Constituency : 3 October 1987
Chart peak : 67 ( 24 on reissue in 1988 )
Number of hits : 17
I think you'd have to classify Guns N' Roses as a hair metal act but if we use a glam analogy they were Roxy Music to Poison's Mud.
Guns N' Roses were formed by members from a number of L.A. rock bands. In 1983 a band called L.A. Guns were briefly joined by a singer Bill Rose ( born 1962 ) who had moved to L.A. to start again after acquiring an unenviable record in juvenile delinquency in his home town of Lafayette, Indiana. He quickly moved on to form his own band Rapidfire who managed to record an EP "Reafy To Rumble" just before they broke up.
Bill went to great lengths to prevent the EP being released by guitarist Kevin Lawrence in later years but it finally came out in 2014. It has five tracks , four gonzoid rockers and an early clumsy attempt at a rock ballad in "Closure " . "On The Run" references Bill's troubled past. It's average energetic metal, nothing embarrassing so Bill's attempts to deny Lawrence a pay-day seem a little churlish.
Bill's was then invited to join a new band by a childhood friend Jeff Isbell , now calling himself Izzy Stradlin ( born 1962 ) who had moved to LA a couple of years earlier. He had started out as a drummer in punk bands called Naughty Women and The Atoms but switched to rhythm guitar in a metal band called Shire. The new band was originally called AXL ( hence Bill's stage name ) but soon became Hollywood Rose.
They recorded a five song demo with original guitarist Chris Weber. The material was eventually released in 2004 as "The Roots of Guns N' Roses" although two of the songs had been re-recorded by Guns N'Roses. The five songs are fast and hard and very indebted to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands. The chief thing to note is that Axl had already found that high -pitched wail of a voice.
The band only played a few shows before Axl fell out with Weber over an onstage accident
and unilaterally fired him. His replacement was Saul Hudson known as Slash . He was born in London in 1965 but brought up in Stoke-on-Trent. The family moved to LA when he was five. A skilled BMX rider he blew that off to play guitar. He joined a band called Tidus Sloan in 1981 then formed his own band Road Crew , named after a Motorhead song, in 1983. His first recruit was a childhood friend Steven Adler ( born Michael Coletti in 1965 ) who played drums. They placed an ad for a bassist and the only serious reply came from Michael "Duff" McKagan.
Duff was born in Seattle in 1964 and started out in punk bands. He made his first single at 16 with The Vains in 1980 . "School Jerks" is a fair impersonation of the Angelic Upstarts, an anti-education diatribe delivered by a tone-deaf bawler. Duff's pulsating bass line is the best thing about it. He also played guitar in a band called The Living who opened for Husker Du and had a strong local following. In 1980 he joined The Fastbacks as their drummer and played on their 1981 debut single "It's Your Birthday" , a three chord thrash that could pass for early Blondie. The following year he switched to hardcore band The Fartz and played on some demos though he was only in the band for a few months. He briefly rejoined them when they changed their name to 10 Minute Warning before deciding to relocate to LA.
Road Crew didn't manage to record anything because they couldn't find a singer they considered adequate.
As Slash joined Hollywood Rose, Izzy, angered by the firing of Weber departed and joined London , the Big in Japan of the LA metal scene. Following him out was drummer John Kreis so Slash brought in Steven to fill the vacancy. The band didn't seem viable without Izzy and broke up for a short time. They reconvened without Slash or Steven and changed their name to Guns N'Roses in March 1985. Slash played for a short time with a band called Black Sheep and auditioned for Poison.
Guns N'Roses fired their bass player after a couple of shows and invited Duff to take his place. Axl then fell out with guitarist Tracii Guns and Slash took his place. The classic line up was completed when the drummer quit and Steven replaced him. The band went on the road for a tour of the West Coast and solidified as a unit, soon attracting the interest of record labels. They were signed by Geffen in March 1986 . They put out a limited edition EP , including two covers that December to maintain fans' interest while they worked on their debut album. It was called "Live ?!'@Like A Suicide" but the tracks were all recorded in the studio with the crowd noise overdubbed.
Their first single in the UK in June 1987 was the double A-side "It's So Easy / Mr Brownstone" . The first track was written by Duff with the assistance of band associate Wes Arkeen and is a sardonic comment on the band's lifestyle living off groupies. It's low end growliness both hints at Duff's past in hardcore punk and provides a foretaste of grunge. "Mr Brownstone" was written by Slash and Izzy and re-purposes the Bo Diddley beat for a cheery account of a day in the life of a heroin addict. Both songs were on the forthcoming "Appetite for Destruction " LP, both contain radio-scaring expletives and neither is up there with the band's best songs. Te single bubbled under the charts.
"Welcome To The Jungle" was the follow-up and is one of their signature songs. Written by Axl, Duff and Slash, it refers to both the reception small town boys can expect in big bad L.A. and the experience that girls can expect to have in Axl's bed room. In that sense it's a classic example of the fault line running right through their work between a thoughtful self-awareness and celebration of headlong hedonism. The song has swagger and a decent descending main riff but not a particularly strong chorus. It's also a touch too long; by the time you get to Duff's bass breakdown yo're aware that it's going on a bit, It was a minor hit here before they broke through in the US then was reissued after it got to number 7 over there in 1988.
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