Guns N' Roses

• 1. Introduction

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  Guns N' Roses, the hard rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1985, owes its breakthrough to a single airing in the dead of night. The video for "Welcome to the Jungle" first ran on MTV at 4 a.m. on a Sunday, and it was played only once. Label founder David Geffen had personally urged the network to show it. Viewers began demanding it almost immediately. Until then, the band's debut album had struggled for nearly a year. From that unlikely opening, the group grew into one of the best-selling acts of all time, with estimated sales of over 100 million records. How does a band assembled from the remains of two Los Angeles groups reach that height? Why did their concerts become events that audiences and authorities feared? And what happens to a band when its singer keeps the name, the members drift away, and one record takes so long that the delay becomes part of its legend?

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• 2. Hell House Beginnings

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  In 1983, guitarist Tracii Guns introduced Chris Weber to Izzy Stradlin, and Stradlin soon formed a band with his childhood friend Axl Rose. After several lineup changes, the group became Hollywood Rose. Slash replaced Weber, and the band dissolved in 1984. Rose then joined L.A. Guns, the band led by Guns, on Stradlin's recommendation. Stradlin was living with Guns at the time.

  On the 1st of January 1985, Rose and Stradlin briefly reunited as Hollywood Rose for a one-off show. Guns, bassist Steve Darrow and drummer Rob Gardner joined them. Guns N' Roses proper was formed that March by Rose, Stradlin, Guns, Gardner and bassist Ole Beich. Guns recalled the moment in a 2019 interview. Axl had argued with their manager and been fired, and that same night they started a new band. Guns phoned Stradlin the next day and asked if he wanted in. The name combined the two earlier bands and was first meant for a record label. Rejected options included "Heads of Amazon" and "AIDS".

  After two rehearsals, Duff McKagan replaced Beich. That first rehearsal with McKagan was recorded, and three songs from it aired in the band's first radio interview. They were "Don't Cry", "Think About You" and "Anything Goes". The Troubadour debut followed two days later, on the 26th of March 1985. Lineups kept shifting. Guns left after another argument with Rose, and Slash took his place. Gardner departed too, and Steven Adler took over on drums.

  The classic lineup of Rose, Stradlin, Slash, McKagan and Adler was finalized on the 4th of June 1985. They played their first show two days later. Two days after that, they set off on a chaotic West Coast tour from Sacramento to McKagan's hometown of Seattle. Both vans broke down on the way, and the band hitchhiked with only their guitars. McKagan later called this "Hell Tour" a defining moment for the group. Afterward, they moved into a shared house and rehearsal space nicknamed "The Hell House".

  The band built a following on the Hollywood club circuit, playing venues such as The Troubadour and The Roxy. In March 1986, they signed with Geffen Records. They turned down a more lucrative offer from Chrysalis, which had wanted to change their image. Geffen offered full creative control and a $75,000 advance. To keep momentum while they worked in the studio, they released the EP Live Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide in December 1986. It was marketed as live, but the tracks were studio demos overdubbed with crowd noise. Only 10,000 vinyl copies were pressed, on Geffen's Uzi Suicide imprint.

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• 3. Making Appetite

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  Choosing a producer for the debut album took a long audition process. The band recorded "Nightrain" and "Sweet Child o' Mine" with Spencer Proffer, and they cut demos with Nazareth guitarist Manny Charlton. Paul Stanley of KISS was considered, but he was rejected after proposing changes to Adler's drum setup. Mutt Lange and Tom Werman were approached, yet Geffen declined because of cost. Mike Clink, who had worked with Triumph, got the job after a test recording of "Shadow of Your Love".

  The band entered Rumbo Recorders in January 1987. Basic tracks were done in two weeks, followed by a month of overdubs. Drums took six days. Rose's vocals took far longer, because he insisted on recording one line at a time.

  Appetite for Destruction arrived on the 21st of July 1987. Its original cover, painted by Robert Williams, showed a monster attacking a rapist robot, and retailers deemed it too controversial. The band called it a symbolic social statement about the industrial system polluting the environment. A replacement by Andy Engell, from a design by tattoo artist Bill White Jr., showed skull caricatures of the five members arranged on a cross. The first single, "It's So Easy", came out only in the UK on the 15th of June 1987 and reached number 84 there.

