48 Fun Facts About Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses took half its name from L.A. Guns and half from which other band?

Hollywood Rose: Axl Rose's band merged with Tracii Guns's L.A. Guns in 1985, and the new name stitched the two together. Rejected names reportedly included Heads of Amazon and AIDS.

Which five musicians made up the 'classic' Guns N' Roses line-up?

Rose, Slash, Stradlin, McKagan and Adler: Slash and drummer Steven Adler came in for founders Tracii Guns and Rob Gardner in June 1985, days before the five played their first show together.

What nickname stuck to Guns N' Roses' first tour in 1985, when a breakdown left them hitchhiking to Seattle?

The Hell Tour: they thumbed lifts for the rest of the trip carrying little more than their guitars, and still made it to Seattle to play the show.

Which label signed Guns N' Roses in March 1986 with a $75,000 advance?

Geffen: A&R man Tom Zutaut signed them after about a year of rowdy Hollywood club shows, and rival suitor Chrysalis lost out.

What was Guns N' Roses' 1986 EP, marketed as a concert recording but actually studio demos with crowd noise?

Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide: the roar was lifted from the Texxas Jam, a 1970s stadium festival. Duff McKagan said a huge crowd seemed funny when they were lucky to draw a few hundred.

Who produced Appetite for Destruction?

Mike Clink: he got the job after the band turned down KISS's Paul Stanley, who wanted to change Steven Adler's drum set-up, and found Mutt Lange too expensive.

Which veteran band took Guns N' Roses out as their opening act in the summer of 1988?

Aerosmith: by the final show that September the support act had eclipsed the headliners, and Aerosmith's manager recalled that the opening act was suddenly bigger than they were.

Why was Appetite for Destruction's original cover art replaced?

Retailers found the painting too controversial: record stores balked at Robert Williams's artwork, so it moved inside the sleeve and a cross bearing five skulls, one per band member, took its place.

Which Bob Dylan song did Guns N' Roses cover on Use Your Illusion II?

Knockin' on Heaven's Door: Dylan wrote it for the 1973 Western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, where it plays as a lawman lies dying. Guns N' Roses also performed it at Wembley in 1992.

Axl Rose says the shout that inspired 'Welcome to the Jungle' came from a stranger in which city?

New York: Rose places it in Queens, before he joined the band, though a friend tells a different version. He wrote the lyrics later, while visiting Seattle.

Which 1988 Clint Eastwood film featured 'Welcome to the Jungle'?

The Dead Pool: the band do more than supply the song. They turn up on screen in a brief, uncredited cameo in what was the fifth Dirty Harry film.

'Sweet Child o' Mine' began as a poem Axl Rose wrote for which girlfriend?

Erin Everly: the daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers, she married Rose in Las Vegas in April 1990, and the marriage was annulled within a year.

How did Slash's famous 'Sweet Child o' Mine' riff begin?

As a jokey warm-up exercise: Slash thought the melody was silly, but Izzy Stradlin put chords under it, Axl Rose loved it, and the band quickly built a song around it.

Which song is Guns N' Roses' only US Hot 100 number one?

Sweet Child o' Mine: it topped the chart in September 1988, more than a year after Appetite for Destruction came out, while the band were still touring as somebody else's opening act.

Which Appetite for Destruction song is named after a cheap wine the band drank?

Nightrain: a tribute to Night Train Express, a cheap wine the broke young band got through by the bottle. The title simply squeezes the brand's two words into one.

Which song on G N' R Lies drew lasting controversy for its lyrics?

One in a Million: its slurs against immigrants, gay people and Black people got the band dropped from a major AIDS benefit concert, despite the apology in advance printed in the album notes.

Which drummer replaced Steven Adler in 1990?

Matt Sorum: he came over from the Cult after Steven Adler's addictions stalled work on the next album and got him fired, and he drums on both Use Your Illusion records.

Guns N' Roses' 'Civil War' opens with the 'failure to communicate' speech from which Paul Newman film?

Cool Hand Luke: the voice belongs to Strother Martin, who plays the prison captain in the 1967 film, and it sets up the song's attack on those who send the young off to fight.

Which Guns N' Roses song appeared in Terminator 2: Judgment Day?

You Could Be Mine: the first Use Your Illusion single landed in the film after Arnold Schwarzenegger reportedly had the band over to his home for dinner to negotiate the deal himself.

Which musician joined the band on piano for 'November Rain' at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards?

Elton John: Axl Rose had long named him as an influence, and the two closed the 1992 ceremony together.

What US record did the near-nine-minute 'November Rain' set in 1992?

Longest song ever to reach the Top 10: even so, the single was the short version, since Slash recalls an 18-minute take the band recorded in 1986, before the Appetite for Destruction sessions began.

Which supermodel, then Axl Rose's girlfriend, plays the bride in the 'November Rain' video?

Stephanie Seymour: she marries Rose on screen with the band looking on, then the rain arrives and the very next scene is her funeral in the same church.

What sparked the 1991 Guns N' Roses riot near St. Louis?

Rose dived after a fan's camera: he then blamed security, walked off, and the crowd tore the venue apart. Both Use Your Illusion albums carry a curse aimed at St. Louis in their liner notes.

Which Guns N' Roses guitarist quit in November 1991, newly sober and tired of the chaos?

Izzy Stradlin: Axl Rose's friend since childhood had recently got clean, and said that once sober he looked around, grew tired of it all and needed to get out.

