're Crazy".. to "My good friend Tommy Hilfiger." [link]
On June 11, 2006, Guns N' Roses headlined the Download festival in England. Within the first half hour of the show; Axl had become annoyed with the quality of the sound and had also lost his footing almost causing him to fall due to the "slippery stage". After briefly leaving and returning the set mid song, throwing the microphone on the floor, yelling at the crowd for throwing a waterbottle at him, insulting a security guard and then finally exiting the stage citing technical difficulties while leaving Bumblefoot to play an instrumental of the song 'Don't Cry', he returned on stage with tennis shoes on (he was previously wearing boots), announced that he had some old friends to bring out, and was joined by Izzy Stradlin to play "Used to Love Her". Stradlin left and returned on stage multiple times, for "Patience", and the final number "Paradise City". During the Night Axl was also joined by Sebastian Bach and together they sang "My Michelle".
On June 27, 2006, Axl was arrested in Stockholm, Sweden, after an early morning altercation in his hotel lobby with hotel security. Axl is alleged to have bitten a security guard's leg and shattered an antique lobby mirror while in a drunken rage. Axl later commented in a press release: "We had a great gig in Stockholm and I am not going to let this incident spoil that. My assistant Beta and I were talking in the lobby of the hotel when security started to give us a hard time. My only concern was to make sure she was ok." After spending the next several hours in a Stockholm holding cell for intoxicated persons, Axl admitted to all charges- paid roughly $6,000 in fines and was released and the Summer European tour continued as scheduled.
Trivia
- Axl plays the voice of Tommy "The Nightmare" Smith, radio DJ of K-DST in the game .
- 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" Also during Rock in Rio 3, Axl picked up a guitar and soloed with the 3 guitarists during "Madagascar". The songs, excluding "Madagascar", appear on the albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II respectively. It is unknown whether Axl's guitar parts have been recorded for Chinese Democracy, although he is said to have taken guitar lessons in recent years, and was unofficially announced as Buckethead's replacement upon his departure.
- Inducted Elton John into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
- The house in the "Estranged" music video is Axl's real-life Malibu home.
- Axl's favorite animal is the dolphin, which appears in the video "Estranged".
- "Welcome to the Jungle" features a line that was originally directed to Rose while hitchhiking in New York: "Do you know where you are? You're in the jungle baby. You're gonna die!".
- His assistant since the early 1990's, Beta Lebeis, is Brazilian. Axl looks after her two sons and has sent them to college.
- His left nipple is pierced.
- Izzy Stradlin and Axl first met in drivers' ed. [6]
- The Use Your Illusion world tour saw Rose wearing "Charlie Don't Surf" t-shirts, emblazoned with Charles Manson's face - a move Rose claimed to be satirical of Manson, but which many considered to be inappropriate. In fact, "Charlie don't surf" is a quote from the movie Apocalypse Now. Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (played by Robert Duvall) wants to go surfing on a beach held by the Vietnamese. He orders his men to take the beach and explains that "Charlie [i.e. the Viet Cong] don't surf!" The phrase was also borrowed by The Clash, who used it as a song title on the album Sandinista!.
- He was inspired by the Finnish band Hanoi Rocks in his early years and he also appeared on Michael Monroe's music video called Dead, Jail or Rock N' Roll in the late 80's.
- Axl Rose, as well as the other Guns N' Roses members, was the source of the names of the Mavericks in the American version of Mega Man X5.
- Guns N' Roses played in Venezuela two days before the November 27, 1992 failed coup attempt.
- An anagram of Axl Rose is Oral Sex, it is unclear whether this is deliberate or not.
- In 2005, Mike Shinoda released a track on the mixtape, titled "S.C.O.M.", which uses samples from the Guns N Roses song, "Sweet Child O' Mine".
- It was recently reported that Axl Rose is currently in a relationship with British model and celebrity Sophie Anderton. This relationship has not been commented upon by either side, but was reported on the internet on Monday 29th of May 2006. See http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds33528.html
- Was a background musician on Don Henley's song "I Will Not Go Quietly"
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