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Personalities | Guns N’ Roses | Eighties | Rock

(Vocal/instrumental group, 1985–present)

Axl Rose (b. William Bailey, vocals) and Izzy Stradlin (b. Jeffrey Isbell, guitar) were joined by Slash (b. Saul Hudson, guitar), Duff McKagan (bass) and Steve Adler (drums) to form a band that gave the heavy rock scene a mighty shaking. Signed to Geffen – after the 1986 EP Live ?1*@ Like A Suicide had attracted industry interest – their debut album Appetite For Destruction (1987) combined the attack of AC/DC with a punk aesthetic and powerful lyrics about the underbelly of LA. It went to the US No. 1 spot, as did ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’. The next few years saw much debauchery; the departure of Adler; the US Top 5 ballad ‘Patience’; and the releases of the massive-selling Use Your Illusion I and II (1991). Stradlin also jumped ship; as, in 1995, did Slash, to form Slash’s Snakepit and then Velvet Revolver. Rose keeps the name of the band alive.

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

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