Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses connect the hard rock eras of the 1980s and 1990s as the group that introduced a period of raw and unvarnished rock music. While contemporaries such as Mötley Crüe celebrated the excess of Sunset Strip sleaze, Guns N' Roses highlighted the gritty underside of city life, where guitarists Slash and Izzy Stradlin delivered tough riffs aligned with the shadowy visions of Axl Rose, the singer who guided the band through a sinuous appeal. Rose balanced his harsher impulses with a tender dimension that shone on the soaring ballad "Sweet Child O' Mine," which reached number one in 1988 and propelled the group to superstardom. In the years that followed, their 1987 debut album Appetite for Destruction moved in enormous quantities, as "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Paradise City" both entered Billboard's Top Ten while "Patience," drawn from the 1989 EP G N' R Lies, attained the same ranking. At this height Guns N' Roses attracted constant disputes, prompting them to steer clear of distractions by remaining in the studio to shape the successor to Appetite for Destruction, the expansive double set Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II. Issued together in September 1991, the Illusion albums stayed grounded in hard rock yet allowed Rose to explore grand, dramatic balladry that culminated in "November Rain," their final Top Ten single of 1992. By then Guns N' Roses no longer embodied scrappy hard rock after Nirvana triggered the grunge wave of the early 1990s. The ascent of alternative rock paralleled the gradual dissolution of the original lineup, a steady loss that left Axl Rose as the sole founding member by the close of the 1990s. He devoted much of the 2000s to his ambitious project Chinese Democracy, which appeared in 2008, at a moment when the band had drifted so far from the mainstream that they registered as neither current nor retro-cool. Circumstances later shifted. By 2015 Slash and bassist Duff McKagan returned to Guns N' Roses, restoring a nucleus of original members that stabilized the group into the 2020s and led to fresh recording activity with the 2022 EP Hard Skool.

Their initial EP surfaced in 1986 and secured a Geffen contract; the next year the band issued their debut album Appetite for Destruction. Live performances gradually built an audience, yet the record gained traction only after nearly twelve months when MTV began airing "Sweet Child O' Mine." The album and single quickly ascended to number one, establishing Guns N' Roses among the world's leading acts. Their first single "Welcome to the Jungle" was reissued and climbed into the Top Ten, with "Paradise City" following the same path. Late in 1988 they delivered G N' R Lies, which combined four fresh acoustic tracks including the Top Five hit "Patience" with material from the earlier EP. The record's provocative final track "One in a Million" provoked fierce debate when Rose expressed misogyny, bigotry, and outright aggression, condensing multiple strands of prejudice into a single five-minute piece.

Work on the long-promised follow-up to Appetite for Destruction commenced at the end of 1990. In October the group dismissed Adler, attributing his drug issues to substandard playing, and brought in Matt Sorum of the Cult. During sessions Dizzy Reed joined on keyboards. Once recording concluded the project had expanded into two separate albums. After nearly a year's delay Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II arrived in September 1991. Though sprawling and uneven, the releases displayed a bolder ensemble that retained plenty of high-energy guitar rock while venturing into Elton John-style balladry, acoustic blues, horn sections, female backing vocalists, ten-minute art-rock suites with shifting sections, and numerous reflective, introspective lyrics. Guns N' Roses had begun creating art, and remarkably the effort succeeded. Initial sales proved strong, yet the albums did not ultimately define the coming decade.

Nirvana's Nevermind reached number one early in 1992, rendering Guns N' Roses—with their grand gestures, atmospheric videos, models, and rock-star indulgences—suddenly dated. Rose responded by exercising dictatorial control; his onstage outbursts grew notorious and even sparked a riot in Montreal. Stradlin departed by late 1991, depriving the band of its strongest songwriter, and was succeeded by former Kill for Thrills guitarist Gilby Clarke. Only in 1993 did GNR fully register the transformation in hard rock when they released the punk-cover collection The Spaghetti Incident?; although some reviews were favorable, the group never recaptured the raw energy of the source material or of their own Appetite for Destruction. Mid-1994 brought rumors of an impending breakup as Rose sought a new industrial direction while Slash preferred the band's earlier blues-tinged hard rock. The ensemble lingered in uncertainty for years afterward; Slash reappeared in 1995 with the side project Slash's Snakepit and the album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere.

