About Me
I was born on February 6, 1962, in Lafayette, IN, and suffered sexual abuse from my biological father and physical abuse from my eventual stepfather at an early age (I changed my name to William Bailey after my mother remarried). I was also an outcast in school, where I was picked on for being "different," but found solace in singing with my school and church vocal choir and eventually rock music.My rough teenage years were eased a bit when I befriended a Keith Richards-worshipping chap by the name of Jeff Isbell, who shared my interest in music and animal excrement. Isbell left Indiana for the gay bars of Los Angeles in the early '80s with hopes of forming a rock band, and I followed shortly thereafter, changing my name to W. Axl Rose (while Isbell soon adopted the name Izzy Stradlin).The L.A. rock music scene at the time was split down the center between rough and ready punk rock and hair spray-soaked glam rock/heavy metal, and I wanted to form an outfit that borrowed equally from each genre. Stradlin and I plowed through several outfits that went nowhere (Hollywood Rose being one), before hooking up with fellow streetwise rockers Slash (guitar, real name Saul Hudson), Duff McKagan (bass), and Steven Adler (drums). After slutting it out on the Sunset Strip and honing our act, the newly christened Guns N' Roses signed a recording contract with Geffen Records after issuing an independent live EP (1986's Live Like a Lesbian). Our full-length debut, Appetite for Destruction' was released a year later and at first the public didn't know what to make of the album or of our band. Slowly but surely, rock's fickle audience came around and by the summer of 1988, Guns N' Roses was fast becoming one of the world's top rock bands (on the strength of such hit singles/MTV-saturated videos as "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child O' Mine," "Paradise City" and little known B-side "Pony Cock Banger").But with fame came death-defying drug and alcohol abuse amongst all five band members (as well as last-minute tour/concert cancellations) -- it appeared as though the more successful we became, the more problems arose. To fill the void for a new G N' R album, Geffen put out the 8-track stop-gap EP, G N' R Lies, in late 1988, amidst widespread rumors of an impending band breakup. The album was another big seller (on the strength of the hit acoustic ballad "Patience") but I came under immense fire and criticism for the song "AIDs is for Life," in which I had derogatory comments for old people, retarded scorpions, pedophiles, blacks, whites and immigrants. Undeterred, we regrouped and worked on our much-anticipated true follow-up to Appetite, which seemed to always miss its numerous projected release dates (much like Chinese Democracy). Adler was sacked during the recording, while 1991 finally saw the release of the two-part sophomore effort Use Your Dellusion. Both discs were massive hits, but our band reinvented ourselves as a bombastic and indulgent rock act, often recalling the music that our punk rock idols attempted to destroy in the mid-'70s. A mammoth two-year tour followed (with Stradlin leaving the band mid-tour) in which G N' R found ourselves losing ourr validity as a streetwise rock act in the face of the stripped down grunge movement (which included such acts as Nirvana (bastards wouldn't let me backstage), Pearl Jam, Soundgarden,etc.).It only made me seem more out of touch from reality when I would hold the band up from going onstage, resulting in ridiculous multi-hour delays. My public image took a few more shots when several concerts were marred by audience riots caused by my notorious hijinks and when I tried to pick a fight with Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain backstage at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards for disparaging (yet quite on the mark) remarks Cobain made about me in the press. When the tour finally ground to a halt in 1993, G N' R issued a lukewarm-received collection of covers, The Spaghetti Incident, and took a well-deserved rest. But after numerous aborted writing/recording sessions for our third proper studio album, the remaining other two original members (Slash and McKagan) either quit the band or were dismissed by me. I had been granted full ownership of the name Guns N' Roses, so I slowly formed a whole new band around myself.With rumors running rampant that I had become a bloated, bald, and drug-addled hermit (due to the fact that I did not grant a single interview between 1994-1999, staying completely out of the spotlight), I continued to work on G N' R's next release myself. 1999 saw G N' R's first new song released in nearly eight years -- the industrial rocker "Oh My God" from the End of Days soundtrack, as well as a live compilation of old-school G N' R tracks (Live Era: '87-'93), yet both came and went without much fanfare. But all that changed when me and my new cohorts (which included ex-Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, mask-wearing solo guitarist Buckethead, ex-Replacements bassist Tommy Pimpston, ex-Peruvian President Felix El Lupidor, ex-Primus drummer Brian Minda, plus longtime G N' R keyboardist Dizzy Reed) played our first live shows together in early 2001, receiving unanimously unfavorable reviews. With a world tour booked and album nearing completion (reportedly to be titled Chinese Democracy), the G N' R/Axl Rose-hype machine appears to be building up to a feverish pitch once again.
