Brandon Ottesen
Music 1010 Semester Project
November 12, 2014
Axl Rose
Biography
Axl Rose is the lead singer and composer for the band Guns N’ Roses. He was born
February 6, 1962 in Lafayette, Indiana. When he was born, his mother was 16 years old and his
father was 20. He was originally given the name William Bruce Rose Jr. but when he was a
toddler, his father left and his mother re-married. She married Stephen Bailey and his mother
changed his name to William Bruce Bailey. That was the name he went by his whole childhood
until he was 17 and found the paperwork of his real father. Once he found out the truth, he took
the last name Rose.
Growing up, Axl was a rebellious kid and had many run-ins with the law. After things got
too crazy in Indiana, he moved to California in 1982. He worked many odd jobs while there and
even joined a few small-scale bands: AXL, Rapid Fire, L.A. Guns, and Hollywood Rose. After
this he got his name legally changed to W. Axl Rose. After the small-scale bands, he was able to
form the band Guns N’ Roses and they released their first EP in 1986 and also their debut album
Appetite for Destruction in 1987. After this the band really took off and they became more and
more famous.
Axl was known for being very energetic and crazy when he performed. He had a way
with entertaining the crowd and making it fun for the fans. He kind of just went to the beat of his
own drum when it came to performances. It was common for him to show up late and delay
shows by a couple of hours. But the charisma that he brought to the stage when he arrived made
up for his late arrival. The crowds loved the way that Axl performed and the way he got into it.
Although the band never actually broke up, the original members had a sort of falling
apart. Slash (lead guitarist) left in 1996, Matt Sorum (drummer) was fired in 1997, and Duff
McKagan (bass guitarist) quit in the same year. After this, Axl kind of disappeared from the
music scene and laid low for a few years in his home back in California.
It wasn’t until 2004 when he came back to the music scene with new band-mates and
began touring North America, Europe, and Asia. And by 2008, they were able to come out with
the album Chinese Democracy which was very successful. By the year 2012 Axl was inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Axl didn’t even show up!)
Axl had a rather interesting life and a lot of what contributes to that was his personal life.
He married Erin Everly in 1990 which wasn’t a successful marriage. It wasn’t much of a surprise
that this relationship didn’t last though because Everly claimed that the only reason the marriage
happened in the first place was because Axl showed up at her house and threatened to kill
himself with a gun if she didn’t marry him. The marriage was finally annulled a year later. Later
that year he began dating the supermodel Stephanie Seymour and got engaged to her in 1993.
Unfortunately, this marriage didn’t work out either because they broke up soon after. The break
up was messy with Rose suing Stephanie claiming that she abused him. Stephanie counter-sued
saying she was defending herself because he had attacked her. His previous wife, Everly, was
called in to testify in the case and also ended up suing Axl for assault and sexual battery. The
case went on for a long time and Axl ended up settling both cases out of court.
His personal life wasn’t so great which lead him to be clinically diagnosed with manicdepression and was prescribed lithium which he refused to take. Axl liked doing things his own
way and said he believed in homeopathic medicine and past-life regression. Believing these
remedies had helped him before when he was recovering from memories of his biological father
sexually assaulting him when he was young (two-years old). Although it’s sad I feel that it really
helped him in being the artist that he is today. He used the abuse and turned it into song and it
was really successful.
Now Axl has retired from the music scene and is enjoying the retired life. Sadly he has
kind of lost himself and gained quite a bit of weight. He doesn’t look anything like himself and it
makes me sad. When I first saw a picture of him from 2014 I didn’t even recognize him. But I
still have a lot of respect for the man and still love his music.
Guns N’ Roses has always been one of my favorite bands and I have always admired Axl
Rose and his work as an artist. You wouldn’t think that him of all people (being in a 80’s rock
and roll band and all) would be such an influential composer and be able to create such beautiful
music. That is why I chose to do my report on him. Not only for those reasons but I also wanted
to learn more about him which I did. This project helped me get to know one of my favorite
musicians even better and I’m glad I got to do it on Axl.
Music History
With the music pieces I chose I wanted to use some of Guns N’ Roses’ songs that have a
classical influence in them. They are still unique to Guns N’ Roses’ style but it also has some
classical music in it which I thought was fitting to the assignment and the class.
November Rain:
The lyrics behind November Rain were inspired by a short story by Del James called Without
You. The original version that Axl had composed was 25 minutes long but was later cut down to
around 9 minutes. It is the longest song to ever be a Top 10 hit, and it also has the longest guitar
solo in a Top 10 hit. They also made a high production music video for the song that actually
won the 1992 MTV Video Music Award. The overall production of the music video cost 1.5
million dollars. Former L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns actually said that even back then Axl had
the music for this song he just didn’t know what to do with it. Whenever Axl had an accessible
piano he would play it because it was the only thing he knew how to play. Tracii says that Axl
said: “Someday this song is gonna be really cool.” And now it is one of rock and rolls greatest
ballads and has won several awards.
This I Love:
This song is on the album Chinese Democracy and is one of the very few rock songs that has a
mix between rock and roll and drama. Axl was very talented when it came to that and did it in
many songs. He has a way of making soft music, and hard music mix in a unique way. This song
has a lot of influence from Elton John and Queen. You can hear similarities from this song to
those composed by the other artists.
Music Listening Guide
November Rain (8:57)
0:00-0:45: Introduction with piano and strings
0:45-1:12: Introduction continues with percussion and guitars
1:13: Verse 1 starts with a chorus in the background of lead singers voice
2:03: Verse 2 starts
3:04: Chorus
3:55-4:44: Guitar solo 1
4:44: Chorus
5:08-5:37: Guitar solo 2 with flutes in the background
5:37: Verse 3 starts
6:00-6:18: You can hear the plucking of violin strings (pizzicato)
6:18-6:47: There is a false ending to the song but it picks up again and almost sounds like a
different song
6:48-7:12: I would call this the Introduction 2
7:13-7:38: Guitar solo
7:38-8:24: Cado
8:24-8:57: Outro
This I Love (5:35)
0:13: Verse 1 starts with a piano accompaniment
0:37: Strings start playing
1:05: Chorus
1:30: piano and strings duet
1:48: Verse 2
2:09: Chorus
2:32-3:50: Guitar solo
3:50: Chorus
4:26-5:35: Returns back to original music at beginning and Verse 3 starts