Rose withdrew from public view, becoming a near-recluse who spent his time refining studio work; he also assembled assorted musicians including Dave Navarro, Tommy Stinson, and former Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck for informal sessions. Remaining members grew incensed when Rose inserted childhood friend Paul Huge into these sessions while excluding both Stradlin and Clarke. A cover of the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" proved the breaking point, as Rose excised contributions from other participants and overdubbed Huge without consultation. By 1996 Slash had officially left Guns N' Roses, leaving Rose the last survivor from the classic era; speculation persisted and no new material emerged, although Rose did re-record Appetite for Destruction with a fresh lineup for rehearsal. The first original GNR track in eight years, the industrial-metal song "Oh My God," finally appeared on the soundtrack to the 1999 Arnold Schwarzenegger film End of Days. Shortly afterward Geffen released the two-disc Live Era: '87-'93.

In 2000 guitarists Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails and Buckethead joined, and 2001 brought the band's first live dates in nearly seven years. The lineup—Rose plus Finck and Buckethead on guitar, Stinson on bass, former Primus drummer Brian "Brain" Mantia, childhood friend and guitarist Paul Huge, and longtime keyboardist Dizzy Reed—performed in Las Vegas on New Year's Eve 2000 and at the massive Rock in Rio festival the following month. On New Year's Eve 2001 they repeated essentially the same set.

An appearance at MTV's 2002 Video Music Awards stirred interest in the revised roster, yet a sluggish performance by Rose and an interview in which he indicated the new album would not arrive soon failed to sustain momentum. That summer GNR launched its first tour in almost eight years and completed all European and Asian dates. They provoked a violent riot in Vancouver, however, when Rose failed to appear for the opening North American show. While Rose continued his familiar pattern with the revamped lineup, former Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, Slash, Sorum, and McKagan formed the successful Velvet Revolver in spring 2002.

Years elapsed without a new GNR album, turning the absence into an enduring punchline. The project had long been titled Chinese Democracy, and occasional studio leaks circulated on file-sharing networks. A March 2005 New York Times article by Jeff Leeds titled "The Most Expensive Album Never Released" disclosed the project's intricate finances and delays; Rose had begun work in 1994 and incurred production costs of at least thirteen million dollars. Producers who participated at various stages included Mike Clink, Youth, Sean Beavan, and Roy Thomas Baker. Moby reportedly received an offer as well. Marco Beltrami and Paul Buckmaster were said to have contributed orchestral arrangements. Guitarists rotated through the band; Buckethead departed in 2004 and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal eventually replaced him. In 2006 the record appeared nearer to completion as Rose reemerged publicly and took the band on the road for several concerts. The music industry's most notorious white elephant finally materialized in 2008 when Axl released an album more than a decade in the making. Although Chinese Democracy earned largely enthusiastic reviews, commercial performance fell short of expectations, debuting at number three on the Billboard 200 upon its November release. A worldwide tour ensued.

Guitarist DJ Ashba of Sixx:A.M. joined Guns N' Roses in 2009, and the group continued developing new material while performing live, occasionally welcoming former members as guests. In 2012 the classic lineup entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; Slash, McKagan, Clarke, Adler, and Sorum reunited for several Appetite-era songs with vocalist Myles Kennedy standing in for Rose, who declined to attend. Bumblefoot exited in 2014, and in July 2015 Ashba announced his own departure.

In 2016 Guns N' Roses launched the Not in This Lifetime... Tour, reuniting Rose with Slash, bassist Duff McKagan, and longtime touring musicians. The tour's title echoed a 2012 remark by Rose, and original drummer Steven Adler appeared at multiple dates. A remastered Appetite for Destruction arrived in 2018 and featured the previously unreleased track "Shadow of Your Love" cut by the original lineup. The band toured through 2020 and 2021, introducing new songs such as "Absurd" and "Hard Skool," the latter serving as the title track for the 2022 EP Hard Skool. Another single, "Perhaps," followed in August 2023.