Welcome to your 60s, Axl Rose!
The Guns N’ Roses frontman was born on February 6, 1962, 60 years ago this Sunday. He moved to Los Angeles in the early ’80s, and in 1985, Guns N’ Roses was formed with Rose on vocals, guitarists Slash and Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Steven Adler, now referred to as the band’s classic lineup.
Two years later, GN’R released their debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which spawned hit singles in “Welcome to Jungle,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Paradise City,” and went on to become one of the best-selling records of all time.
GN’R followed Appetite with 1988’s GN’R Lies, and then 1991’s Use Your Illusion I and II. By then, drummer Adler had been fired from the group because of his drug use, and the band had earned a bad reputation due to destructive behavior on the road. Stradlin soon left, too.
Guns would release one more album, a covers compilation called “The Spaghetti Incident?”, in 1993, before Slash and McKagan eventually departed the group in 1996 and 1997, respectively.
Rose, the only remaining original member, continued to work on new GN’R music for a new album called Chinese Democracy, which would become one of the most notorious records in history while sitting in development hell for a decade before finally being released in 2008.
As Rose kept touring GN’R without his old band mates, fans wondered whether a reunion was ever possible. Finally, in 2016, Slash and McKagan rejoined for the Not in This Lifetime tour, a reference to Rose’s previous comments regarding a reunion. The run became the third highest-grossing tour of all time.
In between, Rose fronted AC/DC in 2016 in place of Brian Johnson, who was sidelined due to hearing issues.
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