Which band co-headlined a 1992 stadium tour with Guns N' Roses that sparked a riot in Montreal?

Metallica: James Hetfield was badly burned by a stage explosion and their set ended early. Guns N' Roses then played under an hour before Axl Rose left, citing his voice, and the crowd rioted.

What was the 1993 album 'The Spaghetti Incident?' made up of?

Punk and rock covers: the odd title came out of Steven Adler's lawsuit against the band, in which a lawyer asked Duff McKagan, with a straight face, to tell the court about 'the spaghetti incident'.

Which Rolling Stones cover, released in December 1994, was Slash's last Guns N' Roses recording for decades?

Sympathy for the Devil: Slash later called the recording 'the sound of the band breaking up', and he quit two years later, in 1996.

How did Axl Rose announce in 1996 that Slash had left Guns N' Roses?

He faxed MTV: a late-night fax to MTV News said Slash was out. Slash replied the next day that the two had not seen eye to eye on the band for some time.

Which avant-garde guitarist joined Guns N' Roses in 2000 and played on Chinese Democracy?

Buckethead: he performs in a mask with a KFC bucket on his head, and he had already quit the band by the time the album he played on finally came out in 2008.

Roughly how much did Chinese Democracy reportedly cost to make, earning it the tag of rock's most expensive album?

$14 million: estimates start at $13 million, a bill run up over some 14 years of stop-start sessions before the album finally appeared in November 2008.

Which soft-drink brand promised every American a free can if Guns N' Roses released Chinese Democracy in 2008?

Dr Pepper: when the long-delayed album really did arrive that November, the brand honoured the joke with a free-drink coupon on its website for 24 hours.

Which retailer bought 1.3M copies of Chinese Democracy up front, agreeing not to return unsold stock?

The album was released in Germany, Switzerland and Austria a day before the rest of the world.

Which band's singer inducted Guns N' Roses into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012?

Green Day: Billie Joe Armstrong gave the speech and defended the absent Axl Rose, who had asked not to be inducted at all, as one of the best frontmen ever to touch a microphone.

Which singer fronted the former Guns N' Roses members at their 2012 Hall of Fame induction in Axl Rose's absence?

Myles Kennedy: the Alter Bridge frontman took Rose's place for a three-song set, after Rose had written to the Hall asking not to be inducted.

Which festival did the newly reunited Guns N' Roses headline in 2016?

Coachella: Slash and Duff McKagan had only just rejoined Axl Rose, and the desert weekends followed a surprise Los Angeles club night and two arena shows in Las Vegas.

Which band did Slash form with Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland?

Velvet Revolver: Weiland first turned the ex-Guns N' Roses players down because Stone Temple Pilots were still together, then signed on once that band split in 2003.

Which 2021 single was Guns N' Roses' first new release since Chinese Democracy in 2008?

Absurd: it was new only in name, being a reworking of 'Silkworms', a song discarded from the Chinese Democracy sessions some twenty years earlier.

In which Indiana city was Axl Rose born?

Lafayette: he grew up there as Bill Bailey, took back his birth surname Rose on learning who his real father was, and then followed a guitarist friend out to Los Angeles.

What is Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash's real name?

Saul Hudson: he was born in London in 1965, so the guitarist most tied to the Sunset Strip sound is an Englishman by birth. The others are Bono, Marilyn Manson and Alice Cooper.

Which actor, the father of a childhood friend, gave Guns N' Roses' Slash his nickname?

Seymour Cassel: the Oscar-nominated John Cassavetes regular called the boy Slash because he was always in a hurry, always hustling from one scheme to the next.

Which Finnish band was a heavy influence on Guns N' Roses' image and sound?

Hanoi Rocks: Guns N' Roses have named the glam rockers as an influence. The band split after drummer Razzle died in a Los Angeles car crash in 1984, months before Guns N' Roses formed.

At which Los Angeles club did Guns N' Roses play their debut show on March 26, 1985?

The Troubadour: a flyer billed the West Hollywood club date as the new band's first show, and 31 years later the reunited line-up picked the same room for its surprise comeback gig.

Which song was Guns N' Roses' first single, released only in the UK in June 1987?

It's So Easy: it came out as the band made its European debut at London's Marquee, and it flopped, stalling at number 84.

Which star drummed for Guns N' Roses at the 1989 American Music Awards while Steven Adler was in rehab?

Don Henley: Axl Rose had sung backing vocals on one of his solo tracks, so the Eagles' singing drummer returned the favour and kept time on the gentle 'Patience'.

Which guitarist replaced Izzy Stradlin in 1991, credited by Slash with saving the band?

Clarke reportedly re-recorded all of Stradlin's parts on The Spaghetti Incident? and was gone by 1995.

Guns N' Roses closed one album with an unlisted song written by which notorious figure?

Charles Manson: the unlisted closing track is his 'Look at Your Game, Girl', and its inclusion caused an outcry when the album came out.

Which former member of the Replacements joined Guns N' Roses in 1998?

Tommy Stinson: by his own account the band was never his thing when it first came out, and he went to the audition mostly for the fun of playing with a friend who was already its drummer.

Which trademark accessory did Slash first wear on stage in 1985 after spotting it in a Melrose Avenue shop?

Top hat: he picked it up just before a 1985 club gig, cut up a silver concho belt to wrap around it, wore it that same night, and it became his trademark.