  "Welcome to the Jungle" was written in Seattle but drew on Rose's experiences in Los Angeles. It was partly inspired by a homeless man in New York who shouted, "You know where you are? You're in the jungle, baby; you're gonna die!" The song later appeared in the 1988 film The Dead Pool, where the band made a cameo.

  "Sweet Child o' Mine" began as a poem Rose wrote for his then-girlfriend Erin Everly. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, the band's only chart-topper. Slash recalled, "I hated that song with a huge passion for the longest time, and it turned out to be our hugest hit." After that success, "Welcome to the Jungle" was reissued and climbed to number 7, and "Paradise City" peaked at number 5. The album itself reached number 1 on the Billboard 200. A Japanese EP, Live from the Jungle, included recordings from June 1987 at London's Marquee Club, the band's first shows outside the United States.

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• 4. Dangerous Nights

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  A tabloid-style parody cover marked G N' R Lies, released in November 1988. It paired the four tracks of the 1986 EP with four new acoustic songs. The single "Patience" reached number four, and the album peaked at number two. After the first pressings, the cover was altered to remove two headlines that referred to wife-beating and the Dark Ages.

  The song "One in a Million" drew the harshest criticism. Its lyrics used slurs, and it was widely condemned as racist, xenophobic and homophobic. Manager Doug Goldstein called it satire reflecting a young man's fears on meeting diversity in Los Angeles. Rose denied being racist, later tied the lyrics to anger after an attempted robbery, and conceded the language was offensive. Other members had doubts before release, but the song stayed at Rose's insistence.

  Trouble followed the band on stage. In November 1987 in Atlanta, Rose assaulted several security guards and was detained backstage by police. The band finished the show with a roadie on vocals. In August 1988, near-riots broke out at two New York shows. That same month, two fans were crushed to death during the band's set at England's Monsters of Rock festival.

  In October 1989, the band opened for the Rolling Stones at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Rose warned the crowd that these shows would be the band's last unless members stopped using drugs, and he referred to the song "Mr. Brownstone". Incidents like these earned them a reputation as "the most dangerous band in the world".

  The worst came on the Use Your Illusion Tour. On the 2nd of July 1991 at the Riverport Amphitheater in Maryland Heights, Missouri, Rose saw a fan filming with a camera. He asked venue security to take it away, then jumped into the audience and assaulted the fan. Back on stage, he said, "Well, thanks to the lame-ass security, I'm going home!" He threw his microphone down and left. The crowd rioted, and dozens were injured. Police could not arrest Rose for almost a year, because the band had gone overseas. A judge ruled that he had not directly incited the riot, but he was found guilty of property damage and assault. He was fined $50,000 and given two years probation.

  A second riot followed in August 1992 at Montreal's Olympic Stadium, during a stadium tour with Metallica. James Hetfield suffered second-degree burns after pyrotechnics malfunctioned, and Metallica had to cancel the second hour of its set. The crowd waited through a long delay. When Guns N' Roses finally took the stage, the band could not hear themselves because the monitors had not been tuned. Rose said his throat hurt, and the band left early. In the riot that followed, 10 audience members and three police officers were injured, and police made at least a dozen arrests.

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• 5. Excess On Record

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  By May 1991, the band had a new manager. Rolling Stone reported that Rose forced the dismissal of Alan Niven by refusing to finish the albums until Doug Goldstein replaced him, against the wishes of some bandmates. The recordings were released as two albums, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, on the 17th of September 1991.

  The tactic worked. The two albums debuted at number two and number one on the Billboard chart. No act had managed that feat since Jim Croce in 1974 and none would again until Nelly in 2004. Use Your Illusion II sold 770,000 copies in its first week, and Use Your Illusion I sold 685,000. They spent 108 weeks on the chart and have sold a combined 35 million copies worldwide, 14 million of them in the United States.

