The Story of Guns 'n Roses (Fall 2016 Issue)

It was October 1996. Axl Rose just faxed a letter to Kurt Loder of MTV informing him that guitarist Slash had just quit Guns N’ Roses.  Slash said his reason was a total inability to work with Rose on a creative or personal level anymore.  A year later, bassist Duff McKagan left the band also stating his reason as total inability by Rose to do anything music related.  And that was it - Guns N’ Roses was done.  Axl Rose still owned the name and would perform occasionally under the name and would release a new album many years later using the name Guns N’ Roses, but it lacked the GNR sound. For all intent and purposes Guns N’ Roses were gone, never to return.  A very dark ending, but it wasn’t always that way…

Guns N’ Roses was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985.  They struggled as most bands do by playing gigs where they could find them.  That was until they were signed by Geffen records in 1987 and recorded their first album titled Appetite for Destruction.  The following year in the summer of 1988 the band’s first single Sweet Child O’Mine shot up the charts and hit number one on the Billboard top 100.  It was followed up by the singles Welcome to the Jungle and Paradise City, both of which reached as high as number 7 on the Billboard top 100.  To date Appetite for Destruction has sold 30 million copies. 

Because of endless touring in support of Appetite for Destruction, the band did not have time to record another full length album. So instead they put out an EP called Lies.  It featured 4 new songs and 4 songs performed live.  The only single on this EP was called Patience but it ended up being a much larger hit than expected, peaking at 4 on the Billboard top 100.  Lies has sold 5 million copies.

After some much needed rest the band returned to the studio in 1990 and had their most successful period of writing and recording songs.  The band was in the zone and in perfect harmony with each other.  They recorded a lot of real quality songs, the only problem was there were too many for one album.  The band came up with the idea of releasing the album in two parts.  Geffen records agreed and in September 1991 Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II were released and debuted on the charts at number 1 & 2.  These albums would go on to have 9 singles between the two of them and sell a combined 23 million albums.  The band went on a massive 3 yearlong world tour in support of the Use Your Illusion albums playing stadiums all over the world.  

While the enormous tour was great for financial gains, it was near the end of this tour where the band started to drift apart and wedges started to get driven.  The band was so exhausted after the tour that they decided to just put out an album of themselves covering some of their favorite songs by punk rock bands.  The album was called The Spaghetti Incident.  The album did not do well, selling only 1 million copies.  Shortly after this we end up where this article began, at the end. Or so we thought.

After 20 years of the former members of GNR going in and out of different bands and different projects, the impossible happened. In January 2016 it was announced that Rose, Slash and McKagan had reconciled their long standing differences and that there would be a reunion tour of stadiums in the USA.  I personally was very excited to hear this, but tried to temper my expectations because of their volatile history.  But low and behold on July 12th, I saw my favorite band of my middle school years live, something I never thought would happen.  Not only did I see them, I was blown away.  They played for over 3 hours.  The setlist covered their entire career, everything from all their hits to some really cool deep cuts.  This just goes to show you that no matter how improbable something is, nothing is impossible.

Sean O'Brien is the Music Writer for the Holiday Café. He enjoys going to concerts, playing the drums and rocking out to Grunge music.  He resides in McDonald, PA with his wife and daughter.