W. Axl Rose is an American hard rock singer and songwriter. He was born William Bruce Rose, Jr. on February 6, 1962 in Lafayette, Indiana. His mother remarried when he was an infant and changed Rose's name to William Bailey, using the last name of her new husband Stephen Bailey. At the age of 17, he readopted the name William Rose, and would later legally change it to W. Axl Rose.

He is best known as the lead singer of Guns N' Roses, and is the only original member still part of the band's line-up. Although he is regarded by many as one of hard rock's all-time greatest frontmen, Rose is also infamous for his onstage antics, disputes with former bandmates, and for his constant rewriting of the still-unreleased Chinese Democracy album.

Axl Rose was brought up in a deeply religious Pentecostal family. He had a troubled childhood and, as an adult, stated that repressed memories had revealed to him that his biological father, William Rose, had sexually abused him as a small child. William Rose left the family when Axl was two years old. He also suffered physical abuse at the hands of his stepfather, Stephen 'Beetle' Bailey.

Growing up, Axl thought Bailey was his biological father; Axl's name had been "William Bailey" since his father had left. At age seventeen however, he learned of his biological father's existence and readopted his birth name, William Rose. He would only refer to himself as "W. Rose", however, as he did not wish to share a name with his biological father. The strict discipline and Pentecostal education he endured as a child led to his rebellion as an adolescent against both Indiana and society in general.

Because of his turbulent upbringing and his mother's reluctance to leave the abusive Bailey, Axl is said to have issues with women. He himself 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 things 1.

Youth in Indiana

Rose showed strong interest in music, singing in the choir at church and studying piano. As a teenager he formed a band called Axl. He kept the band's name as his own, and adopted the name Axl as his own legal name.

Throughout his youth, Axl Rose was in trouble numerous times with the police and was arrested over twenty times on charges such as public drunkenness and assault. In his late teenage years Lafayette authorities attempted to have him locked up as a habitual criminal and on the advice of his lawyer, he left Indiana and headed to Los Angeles in the early 1980s to pursue a rock music career where he was re-united with close childhood friend and former Indiana bandmate, Izzy Stradlin.

Los Angeles: the rise of Guns N' Roses

The early 1980s music scene in Los Angeles featured both punk and heavy metal bands. Axl wanted to meld the two styles into a unique musical form. Rose moved through a number of bands, including Hollywood Rose, L.A. Guns, Rapidfire, A.X.L., and Rose. Then, after bringing in his former L.A. Guns bandmates, Tracii Guns (who was soon replaced by Slash, real name Saul Hudson) and Rob Gardner (who was soon replaced by Steven Adler), Guns N' Roses were formed in the summer of 1985.

Desperately poor, the fledgling band struggled to survive in the streets of LA. Allegedy, Rose and Stradlin even sold drugs for petty cash. According to Rose, they manipulated women for their money, an example being at a party at an unnamed woman's house and while one band member had sex with the woman, the others would raid her wallet for the little cash they could salvage.

They eventually rented a small apartment, dubbed the Hell House, which quickly became a den for sex, drugs and rock n' roll. LA promoter Vicky Hamilton allegedly managed the band and got them their first gigs.

With Axl Rose (vocals), Izzy Stradlin (rhythm guitar), Slash (lead guitar), Duff McKagan (bass), and Steven Adler (drums), Guns N' Roses signed a recording contract with Geffen Records in 1986. The band released its first full-length album, Appetite for Destruction, in 1987. Mixing blazing power chords with Axl's shrieking vocals, the album was not an immediate success, but soon grew in popularity with the release of several singles from the album. By 1988, Guns N' Roses shot to the top of rock music, helped by the massive popularity of the songs "Welcome to the Jungle", "Paradise City" and "Sweet Child O' Mine". "Sweet Child O' Mine" was written for Rose's then-girlfriend Erin Everly .

