Axl Rose
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As a lead singer, Axl Rose is noted for his use of several trademark voices—nasal, screechy, nasal-screechy, screechy-nasal, and simulated orgasmic grunt. He is also known for his bad boy attitude, as well as his penchant for wearing bizarre clothing items on stage, such as kilts, catcher’s masks, spandex bicycle shorts, and chinchilla waistcoats, often all at the same time.
As a personality, Rose is famous for his unique ability to systematically destroy his status as rock legend, by a) refusing to accept that his band broke up; b) dropping out of the public eye entirely, emerging only for stupid bullshit like punching Tommy Hilfiger in a nightclub or talking smack about Velvet Revolver.
In 2001, Axl Rose had the unmitigated chutzpah to resurface with an entirely new line-up and pretend it was the original band. One can only assume Rose is also pretending that people still listen to glam metal, when the whole movement died an ignominious death in the spring of 1992.
After nearly a decade of periodic and totally crappy concert tours, in the fall of 2008, “Guns N’ Roses” finally released the perennially-delayed Chinese Democracy, which to many fans was an even bigger let-down than senior prom.
The most recent incarnation of Axl Rose suffers from the worst case of white-person cornrow braids this side of Sandals Jamaica.
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Biography
William Bruce Rose, Jr. began not-leaving-well-enough-alone from his birth on February 6, 1962, a birthday he shares with Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rick Astley, and the girl who won MTV’s Legally Blonde – The Search for Elle Woods. By the way, since when are reality shows “music” television? That’s how much the landscape has changed since Axl Rose was last relevant, a fact his egomania precludes him from ever noticing.
Rose hails from Lafayette, Indiana, whose other famous natives include the guy who founded Sears and Melissa Etheridge’s lesbian bride (not the one impregnated by David Crosby’s donated sperm; the other one). Interestingly enough, Axl Rose came from a very religious household, and learned to sing in church. Church is also where he learned to stuff his crotch and dance the “serpentine.”
It was as a teenager in Indiana that Rose first met Jeffrey Dean Isbell, better known by the stage name Izzy Stradlin. This is a much better name. Stradlin would go on to write most of Guns N’ Roses’ music including all of its hits. This probably has a lot to do with why it took Axl Rose 17 years to produce his next original album after Straddlin left the band.
Career
Just Roses
Axl Rose escaped Lafayette in 1982—probably the smartest thing he’s ever done, all things considered—and wound up in Los Angeles. There he teased his hair, put on make-up, and performed with various local bands, including such spectacular butt rockers as Nikki Sixx (Mötley Crüe), Tracii Guns (L.A. Guns), and the absolute buttiest rocker of them all, Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P.
Guns N’ Roses
In 1985, Rose took off the make-up, lost the hairspray, and formed Guns N’ Roses (one wonders how successful they would have been had they gone with their original name, Pistols N’ Poinsettias). The band featured Rose on vocals, Izzy Stradlin on rhythm guitar, Slash on lead guitar, Duff McKagan on bass, and Steven Adler on Drums. Adler would eventually be kicked out of the band for cocaine and heroin abuse, which, when you think about it, really had to have been an awful lot of cocaine and heroin.
Guns N’ Roses released its major label debut, Appetite for Destruction, in 1987, featuring such classics as “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Paradise City,” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” which is probably the single most fun song to do at karaoke.
Appetite for Destruction eventually sold some 27 million copies, and is arguably one of the best rock albums of all time. The follow-up EP, GN’R Lies, contains the song “Patience,” arguably one of the greatest power ballads of all time. The follow-up full-length albums, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, are arguably some of the most self-indulgent projects of all time—remember that one video with computerized dolphins swimming down Sunset Strip? Then everyone quit, then everyone started suing each other over rights to the catalog, then Rose became a recluse.
“Guns N’ Roses”
All this would have simply been part of the GNR “Behind the Music” had only Axl Rose not kept opening his mouth about once a year for ten years to announce that he was almost finished with the new album. Three-quarters done. Next year, promise.
Finally, on November 23, 2008, the collection of musicians Axl Rose still tries to pass off as GNR released Chinese Democracy, which took nearly fifteen years and a reported $13 million to record. This makes Chinese Democracy the most expensive album ever made, though you wouldn’t think so to listen to it. Even the single, “Better,” kinda sucks.
After such a long build-up, Chinese Democracy was doomed to failure, even if it didn’t include laughably ridiculous songs like “Raid n’ the Bedouins.” This phenomenon is referred to in some circles as the “Indiana Jones Effect.”
Of course, Chinese Democracy proved to be an even bigger bust than expected. Record executives at Geffen specifically blamed Axl Rose for not doing any promotion or publicity work. Rose was also reportedly missing for at least two months prior to the album’s release. To the untrained eye it would seem even he was embarrassed by the album’s crappiness. But then he came out of hiding, and announced that not only would there be a video, but that Chinese Democracy was simply part of a projected trilogy of new GNR albums. Apparently, Rose spent those two months on a serious Kool-Aid drinking bender. Expect the next GNR album to drop in 2012 2016 2021 2025.
Personal Life
Axl Rose is currently feuding with no fewer than a dozen people, including, but not limited to: Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe, Kurt Cobain (even though he’s no longer alive), David Geffen, Slash, Tommy Hilfiger (for some reason), Jon Bon Jovi, and every band that’s ever opened for him.
He still remains friends with ex-Skid Row front man Sebastian Bach, however. It’s a pretty good bet the two of them hang together in a room where all the calendars are frozen to the year 1989, waiting for VH-1 to call and ask them to host a reality dating show.
