guns and roses, short bio

guns n roses, november 88 on the cover of rolling stone magazine   

The Early Days

It all begun in Los Angeles in 1985 when William Bailey (Axl Rose - vocals) formed a rock band with Jeffrey Isbell (Izzy Stradlin - guitar), Tracii Guns (guitar) and Rob Gardner (drums) called in turn Rose, Hollywood Rose and L.A Guns. Soon Guns and Gardner were replaced by Saul Hudson (Slash - guitar) and Steven Adler (drums) and with the addition of bass player Duff McKagan the band was renamed to Guns N' Roses. Playing a unique sound incorporating punk, blues and metal, the band released a self-produced live album called "Live ?!*@ Like A Suicide" in 1986. Having received some interest from the music industry the band signed to Geffen Records.

The Appetite For Destruction Masterpiece

The following year the band released their debut album "Appetite For Destruction" which, despite being the best selling debut album of all time, it only started selling a year latter when MTV started playing "Sweet Child O' Mine"! The album shoot to number 1 and Guns N' Roses became overnight one the biggest bands in the world. During their performance at the legendary 1988 Monsters Of Rock Festival in Donnington that also featured the likes of Iron Maiden and Kiss two fans died during crowd disturbances.

At the end of 1988 the band released "Lies" which featured four new acoustic songs and tracks from "Live ?!*@ Like A Suicide". The album hit number 2 of the charts but controversially the song "One In A Million" sparked intense controversy for its violent and racist lyrics. Also when in 1989 Guns N' Roses were awarded at the annual award show for best heavy metal album and best heavy metal song for "Appetite For Destruction" and "Paradise City", McKagan and Slash used strong language on live television. As a result all subsequent award shows were broadcasted with a five second delay!

Use Your Illusion Global Domination
Shortly after the release of "Lies" drummer Steve Adler was fired and replaced by Matt Sorum from the Cult and during the recording of their long-awaited second studio album the band added keyboardist Dizzy Reed. Under the new lineup Guns N' Roses released "Use Your Illusion I" and "Use Your Illusion II" which simultaneously shoot at the two top spots of the charts.

The band then went on a colossal 28-month long world tour which was hugely successful but also very eventful. The most famous incident took place in the summer of 1991 when during a show in Missouri Rose jumped into the crowd injuring a fan and then left the stage. The angry crowd begun a riot in which many people were injured. During this period Stradlin quit the band due to differences with Rose and was replaced by Gilby Clarke.

Spaghetti Decline
In 1993 the new lineup released a collection of punk covers named "The Spaghetti Incident?" which received some good reviews, however, it did not match the brilliance of their previous three studio albums. In conjunction with a number of other events, including the release of the "Nevermind" album that shifted musical interest to Nirvana and internal disputes between Rose and the rest of the band, Guns N' Roses gradually declined. By 1997 the band disintegrated leaving Rose the sole original member of the band.



In the years that followed Guns N' Roses remained relatively unnoticed, occasionally making the headlines for the wrong reasons including riots in their gigs, cancelled shows and the long delayed fifth studio album "Chinese Democracy". The only releases from the band since 1993 were the two compilation albums "Live Era '87-'93" (1999) and "Greatest Hits" (2004).

A notable attempt from previous Guns N' Roses members came in 2003 when Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum formed the band Velvet Revolver with Scott Weiland formerly with the Stone Temple Pilots. Their debut album "Contraband" released in June 2004 received good reviews and went straight to the top of US charts.

Legacy
When it comes to living dangerously, few bands can claim they have done more so than Guns N' Roses. From creating musical masterpieces to causing riots in their gigs, no other band managed to cement such an untouchable legendary status with just four studio albums. The absolute encapsulation of "Sex, Drugs And Rock N' Roll" was to rise and fall in less than a decade.

"Nothing lasts forever, even cold November Rain"

source The Rock Radio.com

slash guns n roses

Born in Hampstead, England, and raised in the US, Saul Hudson is not a gentleman. Those who would expect reading something in this line here are about to be very disappointed: Saul or, better yet, Slash is the perfect image of a rock'n'roll god, the guitar icon of an entire generation, a man who lived his entire life in the spotlight, by the rules imposed by the game. He is not educated or well-behaved or even good looking: instead, he is an extremely accomplished guitarist, a showman par excellence, a former drug addict and, in short, a rock god.