Living on the edge

Throughout the mid eighties and to the early nineties, Axl was involved in a turbulent relationship with Erin Everly, the daughter of singer Don Everly. He eventually married Everly in 1990, but the next month Rose filed for a divorce. The couple reconciled for some time, during which Everly became pregnant but suffered a miscarriage in October 1990, which deeply affected Axl, who had wanted to have children of his own. The day after Everly's miscarriage, Axl was arrested after supposedly assaulting a neighbor with a wine bottle after the neighbor threatened to call the police on him because of his loud music. The marriage between Everly and Rose was annulled in January 1991. By mid 1991, Rose became involved with model Stephanie Seymour. Accounts state that Rose was crazy about Seymour, and considered her to be the one. Rose became deeply attached to Seymour's son, Dylan, and tried to be a good father figure for the child, as there had been none in his own life. Seymour and Rose also parted ways in 1993, and Axl fell into a deep depression.

Although famous first for its music, Guns N' Roses soon gained notoriety for a wild lifestyle fueled by heavy use of recreational drugs. Instability followed, with concert cancellations and rumors of a breakup. In 1988, the band released G N' R Lies, which also was hugely popular. But criticism also came for the song "One in a Million", which despite its highly ironic nature was interpreted as insulting to gays, blacks, and immigrants. Axl was labelled racist and homophobic due to the lyrics of this song, charges he heavily denied. As for the homophobic allegations, Rose claimed he had had bad experiences with homosexuals, and, as such, he did not understand their way of life. In a surprising move, Rose performed "November Rain" with Elton John at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards. He claimed John was a big influence on his musical and lyrical outlook, and this claim is supported by many of the more operatic songs of the Use Your Illusion albums. He also paid tribute to Freddie Mercury, another huge influence, at the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, where he again performed with John.

After a string of delays, the group released two albums called Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II in 1991. These albums were also huge hits, but the band soon ran into trouble, with Rose's increasingly erratic behaviour. In July 1991, in the early stages of the 28-month-long Use Your Illusion Tour, Rose jumped off stage during a concert in St. Louis to take a video camera away from a fan. The concert was aborted as Rose and the other band members left the stage, sparking an intense riot, for which he was later arrested in 1992. A judge later ruled that he was not responsible for the riot and dismissed the charges against him. Another riot was spawned on August 8, 1992 at the Montreal Stade Olympique during a summer concert co-headlining tour with Metallica, when Rose, already late for the band's stage appearance, walked off stage and left the stadium after playing 9 songs. Rose claimed he had problems with his voice and decided to cancel the band's set. Before 'Double Talkin' Jive,' Axl said that this will be -our last show for a long time.� At the end of 'Civil War', their last song, Axl said -Thank you, your money will be refunded, we're outta here.� This led to yet another riot, nearly city-wide, and authorities were barely able to bring the mob under control. Coincidentally, James Hetfield of Metallica was burned in a pyrotechnics accident that same night.

These incidents, along with the appearance of a new stripped-down musical style known as grunge, led to a growing impression of Guns N' Roses as a self-indulgent and out-of-date act. Rose himself came to be seen as strange and aggressive when he caused long performance delays and challenged Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain to a fight during the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, after Cobain's wife, Courtney Love, jokingly asked Axl to be the godfather to their daughter, Frances Bean. For months there had been an intense rivalry between Rose and Cobain and among both bands' fans. Axl had been a big fan of Nirvana and asked Cobain to have Nirvana be openers for Guns N' Roses during the Use Your Illusion Tour, to which Cobain declined. After declining Rose's offer, Cobain began to talk about Guns N' Roses and Axl to numerous media sources, claiming that they were untalented and that Axl was a homophobic loser, to which Axl said of Nirvana, "They would rather sit home and shoot heroin with their bitch wives than tour with us."

In an interview with Michael Azerrad in the unofficial biography Come As You Are, Cobain admitted there was one thing he did like about Guns N' Roses: "They totally mess things up and then they sit back and look at what they messed up and then try to figure out how they can fix it, whereas we mess things up and just dwell on it and make it even worse."

Cobain further commented on Rose's rock star persona, claiming, "His role has been played for years. Ever since the beginning of rock and roll, there's been an Axl Rose. And it's just boring. It's totally boring to me. Why it's such a fresh and new thing in his eyes is obviously because it's happening to him personally and he's such an egotistical person that he thinks that the whole world owes him something."

Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan was one of the last people to see Kurt Cobain alive before his suicide in 1994. Fans of both groups continue to heatedly dispute the undocumented events that transpired between Cobain and Rose. Over time, however, some of the bad blood has subsided. Courtney Love has privately apologized to former Guns bassist Duff McKagan for their heated past. In addition, the two have performed"It's So Easy", live together, and Velvet Revolver, the current band of McKagan and original Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash, have played Nirvana's "Negative Creep" in concert.

