Guns N’ Roses (also written as Guns n’ Roses) is an American hard rock band that was formed in 1985 in Los Angeles. They have sold approximately 100 million albums worldwide, including over 42 million in the USA. In April 2012, the band was honored with induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, Guns n’ Roses was one of the most successful bands in the world. Their debut album, Appetite for Destruction, sold 35 million copies worldwide, while the two-part Use Your Illusion sold over 25 million copies.
In the mid-1990s, most of the original members left the band, leaving singer Axl Rose as the only remaining member from the founding year for the following two decades. After more than a decade of little new material being released by the band, the album Chinese Democracy was released in 2008. In April 2016, there was a reunion with former band members Slash and Duff McKagan.
Rolling Stone ranked the band 92nd on the list of the 100 greatest musicians of all time.
Band history
The Beginnings (1983–1986)
School friends Axl Rose (vocals) and Izzy Stradlin (rhythm guitar) from Indiana moved to Los Angeles in the early 1980s and started writing songs together. After playing in various bands, they formed the band Hollywood Rose in 1983. It broke up the following year. Some songs from that time were later used for recordings by Guns N’ Roses. Stradlin switched to the band London and Rose joined the L. A. Guns. In 1985, both played in the same band again: Together with other members of L. A. Guns, they founded Guns n’ Roses, whose name was composed of the names of the predecessor bands. Other members were Tracii Guns (lead guitar), Ole Beich (bass), and Rob Gardener (drums).
Beich left the band after a performance. The new bassist was Duff McKagan from Seattle, who had previously worked mainly in punk rock. Among other things, he had played for the group Road Crew, whose only two permanent members were school friends Slash (real name: Saul Hudson) and Steven Adler. McKagan brought both musicians to Guns n’ Roses to replace Guns and Gardener. Slash took over the lead guitar, Adler the drums. The band had thus found its first permanent lineup. After local successes, Guns n’ Roses were signed by the record label Geffen Records in 1986. At the label Uzi Suicide Records, the band released their first EP titled Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide in a limited edition of 10,000 copies.
The Breakthrough (1987–1989)
On July 21, 1987, Appetite for Destruction, the first regular album by Guns n’ Roses, was released. The record only sold sluggishly in the first few months. The following year, the band scored a hit with the single “Welcome to the Jungle,” even tho it initially only aired in the nite program of the influential music channel MTV. After the music video for Sweet Child o’ Mine was played in heavy rotation, album sales also picked up. In the summer of 1988, the album and single reached number one on the American Billboard charts. The single “Paradise City” was also a hit. The album Appetite for Destruction has sold 35 million copies worldwide to date, making it one of the most successful rock albums as well as the most successful debut album of all time.
At the end of 1988, a second album titled G N’ R Lies was released. It consisted of half the songs from the EP Live?!*@ Like a Suicide and four new songs. The album made it into the top five of the album charts, while Appetite for Destruction was still represented there. Guns n’ Roses were thus the only band of the 1980s to have two albums in the top 5 at the same time. The single Patience also reached the American Top 10. At this point, the success of Guns n’ Roses was no longer limited to their home country. Their albums and singles also reached high positions in the charts in other countries. At the MTV Video Music Awards in the fall of 1989, Guns N’ Roses won the award for Best Heavy Metal Video for “Sweet Child o’ Mine.”
The band’s profile was further raised by various scandals. At the British Monsters of Rock festival in Donington in 1988, two fans were trampled to death during the band’s performance, which the band only learned about after their performance and expressed their shock at the events. The song “One in a Million” from the second album was accused of being racist and sexist. The alcohol abuse and heroin use by the band members led to various negative incidents. Parts of the media condemned the behavior of Guns n’ Roses, which further enhanced their reputation as an aggressive hard rock band.
The Peak (1990–1993)
In the summer of 1990, Guns n’ Roses underwent a personnel change for the first time in five years. Unlike the other members of the band, Steven Adler was unable to overcome his heroin addiction, and was replaced by Matt Sorum, the drummer of The Cult. A keyboardist, Dizzy Reed, was brought in as a permanent sixth member, but was not made a full member of the band.