  Videos were a major part of the campaign. "Don't Cry", "November Rain" and "Estranged" are counted among the most expensive music videos ever made. "November Rain" reached number 3 in the US and became the most requested video on MTV. It won the 1992 MTV Video Music Award for best cinematography, and at 8:57 it was then the longest song in US chart history to reach the top ten. At the awards show, Elton John accompanied the band on piano.

  The Use Your Illusion Tour lasted 28 months. It included 192 shows in 27 countries, with over seven million people attending, and is considered the longest tour in rock history. Setlists included a Slash guitar solo based on The Godfather theme and a piano-driven cover of Black Sabbath's "It's Alright". In 1992, the band played three songs at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. The activist group ACT UP demanded that they be dropped because of "One in a Million". Queen guitarist Brian May dismissed the protest, saying, "People seem so blind. Don't they realize that the mere fact that Guns N' Roses are here is the biggest statement that you could get?" The tour ended in Buenos Aires on the 17th of July 1993.

  A release on the 23rd of November 1993 followed. "The Spaghetti Incident?" was a collection of punk and glam covers, with songs by the U.K. Subs, the Damned, the New York Dolls, the Stooges, Misfits, T. Rex and Soundgarden, among others. The band wanted to raise the profile of favorite acts and send them royalties, and they considered calling it "Pension Fund". It debuted at number 4 and sold 190,000 copies in its first week. A hidden track, a cover of a song by Charles Manson, sparked outrage from law enforcement and victims rights groups. Royalties were directed to a victims bureau named for Doris Tate. The album is the band's lowest-selling studio record, at 1 million copies by 2018.

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• 6. Exits And Ownership

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  On the 11th of July 1990, Steven Adler was fired. Drugs had already led to a brief dismissal and a contract in which he promised to stay clean. During the recording of "Civil War", he struggled so badly that the band needed nearly 30 takes. Adler said he was sick from taking opiate blockers. In 2005, he recalled being told to sign contracts, and said he later learned they paid him $2,000 to leave and took his royalties and writing credits. He filed a lawsuit to get them back.

  Matt Sorum, who had played briefly with the Cult, became the new drummer, and Slash credited him with preventing a breakup. Stradlin said the change was a big musical difference. He believed Adler's sense of swing, the push and pull, gave the songs their feel. Keyboardist Dizzy Reed had joined as a full-time member shortly before.

  Stradlin himself quit abruptly on the 7th of November 1991. A repeat of the Missouri incident had nearly unfolded at a concert in Germany. He cited Rose's behavior and mismanagement, along with the strain of being sober around bandmates still struggling with addiction. Stradlin explained, "Once I quit drugs, I couldn't help looking around and asking myself, 'Is this all there is?' I was just tired of it; I needed to get out". Los Angeles guitarist Gilby Clarke replaced him. Slash credited Clarke with saving the band. Clarke's contract was not renewed, and he was gone by 1995.

  In August 1995, Rose legally left the band and created a new partnership under its name. He reportedly bought the full rights to the name in 1997. Slash claimed the members signed the name over under duress before a 1992 show. Rose flatly denied that, calling it fantasy.

  By then, tension had grown over Rose's childhood friend Paul "Huge" Tobias, who played rhythm guitar on a 1994 cover of "Sympathy for the Devil". Slash quit officially in October 1996. Rose notified MTV by fax, and Slash replied that he and Rose had not been able to see eye to eye for some time. Robin Finck, formerly of Nine Inch Nails, took his place in January 1997. Sorum was fired that April after an argument about Tobias, whom he called the "Yoko Ono of Guns N' Roses".

  McKagan was the last of the Appetite lineup to go, resigning in August 1997. He had just become a father and wrote of paying for studios from 1994 to 1997 without a single finished song. Josh Freese took over on drums that summer. Tommy Stinson joined in 1998 on Freese's recommendation. By the end of that year, only Rose and Reed remained from the Illusion years.

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• 7. The Long Wait

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  As early as 1994, a new album was reportedly in the works, with Rose as the only original member left. Producers including Youth, Moby, Mike Clink, Eric Caudieux and Sean Beaven worked with the band in the late 1990s on electronic and industrial elements. By August 1999, over 30 songs had been recorded, and the working title was 2000 Intentions. Later that year, in an MTV interview with Kurt Loder, Rose announced the name Chinese Democracy. He said he liked the sound of it and called the record a melting pot of styles.

