Axl Rose

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W. Axl Rose
Axl Rose live at Download 2006
Background information
Birth name	William Bruce Rose, Jr.
Born	February 6, 1962 (age 45) Lafayette, Indiana
Genre(s)	Hard rock
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter
Instrument(s)	Vocals Piano Guitar
Years active	1985-Present
Label(s)	Geffen Records
Associated acts	Guns N' Roses Hollywood Rose
Website	www.gunsnroses.com

W. Axl Rose ^[1], commonly known as Axl Rose, (born William Bruce Rose, Jr. on February 6, 1962) is an American musician, best known as the lead singer for Guns N' Roses.

Axl is also well known for his on stage antics, disputes with former band mates, and for delaying his latest album, Chinese Democracy.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Born in Lafayette, Indiana to William and Sharon E. Rose, Axl was brought up in a deeply religious Pentecostal family, singing in church, which he started doing at the age of 5, and teaching Sunday school. He has two younger siblings, a sister named Amy and a step-brother named Stuart. William Rose left the family when Axl was two years old, bringing the start of a troubled childhood for Axl who, as an adult, has claimed that repressed memories had revealed to him that his biological father, William Rose, had sexually abused him as a small child. His mother remarried when he was a small child, and changed Axl's name to William Bailey, using the last name of her new husband, L. Stephen Bailey, a man whom Rose has also stated physically abused him.^[2]

Because of his turbulent upbringing and his mother's reluctance to leave the abusive Bailey, Rose is said to have issues with women. He claimed in a Rolling Stone interview in 1992 that during his childhood, he was made to believe that women and sexuality were evil and that due to the violent treatment of his mother by his stepfather he witnessed as an impressionable child, he had been led to think that domestic violence was the normal way of doing things.^[3]

[edit] Charles Manson Song

In 1993, Guns N' Roses released The Spaghetti Incident?, an album of cover tunes. The album included a hidden track, "Look At Your Game, Girl”, a song that was written by Charles Manson, supposedly after Marilyn Manson had spoken to him about writing another song similarly inspired by Charles Manson, entitled "My Monkey".^[4]

[edit] Chinese Democracy

After Slash's and McKagan's departures, Rose continued under the "Guns N' Roses" moniker. Hired during the Use Your Illusion-era, keyboardist Dizzy Reed stayed on with Axl, and is still with the band. Many musicians have passed through the band over the years.

In 2001, a new incarnation of GN'R appeared at Las Vegas and Rio de Janeiro, where Rose and his new band played in front of 250,000 fans at Rock In Rio III. It was here that he introduced new songs "Chinese Democracy", "Madagascar", "The Blues", "Silkworms" and "Rhiad and The Bedouins".

In August 2002, Guns N' Roses performed six shows (Hong Kong, Tokyo, Osaka, London, Leeds and the Pukkelpop festival in Belgium). Rose also made a surprise appearance at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards, officially unveiling the new line-up of Guns N' Roses. A North American tour including 16 shows followed, but it fell apart halfway through after, in December 2002, Rose did not appear for shows in Philadelphia.

Guns N' Roses were scheduled to perform at Rock In Rio Lisbon in early 2004, but this appearance was canceled in an official message by Rose, who apologized to the fans and blamed the no-show on the departure of guitarist Buckethead.

In a rare interview with Rolling Stone Rose shed more light on his long awaited Chinese Democracy album, "We're working on 32 songs, and 26 are nearly done," he said in the interview. "People will hear music this year," he said. "It's a very complex record, I'm trying to do something different. Some of the arrangements are kind of like Queen. Some people are going to say, 'It doesn't sound like Axl Rose, it doesn't sound like Guns N' Roses.' But you'll like at least a few songs on there."[1]

The band, now consisting of Axl, Dizzy Reed, Robin Finck, Tommy Stinson, Chris Pitman, Brian "Brain" Mantia, Richard Fortus, Frank Ferrer and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal (replacing Buckethead), performed their first live concerts in the United States in over three years on May 12, May 14, May 15, and May 17, 2006 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.[2]. They also performed in Madrid on May 25 and in Lisbon (Rock in Rio) on May 27.

On August 31, 2006, Axl presented The Killers at the MTV Video Music Awards by coming out onto the stage and screaming his trademark, "Do you know where the fuck you are?!" In an interview backstage, Axl revealed that the official Chinese Democracy tour will begin "around October 24th," and that the album will be out this year.[3]

On June 11, 2006, Guns N' Roses headlined the Download Festival in Donington Park, England. Within the first half hour of the show; Axl had become annoyed with the quality of the sound and had also lost his footing almost causing him to fall due to the "slippery stage". After briefly leaving and returning the set mid song, throwing the microphone on the floor, yelling at the crowd for throwing a water bottle at him, insulting a security guard and then finally exiting the stage citing technical difficulties while leaving Bumblefoot to play an instrumental of the song 'Don't Cry', he returned on stage and was joined by Izzy Stradlin to play "Used to Love Her" and a few other songs. Axl was also joined by Sebastian Bach and together they sang "My Michelle".

Among the things discussed in a December 15th, 2006 open letter from Axl to the fans are the reasons as to why exactly the album wasn't released in 2006. The letter names March 6th, 2007 as a tentative release date. [4] The band did not release the album by that date and they still have not released it.

[edit] Controversies

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[edit] Tommy Hilfiger

In May 2006, Rose had a close encounter with Tommy Hilfiger at the Plumm in New York City. Hilfiger reportedly took a couple of swings at Rose, before being carried away by his own security guards. Rose made the claim that the attack began when Rose moved the drink of Hilfiger's girlfriend so that it wouldn't spill.^[5]

[edit] Eagles of Death Metal

On November 24, 2006 at Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena, Rose referred to opening act the Eagles of Death Metal as the "Pigeons of Shit Metal." He then said, "I'm sorry to say that this will be their last night with us". The EODM later claimed that Tommy Stinson took his bass off and threw it on the floor saying "Fuck you, that's it".^[6] Tommy has gone on record as saying that he did not act out against Axl for his comments, despite his suggestions that the EODM open.

[edit] Trivia

• Axl plays the voice of Tommy "The Nightmare" Smith, former lead singer of the (fictional) 1970's rock band Crystal Ship, and radio DJ of Classic Rock radio K-DST in the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.^[7]
• The character Axl Low in the Guilty Gear series of fighting games is patterned on Rose, as is the Fighting Vipers character Raxel, who wields a guitar. In addition, one of the enemies in Final Fight is named after him.^[8]
• Inducted Elton John into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.^[9]
• Axl Rose and the other Guns N' Roses members, were the source of the names of the Mavericks in the American version of Mega Man X5, Axl parallel being named "Axl the Red".^[10]
• Was a background singer on Don Henley's song "I Will Not Go Quietly".^[11]
• Axl Rose has his left nipple pierced.
• In the Ben Folds Five song titled "Julianne," Axl is mentioned in the lyrics, "I met this girl, she looked like Axl Rose."
• Axl Rose is an anagram for "oral sex" and his initials form the acronym WAR.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• GunsNRoses.Com - Official website of Guns N' Roses
• W. Axl Rose at the Internet Movie Database

• Rolling Stone Intv. Jan. 17, 2006 Axl Rose Breaks His Silence by Steve Baltin