For a long time, a new album titled “Use Your Illusion” had been announced, with its release being postponed multiple times. The band’s concerts were extremely successful. On January 21, 1991, Guns n’ Roses headlined the Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in front of 140,000 people. In May, the band began their world tour to promote the new album, even before its release. Axl Rose was taken to court for inciting a riot after the band cut short a concert at the then Riverport Amphitheater in St Louis on July 2, 1991. This concert event is also known as the Riverport Riot.
On September 17, 1991, the band’s new work was released simultaneously: Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II were released as two independent albums and entered the US charts at number 2 and number 1, respectively. A total of 36 million copies of the two albums have been sold worldwide to date. Even before the release, the band lost its main songwriter, Izzy Stradlin, who left the band a few weeks after the recording sessions ended because he had overcome his drug addiction and no longer wanted to support the band’s extravagant lifestyle. He was replaced by Gilby Clarke before the release of the first single, “You Could Be Mine.” The singles November Rain and Don’t Cry reached the top 10 in the USA. With You Could Be Mine, Live and Let Die, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, and Yesterdays, four more singles reached the top ten of the British charts. The elaborate video for “November Rain” won the MTV award for Best Cinematography in a Video in 1992. The Use Your Illusion tour continued until the summer of 1993 and was extremely successful. In 28 months, Guns n’ Roses had given a total of 192 concerts.
The Transformation (1994–2005)
In November 1993, the next album, “The Spaghetti Incident?”, was released. This did not consist of new original songs, but exclusively of cover versions, which predominantly came from punk and glam rock. The reason for this is often assumed to be that after Stradlin’s departure, who had been significantly involved in the band’s songwriting, Rose and Slash were unable to bring their own compositions into a suitably tight form, so they resorted to external material instead. The album reached number 4 in the US charts, but sales were far behind those of its predecessors; singles released later were moderate successes in Europe. Critics mockingly referred to the album as The Spaghetti Accident?
Guns n’ Roses did not release another studio album for 15 years after that. There was a dispute within the band. Gilby Clarke was dismissed in 1994 because Rose blamed him for the band’s difficulties with songwriting, and he was replaced by Paul “Tobias” Huge, with whom Axl Rose had already written the song “Back Off, Bitch.” In addition, the musical direction of the group became increasingly controversial: Slash wanted to continue playing classic hard rock, while Axl Rose favored a progressive direction with industrial rock influences. In 1995, Slash founded his own band called Slash’s Snakepit, and the following year, his departure from Guns N’ Roses was officially announced. As reasons for his departure, Slash cites in his 2007 autobiography the lost band chemistry after the departure of Steven Adler and especially Izzy Stradlin, as well as personal differences with Axl Rose. After Matt Sorum and Duff McKagan left the band in 1997, Axl Rose was the last remaining member from the founding year.
Axl Rose did not disband Guns n’ Roses, but instead replaced his longtime companions with new musicians: Paul Tobias (rhythm guitar), who had already played on the single “Sympathy for the Devil,” Robin Finck (lead guitar), Josh Freese (drums), Tommy Stinson (bass), and Chris Pitman as the second keyboardist alongside Dizzy Reed. A new album with the working title 2000 Intensions, which was soon changed to Chinese Democracy, was announced, but Guns n’ Roses only released the live compilation Live Era: ’87–’93 in 1999. The only new material released was the single “Oh My God,” which was included on the soundtrack to the Arnold Schwarzenegger film End of Days. Neither the live album nor the new single were particularly successful.
In 2000, the next personnel changes within the band occurred: Josh Freese was replaced by Bryan Mantia, Robin Finck by the avant-garde guitarist Buckethead, and two years later Paul Tobias by Richard Fortus. Finck quickly returned to the band, which from that point on featured a total of three guitars in the lineup. Compared to the early 1990s, the band’s performances were rather sporadic. On New Year’s Eve 2001, the new lineup played its first concert at the House of Blues and received positive reviews. In January 2001, the band played in Brazil in front of nearly 300,000 spectators as headliners of the Rock In Rio festival. In the fall of 2002, Guns N’ Roses went on a small tour of North America and the UK. There were riots when the band canceled their Vancouver concert at the last minute, leading to fans rioting.
Since there was still no new studio album in sight, Geffen released the Greatest Hits in March 2004. Although Axl Rose and former band members Slash and Duff McKagan had opposed the compilation, it became the biggest selling album since Use Your Illusion. In the same year, Buckethead left the band.