In another short lived feud, Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil and Rose traded insults and challenges for confrontations for a number of months. The animosity stemmed from another unseen and controversial incident, where Izzy Stradlin allegedy assaulted Sharice Neil, Vince's wife, leading Vince to literally run off stage at the MTV Video Music Awards to confront him. Axl helped break up the fight and later publicly challenged Vince to a one-on-one brawl. Vince did not back down, publicly accepting the offer, and naming a time and place that Axl did not show up for. The same pattern continued for months, each man using any chance to get a challenge or insult in. The lyrics to the GNR song 'Shotgun Blues' are allegedly written about Neil.

Decline of Guns N' Roses

In 1993, Guns N' Roses issued an album of cover tunes, The Spaghetti Incident?, which received mixed reviews. The album sparked a minor controversy due to the inclusion of a hidden track, "Look At Your Game, Girl” that was written by Charles Manson.

In 1994, Rose fired guitarist Gilby Clarke and hired old friend Paul Tobias. Together with the rest of the band (at this point: Slash, McKagan and Sorum), Rose and Tobias recorded a cover of the song "Sympathy for the Devil" for the Interview with the Vampire movie soundtrack. Unbeknownst to Slash, Rose had Tobias re-record some of Slash's guitar parts. When Slash found out, he was quite upset; this is one of the things that fuelled his desire to leave the band.

The band returned to the studio and allegedly recorded 13 tracks for a new album. These tracks may still exist today but have never been released. Duff McKagan has variously said in different interviews that the album either does or does not feature some soft ballads and acoustic-style songs.

Slash left the band while the "new album" was being recorded. In 1997, McKagan became the final charter member other than Axl to leave the band. Sorum left around the same time. The lost Guns N' Roses album was never released. Some people mistakenly think that material from this album was used on the Slash's Snakepit CD, It's Five O'Clock Somewhere. Actually, Slash wrote some songs for GN'R in the mid-'90s, but Axl disliked them. Before leaving the band Slash asked Axl if he could use them for Snakepit. Axl had no interest in the songs Slash had written, so Slash reused his lyrics from those songs (with different music) with his new band.

The "lost album," on the other hand, remains a mystery amongst die-hard fans to this day. Some claim it will be released as a "Beatles Anthology"-type gift set in the future.

Chinese Democracy

Axl ended up owning the rights to the Guns N' Roses name after the other founding members quit and/or got fired. One Use Your Illusion-era member stayed on with Axl: keyboardist Dizzy Reed is still with the band, and in fact has now been a "Gunner" longer than anyone other than Axl himself. Many noteable musicians have passed through the band over the years. Arguably the most famous of these musicians are bassist Tommy Stinson (formerly of The Replacements) and guitarist Robin Finck (formerly of Nine Inch Nails), who have been in the band since 1997 and 1998 respectively.

1999 passed without a new album, and the original title of "Chinese Democracy", "2000 Intentions", lost its relevance at the turn of the millennium.

In 2001, the new incarnation of GN'R appeared at Las Vegas and Rio de Janeiro, where Axl 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", as well as playing the band's earlier hits.

In August 2002, the revamped Guns N' Roses did six shows (Hong Kong China, Tokyo and Osaka Japan, London and Leeds England and Pukkelpop festival in Belgium), and Axl made a special surprise appearance at the 2002 Video Music Awards, officially unveiling the new line-up of Guns N' Roses. It was one of the highest rated musical performances in MTV history, and Ozzy Osbourne said that in terms of the energy alone, it was one of the greatest performances ever. However, many viewers noticed Axl was often singing off-key, which he later attributed to earphone malfunctions, which left him unable to hear his own voice during the performance.

A North American tour including 16 shows followed, but it fell apart halfway through in December of 2002 when Axl did not appear for shows in Vancouver (first show of the tour) and Philadelphia, resulting in riots.

Guns N' Roses were scheduled to show at Rock In Rio Lisbon festival in early 2004, but this appearance was cancelled in official message by Axl Rose, who apologized to the fans blaming guitarist Buckethead because of his departure.