Axl Rose Celebrity

Name: Bailey, William Bill (Axl Rose)

Nick name: Axl Rose

Birthday : February 6th 1962

Hometown : Lafayette IN, USA

Occupation : Singer, Entertainer, Pianist, Guitarist

Bands : AXL, Rapidfire, Hollywood Rose, L.A. Guns, Guns N' Roses

Born to a 16-year-old mother and 20-year-old father in Lafeyette, Indiana in 1962, William Bruce Rose, Jr., was renamed William Bruce Bailey a couple years later, after his father left and his mother remarried. In interviews in the early Nineties, after undergoing psychotherapy, he recalled being sexually molested by his father; he said his stepfather, in turn, physically beat both him and his mother. Several times a week, the family went to a Pentecostal church, which Rose later described as being filled with other abusive adults. But he found comfort there nonetheless, teaching Sunday School and developing his wide vocal range while singing along with siblings in a group called the "Bailey Trio."

Guns N' Roses was formed in March 1985. The band was a merge of two bands: L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose. The band members at this point were Axl, Tracii Guns, Ole Beich and Duff McKagan.

Axl left home at a young age and moved to Los Angeles. He sang for a number of local rock bands, eventually forming Guns N' Roses with Tracii Guns, with whom he had been in the band L.A. Guns. In L.A. he was reunited with Izzy Stradlin. In 1986, he legally changed his name to W. Axl Rose and had the name tattooed on his arm.

It only made Rose seem more out of touch from reality when he would hold the band up from going onstage, resulting in ridiculous multi-hour delays. His public image took a few more shots when several concerts were marred by audience riots caused by Rose's notorious hijinks and when he tried to pick a fight with Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain backstage at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards for disparaging (yet quite on the mark) remarks Cobain made about Rose in the press. When the tour finally ground to a halt in 1993, G N' R issued a lukewarm-received collection of covers, The Spaghetti Incident, and took a well-deserved rest. But after numerous aborted writing/recording sessions for their third proper studio album, the remaining other two original members (Slash and McKagan) either quit the band or were dismissed by Rose. Rose had been granted full ownership of the name Guns N' Roses, so he slowly formed a whole new band around him.

With rumors running rampant that he had become a bloated, bald, and drug-addled hermit (due to the fact that he did not grant a single interview between 1994-1999, staying completely out of the spotlight), Axl Rose continued to work on G N' R's next release himself. 1999 saw G N' R's first new song released in nearly eight years -- the industrial rocker "Oh My God" from the End of Days soundtrack, as well as a live compilation of old-school G N' R tracks (Live Era: '87-'93), yet both came and went without much fanfare. But all that changed when Rose and his new cohorts (which included ex-Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, mask-wearing solo guitarist Buckethead, ex-Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson, ex-Primus drummer Brian Mantia, plus longtime G N' R keyboardist Dizzy Reed) played their first live shows together in early 2001, receiving unanimously favorable reviews. With a world tour booked and album nearing completion (reportedly to be titled Chinese Democracy), the G N' R/Axl Rose-hype machine appeared to be building up to a feverish pitch once again.

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