His father was an artist who also designed the covers for some of the albums of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell; his mother was a fashion designer who created the costumes for David Bowie's 'The Man Who Fell to Earth' - so you can see where Slash got his artistic genes from. When he was still a child, he moved with his mother to Los Angeles, where they would be later joined by his father. Until the 11th grade, Saul's childhood could be described as 'normal' (whatever that might mean): he went to the Beverly Hills High School, learned how to play the guitar, founded a couple of bands, you know, stuff teenagers normally do.

By the time he was in the 11th grade, he already knew that studying was not for him: he had dropped out of school to focus intently on his band, called Road Crew. Sure, just like his previous projects, this group too was soon disbanded but its name is still retained by many for being the vehicle that enabled Slash to meet the man with whom he would make music history, Axl Rose. At that moment, Rose was the lead singer of Hollywood Rose and the two groups met while preparing to open for Stryper, in 1984. The rest was history, as they say, and Guns'N'Roses was founded, the rock band that would alter and literally shape the rock music of the '80s and '90s.




At first, things didn't go as smoothly: the Guns used to hold gigs in bars and garages and to tour as the opening act of other rockers, more famous than them. By 1986, they already had a bunch of tracks penned down (which would later become smashing hits) but no album released. That all changed a year later, when 'Appetite for Destruction' was put out, a material that, besides including many of the band's legendary songs, like 'Welcome to the Jungle', 'Paradise City' and 'Sweet Child O' Mine', stirred quite a controversy because of the artistic cover it initially had. In two more years, the boys from Guns were famous and preparing for yet another album.


From the very start, Slash did not get along with Axl but, for quite some time, both of them managed to either hide their differences or to meet halfway. The rift became more and more obvious in the '90s, when the high level of success Guns had reached made Axl go for a more commercial variant of rock which, naturally, was not something that Slash approved of. Hits like 'Don't Cry' and 'November Rain', that have become emblems of that spleen an entire generation of youngsters was experiencing, and the fact that Axl was going for more dramatic and expensive videos (oh, so un-rock'n'roll-ish of him!) did nothing else but virtually end the friendship and work relation the two (brilliant singer and equally brilliant guitarist) had shared for so long. Slash's departure became official in 1996, when he announced that he would be pursuing a solo career but, in fact, the situation had become obviously unbearable way before that date.

After he left Guns, Slash got involved in a myriad of projects, singing with other famous rockers and rappers and featuring on their albums and videos. He was, by now, a star on his own and he didn't need Guns'N'Roses for people to know his face or his music, especially since he kept the trademark elements that had distinguished him from other rockers: curly hair, tophat and the cigarette dangling from his lips while performing... shirtless. In 2003, he officially moved away from his Guns past, by founding Velvet Revolver, the band with which he made his comeback into the public eye. Meanwhile, Guns was left only with Axl (the rest of the members had also left) and slowly began to fade away.


Slash was married twice but details like this tend to be overlooked when we're talking about one of the greatest and most accomplished guitarists of our times. Instead, the media has (and probably always will) focused on his turmoiled life, which was often 'spiced up' with drug use, incendiary statements, allegations of weird habits and hobbies (like collecting snakes), drunken appearances, alcohol abuse and f**king fiery performances! In the long run, only that last part matters because, however Slash really is and whatever he might have said or done, we will always have his music.

source
http://www.inoutstar.com/news/Saul-Hudson-aka-Slash

New Guns n Roses song heads to "Rock Band 2"

NEW YORK (Billboard) - A new Guns N' Roses song, "Shackler's Revenge," apparently from the decade-in-the-works album "Chinese Democracy," will be included in the video game "Rock Band 2," according to a report in the New York Times.

The game will be released in September.

The news makes it seem increasingly likely that "Chinese Democracy" will finally see the light of day before year's end via Interscope. Nine seemingly complete tracks from the album, not including "Shackler's Revenge," leaked online earlier this summer.

"Rock Band 2," developed by MTV and Harmonix, will support all songs downloaded for the game to date and will also support the original game's instrument controllers. But it will also introduce new controllers for drums and guitar and boast a soundtrack of more than 100 master recordings.

In April, Motley Crue made its new single, "Saints of Los Angeles," available for download "Rock Band" well in advance of the release of the album of the same name. The only other place to obtain the track was iTunes.

According to data provided in late May by the band's management, Tenth Street Entertainment, the track was downloaded more than 47,000 times via the Xbox 360 version of the game alone in the first week after it became available. ("Rock Band" publisher MTV Networks was unable to independently verify these figures, and total downloads that include the PlayStation 3 version of the game were not available.)

By comparison, the same track received slightly more than 10,000 downloads via digital services like iTunes and Amazon, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The track has now sold more than 62,000 downloads.

Reuters/Billboard