  Guitarist Buckethead joined in March 2000, replacing Finck, who returned later that year. Drummer Brain replaced Freese. Mid-2000 brought another setback, when producer Roy Thomas Baker convinced Rose to re-record the album. In January 2001, the band played two well-received shows, one in Las Vegas and one at Rock in Rio. Rose said on stage that he was disappointed that the old friends could not all get along.

  A November 2002 North American tour fell apart. The opening show in Vancouver was canceled when Rose failed to arrive, and a riot ensued. Philadelphia saw a second riot after another no-show, and promoter Clear Channel canceled the rest of the tour.

  Money became a problem. In February 2004, Geffen said that recording costs had exceeded approved budgets by millions of dollars. By March 2004, it had pulled funding. A 2005 report by The New York Times said Rose had spent $13 million in the studio by then. The album is credited as the most expensive rock album ever produced, at an estimated $14 million. Songs leaked repeatedly, including "I.R.S." in 2003 and demos in 2006.

  In 2004, with no studio album in over ten years, Geffen released Guns N' Roses' Greatest Hits without band approval. Slash, McKagan and Rose sued unsuccessfully to stop it. It went triple platinum in the United States and became the third-longest-charting album of the Nielsen SoundScan era.

  On the 26th of March 2008, Dr Pepper promised a free can to everyone in America if the album appeared before the end of 2008. The offer excluded Slash and Buckethead. The album arrived in November 2008, first in Europe and Australia, then in North America as a Best Buy exclusive. Days earlier, the band streamed it on Myspace, which set a record for the most streamed album. Chinese Democracy debuted at number 3 on the Billboard 200 and sold 2.6 million copies worldwide. It undersold expectations, and critics were divided.

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• 8. Not In This Lifetime

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  In February 2009, Rose gave his first interview in nine years and ruled out any reunion with Slash. He said, "What's clear is that one of the two of us will die before a reunion." He was more open to working with Stradlin or McKagan. Over the next few years, McKagan guested on stage several times, first at The O2 Arena in London on the 14th of October 2010. He played four songs after the two men happened to be staying in the same hotel.

  On the 14th of April 2012, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Slash, McKagan, Adler, Sorum and Clarke reunited at the ceremony, with Myles Kennedy singing lead on "Mr. Brownstone", "Sweet Child o' Mine" and "Paradise City". Rose did not attend. He had asked not to be inducted, writing that the Hall "doesn't appear to be somewhere I'm actually wanted or respected". The crowd booed his name. NME reported that security on the band's 2012 Israel tour had been told to bar anyone wearing a Slash T-shirt.

  After the Hall of Fame, the band played smaller venues on the Up Close and Personal Tour, then took residencies at The Joint in Las Vegas. DJ Ashba left in July 2015, and Stinson left too. In December 2015, Billboard reported that Slash was set to rejoin. Coachella announced Guns N' Roses as headliner on the 4th of January 2016, with McKagan and Slash returning.

  The Not in This Lifetime... Tour took its name from Rose's reply in a 2012 interview, when asked when a reunion might happen. A warmup show at the Troubadour on the 1st of April 2016 returned the band to the venue of its debut. Rose fell off a monitor and broke his foot, so Dave Grohl lent him the customized throne he had used after breaking his own leg. Melissa Reese replaced Chris Pitman on keyboards. At Coachella, AC/DC guitarist Angus Young joined them. In Cincinnati in July 2016, Adler played drums on two songs, his first performance with the group since 1990.

  The tour grossed over $480 million by December 2017, then the fourth highest of all time. By its end in December 2018, it had grossed $563.3 million, second only to U2's U2 360° Tour. Meanwhile, billboards in April 2018 carried the tagline "Destruction Is Coming". They teased a deluxe edition called "Appetite for Destruction: Locked N' Loaded", with 73 songs on four CDs, 49 of them previously unreleased. The song chosen to announce it was "Shadow of Your Love", a song from the 1986 test sessions that became the band's first single in almost a decade.

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