98 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.

Before fame, Axl Rose earned a reported $8 an hour at UCLA by doing what for a scientific study?

Smoking cigarettes for science was one of his odd jobs in Los Angeles. He was also night manager of the Tower Records and Video store on Sunset Boulevard.

After breaking a foot in 2016, Axl Rose sang from a custom throne borrowed from which rock frontman?

Dave Grohl had used the throne himself after breaking his leg at a concert, and passed it on so Rose could perform the Guns N' Roses reunion shows seated.

Which band did Axl Rose front on tour in 2016 after hearing problems sidelined its singer?

AC/DC needed a stand-in to finish the Rock or Bust World Tour when their long-time vocalist had to stop touring, and Rose sang about two dozen shows with them.

The two Use Your Illusion covers by Guns N' Roses rework a detail from which Renaissance painting?

The School of Athens, by Raphael, supplied the figure that artist Mark Kostabi reworked in a painting called Use Your Illusion, which gave both albums their name.

Slash helped design a 1994 Guns N' Roses version of which arcade game, which he also collects?

Pinball is a long-running hobby for Slash, who worked on the 1994 Data East table and came back to help design a second Guns N' Roses machine for Jersey Jack in 2020.

Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash played lead on 'Give In to Me', a 1991 track by which superstar?

Michael Jackson used Slash on his album Dangerous, and the pair kept working together for a decade, last sharing a stage at the singer's 30th anniversary concerts in 2001.

'Mr. Brownstone', written by Guns N' Roses' two guitarists, is named after slang for which drug?

Heroin had hooked both guitarists, who wrote the words on the back of a grocery bag before taking the song to Axl Rose.

The cover of Guns N' Roses' 1988 release G N' R Lies is designed as a parody of what?

Tabloid newspapers are spoofed in the liner notes too. The record's last four songs were a change of pace, recorded with acoustic guitars.

In which city was Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash born, before a childhood move to Los Angeles?

London's Hampstead district was his birthplace, but he spent his first years in Stoke-on-Trent, in the English Midlands, before leaving for California with his father.

Before Guns N' Roses, Slash failed an audition for which glam metal band he later derided?

Poison turned Slash down while he was playing in a band called Black Sheep, which left him free to join Axl Rose's new group.

Which grunge band refused Axl Rose's offer to open the Use Your Illusion Tour?

Nirvana were Rose's pick for the tour's second US leg, but frontman Kurt Cobain refused, saying his group was not that type of band.

Where did Guns N' Roses stage their first concert residency, Appetite for Democracy, in 2012?

Las Vegas hosted the run at The Joint, timed to the 25th anniversary of the band's debut album. The shows were filmed in 3D and released as a live video.

Which animals did guitarist Slash keep as pets and bring into music videos and photoshoots?

Snakes were so much a part of his image that it made news when he rehomed the collection after the birth of his first son in 2002.

Which Beverly Hills High contemporary of Slash later made 'Always on the Run' with him?

Lenny Kravitz released the collaboration in 1991 as the lead single from his album Mama Said, years after the two had been at school together.

Slash was a champion in which sport before putting it aside to devote himself to guitar?

BMX riding gave way to guitar practice of up to 12 hours a day once Slash was hooked on the instrument.

Which organ of Duff McKagan's swelled to the size of a football in 1994 after years of drinking?

Pancreas trouble at age 30 was the scare that got him sober for good: doctors said he would not last another month if he kept drinking.

Duff McKagan, a high school dropout, enrolled at university in 2000 to study which subject?

Business studies at Seattle University led McKagan to found the wealth management firm Meridian Rock and to write a financial column called Duffonomics.

The drummer who replaced Steven Adler in Guns N' Roses was hired away from which rock band?

The Cult had employed him only briefly. Guns N' Roses weighed up two other drummers for the seat before settling on their new man.

Robin Finck, who replaced Slash in Guns N' Roses in 1997, came from which band's touring line-up?

Nine Inch Nails kept pulling Finck back: he left Guns N' Roses in 1999 to rejoin them on tour, came back in 2000, then left for them a second time.

How did Axl Rose react when the band's label put out a Guns N' Roses Greatest Hits album in 2004?

Sued to block it, and lost. Slash and Duff McKagan helped file the case without speaking to him in person, and the compilation went on to chart for years.

At which 1988 English festival did two fans die in the crowd during Guns N' Roses' set?

Monsters of Rock, held at the Donington Park motor racing circuit, was one of the incidents that got Guns N' Roses labelled the most dangerous band in the world.

Guns N' Roses' industrial-styled 1999 song 'Oh My God' was released on which film's soundtrack?

End of Days carried the band's first recorded release in almost five years, though the track was never issued as a stand-alone single.

Which veteran guitarist recorded parts for several Chinese Democracy tracks back in 1999?

Brian May, the guitarist of Queen, added his parts nine years before the album finally came out in 2008.

Guns N' Roses' 2001 return after more than seven years off stage included a set at which festival?

Rock in Rio became a regular stop: at the 2011 edition the band played through heavy rain and revived 'Estranged' for the first time since 1993.

Axl Rose grew up under which surname, his stepfather's, thinking the man was his father?

