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
Guitars 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 "Paradise City"
followed in its footsteps. By the end of 1988, they released GNR Lies,
which paired four new, acoustic-based songs (including the Top Five hit
"Patience") with their first EP. G N' R Lies' inflammatory
closer, "One in a Million," sparked intense controversy, as Axl
Rose slipped into misogyny, bigotry, and pure violence; essentially, he
somehow managed to distill every form of prejudice and hatred into one
five-minute tune.
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 Montreal. Stradlin left by the end of 1991, and
with his departure the band lost their best songwriter; he was replaced by
ex-Kill for Thrills guitarist Gilby Clarke. The band didn't fully grasp
the shift in hard rock until 1993, when they released an album of
punk
covers, The Spaghetti Incident?; it received some good reviews, but the
band failed to capture the reckless spirit of not only the original
versions, but their own Appetite for Destruction. By the middle of 1994,
there were rumors flying that the band was about to break up, since Rose
wanted to pursue a new, more industrial direction and Slash wanted to
stick with their blues-inflected hard rock. The band remained in limbo for
several more years, and Slash resurfaced in 1995 with the side project
Slash's Snakepit and an LP, It's Five O'Clock Somewhere.
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 Europe was planned, but before tickets could go on sale
Rose announced that the tour was cancelled and the band went into
seclusion until New Years Eve of 2001. They played almost the exact same
set as the year before, but they still managed to brew up some news by not
allowing any former members to watch the show. Slash tried to get onto the
guest list, and even claims to have tried to sneak in through a security
guard. Manager Doug Goldstein released a statement taking full
responsibility for the banning of former members, claiming that he was not
sure of their intentions and he wanted to avoid making Rose nervous.
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. While he was up to his old
shenanigans with the retooled lineup, former members Stradlin, Slash,
Sorum and McKagan finally put an end to the rumors and announced that they
were searching for a vocalist for a new, Axl-free band. Over time,
Stradlin would reduce his role in the new project to guest songwriting and
the occasional live appearance, but with former Stone Temple Pilots
vocalist Scott Weiland, Slash, Sorum and McKagan formed the successful
Velvet Revolver in spring of 2002.
The years between Guns N' Roses 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