The New Beginning (2006–2015)
On May 12, 2006, the band held their comeback concert in New York, where the new lead guitarist Bumblefoot (real name: Ronald Blumenthal) was introduced. They performed at Rock am Ring in 2006. Robin Finck was still listed as the third guitarist until 2008, but then returned to his old band Nine Inch Nails. At some performances of the European tour of Guns n’ Roses, Izzy Stradlin briefly played with the band again toward the end of the respective concerts. During the tour, Frank Ferrer permanently took over the drums from Bryan Mantia. The band had thus found a permanent lineup again, at least for the coming years.
Since the 1990s, a new album titled Chinese Democracy had already been announced. Its release was postponed several times, making it a running gag in the music business. In October 2006, the official US tour to promote the album began, but it was still not released. However, new material from Guns n’ Roses appeared illegally on the internet.
In March 2008, the American soft drink manufacturer Dr Pepper announced that it would give every resident of the USA a can of the drink if Chinese Democracy was released that year. In the autumn, the promise was actually fulfilled, at least Americans could register for a free drink. The new album, Chinese Democracy, was released on November 22, 2008.
After almost no PR had been done for the album, Guns n’ Roses went on tour with the new guitarist DJ Ashba in December 2009. They first played a few concerts in Asia, where they returned to Japan, among other places, at the Tokyo Dome. Afterward, the tour took them to Canada, as well as for two surprise concerts in the USA and South America. From July to October, Guns n’ Roses played in Europe; most recently, they were on tour in Australia.
At a concert at the London O₂ Arena on October 14, 2010, longtime bassist Duff McKagan played with the band for the first time since 1993. He played bass on the songs You Could Be Mine, Nice Boys and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and tambourine on Patience.
On October 2, 2011, they headlined the Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro for the third consecutive time. This was followed by a tour of America. On June 8, 2012, they gave their only concert in Germany since 2006 in Mönchengladbach. In 2014, Duff McKagan filled in for the band because Tommy Stinson couldn’t play at some concerts.
In 2011, Guns n’ Roses made it into international media coverage. The Russian board member Andrey Rappoport of the Russian company FGC UES paid one million US dollars for a private concert in Moscow. He gave it to the company’s deputy head, Alexander Chistyakov.
In July 2015, DJ Ashba announced his departure from Guns n’ Roses. He wanted to focus more on his band Sixx:A.M. and take care of his family. Other band members, such as Bumblefoot, who in the past has increasingly faced scheduling conflicts between the band and his solo activities, have also only cautiously commented on future plans. At the end of August, Richard Fortus announced that 2016 would be a big year for the band’s fans.
The Reunification (since 2016)
In January 2016, Guns N’ Roses announced that the band would perform at the California Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 16 and 23, 2016. For the first time in around 23 years, Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan would be back on stage together. The rest of the line-up, particularly who would take over the rhythm guitar and drums, was not initially known. The 180,000 tickets for the Coachella Festival were sold out after an hour.
On April 1, 2016, the reunited Guns N’ Roses gave their first concert at the Troubadour, a club in Los Angeles, with the lineup Axl Rose (vocals), Slash (lead guitar), Duff McKagan (bass guitar), Dizzy Reed (keyboards), Richard Fortus (rhythm guitar), Frank Ferrer (drums), and Melissa Reese as the new keyboardist. The surprise concert was announced only on the morning of April 1.
Since this concert, the Not In This Lifetime World Tour has been running with the partially reunited lineup. The name is a reference to an interview with Axl Rose from 2012, in which he answered the question of whether there was a chance for a future reunion (especially with Slash) with “Not In This Lifetime.”
The tour also went to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. On June 7, 2017, the band played their only concert for Switzerland in Zurich. Their first concert in Germany was on June 13, 2017, at the Munich Olympic Stadium, their first concert in the Bavarian capital since 1993. The concert in Hanover on 22 June 2017 had to be interrupted due to bad weather. The 75,000 visitors were asked to go to the nearby exhibition halls. The show resumed after a 90-minute break. As a guest musician, Angus Young performed for two pieces. Due to the special circumstances, the mayor of Hanover gave special permission for the concert to continue after midnight. It lasted until 1.15 a.m. In July 2017, a concert followed at the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna. After concerts in North and South America, the band returned to Europe in the summer of 2018, with the opening taking place on June 3, 2018, at the Olympiastadion in Berlin. In 2020, the band returned to Germany for two shows as part of Leg 13 (Europe) of the Not in This Lifetime… Tour, performing on May 26, 2020, at the Olympiastadion in Munich and on June 2, 2020, at the Volksparkstadion in Hamburg.