Bailey was the name he sang under as a boy, performing with his siblings as the Bailey Trio in a deeply religious household.

Which keyboardist joined Guns N' Roses in 1990 and outlasted every member except Axl Rose?

Dizzy Reed was the only player to stay from the Use Your Illusion era until Slash and Duff McKagan came back in 2016.

Which acoustic Guns N' Roses ballad, with whistling by Axl Rose, reached number four in the US?

Patience was played on three acoustic guitars and recorded in a single session, a quiet turn from a band known for volume.

Which guest singer joins Axl Rose on 'Don't Cry' and appears in the video's helipad scenes?

Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon sang an octave above Rose, and Slash later wrote that the harmony made the song all the more soulful.

Which YouTube milestone did the 'November Rain' video hit in 2018, a first for a pre-YouTube clip?

1 billion views came in July 2018, and the same video went on to pass two billion in 2023.

Guns N' Roses' 'Civil War' debuted on a 1990 charity album for which country's Angel Appeal?

Romania's appeal album had the song a year before Use Your Illusion II, where it is the only track on either album to feature drummer Steven Adler.

Guns N' Roses' 'Get in the Ring' is a diss track that names and attacks which group of people?

Music critics from Hit Parader, Circus and Kerrang! are among the targets. Spin's Bob Guccione Jr., also named, wrote back to accept the challenge to a fight.

Which Guns N' Roses hit, written in a rental van, is their debut's only track with a synthesizer?

Paradise City came together on the drive home from a gig in San Francisco, and it is Axl Rose who plays the synthesizer on the recording.

Duff McKagan says a fictional beer on which animated series was named after him?

The Simpsons' creator has rejected the claim, and one of the show's writers said he had never heard of McKagan.

What happened to the blogger who streamed nine unreleased Chinese Democracy tracks in June 2008?

He was arrested that August and later pleaded guilty to copyright infringement; traffic from the leak had crashed his own site.

Slash's father, an artist, created album covers for Neil Young and which other singer?

Joni Mitchell's sleeves were part of the Los Angeles rock scene Slash grew up around as a child.

Appetite for Destruction's replacement cover shows the five band members as what, on a cross?

Skulls stand in for each member in a design taken from a tattoo, and the knotwork on the cross was a nod to Thin Lizzy, a band Axl Rose loved.

Appetite for Destruction took its title and its first cover from a painting by which artist?

Robert Williams had called his painting Appetite for Destruction, so Guns N' Roses borrowed the name along with the picture.

Axl Rose lent his voice to which 2004 video game, playing the DJ of a radio station?

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas put him on the air at K-DST, a station players can tune in to while driving around the game.

In the $4 million video for 'Estranged', Axl Rose jumps into the sea and swims with which animals?

Dolphins bring his character inner peace at the video's climax, after he is released from a clinic and heads to an abandoned ship at sea.

Which James Bond theme did Guns N' Roses cover on Use Your Illusion I, topping the Finnish chart?

Live and Let Die was written for the 1973 film and first recorded by Wings. The cover was the second single from Use Your Illusion I.

Guns N' Roses played a 1992 Wembley Stadium tribute concert held in memory of which rock singer?

Freddie Mercury had died five months earlier, and 72,000 fans filled the stadium for a benefit that promoted AIDS awareness.

Which 2022 Marvel film features Guns N' Roses' music because its director is a fan?

Thor: Love and Thunder leans on the band because director Taika Waititi felt their sound matched the crazy adventure on screen, and it featured in the film's marketing too.

Where did Guns N' Roses' two Use Your Illusion albums enter the US chart in the same week?

At one and two: Use Your Illusion II sold 770,000 copies in its first week, edging out its twin's 685,000.

Slash of Guns N' Roses is a playable character in which music video game released in 2007?

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock put a digital Slash on screen in 2007, the same year he published his autobiography.

Guns N' Roses' 'Madagascar', from Chinese Democracy, samples speeches by which American leader?

Martin Luther King Jr.'s words were edited together from more than one speech, alongside dialogue sampled from films such as Mississippi Burning and Braveheart.

Which alternative rock band did Duff McKagan join in 2010, writing songs and playing four shows?

Jane's Addiction said he had joined on a permanent basis, but the two sides parted after six months, saying they were headed in different musical directions.

In 2009, Time magazine ranked Slash second among electric guitar players, behind which musician?

Jimi Hendrix topped Time's list of the 10 best electric guitar players. Rolling Stone was cooler on Slash two years later, placing him 65th among its 100 greatest guitarists.

Appetite for Destruction was recorded at Rumbo Recorders, a studio built by which 1970s pop duo?

Captain & Tennille built it for their own use after a hit single, and its San Fernando Valley site gave Guns N' Roses a place to work away from distractions.

Which instrument did Slash plan to learn before his first lesson won him over to guitar?

Bass was the plan because his friend Steven Adler had already claimed the guitarist's role, but hearing the teacher play a Rolling Stones song changed his mind.

Axl Rose played himself in a 2021 cartoon episode from which long-running animated franchise?

Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? drew him as himself in 2021, and it was not his first time appearing as a cartoon.