The Not In This Lifetime tour is considered financially very successful. At the end of 2017, the revenue was 475 million US dollars (about 404 million euros). In the summer of 2018, the album “Appetite for Destruction” was also released as a remastered album. Thus, after 29 years, the album returned to the American Billboard 200 charts at number 10, while it reentered the German album charts at number 2 in July 2018.
Timeline
Style
The band’s style evolved over the years, incorporating various genres. Thus, the debut album Appetite for Destruction was clearly marked by sleaze rock, a subgenre of hard rock that emphasizes a deliberately dirty and unrefined style (this also influenced the band’s image and appearance, which portrayed them as rebellious underdogs with excessive, self-destructive behavior and pessimistic lyrics, standing in stark contrast to the cleanly styled and more “poppy” oriented bands of glam metal like Bon Jovi or Van Halen). Songs like “Welcome to the Jungle” or “Nightrain” are very riff-heavy, the guitars often not played perfectly clean, and the cheap production conditions contributed to a raw, unrefined sound that characterized this album. There isn’t a ballad on this album yet. G N’ R Lies, half of which is an unplugged album, incorporated not only acoustic rock but also some elements of blues and blues rock. The songs on the Use Your Illusion albums were very diverse: Here, too, there are songs that, due to their raw power, can be most closely associated with sleaze rock (such as “Right Next Door To Hell,” “Garden Of Eden,” or “Shotgun Blues”), while there are also clear elements of blues rock (“Bad Obsession”), blues (“You Ain’t The First”), and country influences (intro to “Breakdown”). The number of rock ballads (November Rain, Estranged, the version of Don’t Cry that appears on both albums) is quite high overall. With “The Spaghetti Incident?”, a pure cover album was created, the originals of which predominantly come from the hard rock and punk genres. Most of the songs were presented here in a straightforward hard rock version. The critically ambivalent Chinese Democracy includes synth sounds, loops and drum computers, which at times remind one of works of nu metal. Otherwise, this album is also rather in a conventional hard rock style.
Music videos
Guns n’ Roses produced elaborate music videos for some of their songs. November Rain, at a cost of .5 million, is one of the twenty most expensive videos of all time. The band won the MTV Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for the clips of the Use Your Illusion albums. With the video for Sweet Child o’ Mine, Guns n’ Roses set a record: it is the first music video of the eighties with over a billion views.
Unreleased Songs
Over the years that the group has been on tour, it has often happened that the band also played songs that are not on any of the regularly available albums. Most of these songs have been recorded on bootleg. Some of the songs were a staple of the setlist, for example, Sail Away Sweet Sister was practically always played as an intro to Sweet Child o’ Mine. Unreleased songs (some cover versions) include:
Ain’t Going Down Anxious Disease, Bad Time Blues Jam, Bohemian Rhapsody, Born to Be Wild Bring It Back Home, Come Together, Cornshucker, Crash Diet, Dead, Jail or Rock n’ Roll Drift Away, Dust in the Wind, Everything Fallen Angel, Free Fallin’ Godfather Theme Good Nite Tonight Happiness Is a Warm Gun Heartbreak Hotel, Honky Tonk Women, I Did You No Wrong, Imagine Indiana Ain’t My Kinda Town I Keep Smiling, I Was Only Joking, It’s All Right, It Tastes Good, Don’t It? Jumping Jack Flash, Just Another Sunday, Let It Be Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds Marseilles, Mongoloid, Mother, One, Only Women Bleed Piece of Me Roadhouse Blues, Rock n’ Roll, Sail Away Sweet Sister, Sailing, Salt of the Earth, Sentimental Movie, Tie Your Mother Down, Train Kept a Rollin’ Too Fast to Live, Too Much, Too Soon Under My Wheels Voodoo Child, We Will Rock You, You Shook Me All Nite Long
Since the above songs were still played with the old lineup, it is unlikely that they will ever be officially released.
