Portal:Rock music/Selected biographies/19

W. Axl Rose (born William Bruce Rose Jr.; February 6, 1962) is an American singer and songwriter. He is the lead vocalist and lyricist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, and has been the band's sole constant member since its inception in 1985.

Possessing a distinctive and powerful wide-ranging voice, Rose has been named one of the greatest singers of all time by various media outlets, including Rolling Stone, NME and Billboard.

Born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, Rose moved to Los Angeles, California in the early 1980s, where he became active in the local hard rock scene and joined several bands, including Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns. In 1985, he co-founded Guns N' Roses, with whom he had great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their first album, Appetite for Destruction (1987), has sold in excess of 30 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. with 18 million units sold. Rose's high-profile relationships with Erin Everly and Stephanie Seymour in the late 1980s and early '90s inspired multiple songs, including the number one hit "Sweet Child o' Mine". However allegations of abuse by Rose caused significant controversy, as did the band's next release G N' R Lies (1988) due to his inclusion of multiple slurs on the song "One in a Million".

Guns N' Roses' next releases, the twin albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II (1991), were widely successful; debuting at No. 2 and No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold a combined 35 million copies worldwide. Controversy followed Rose during the two-and-a-half-year Use Your Illusion Tour, with riots (including his arrest for inciting the Riverport Riot), rants against the media and bandmates between songs, and feuds with other artists including Metallica and Nirvana. The punk covers album "The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993) failed to match the success of previous albums, with Rose's cover of a Charles Manson song gaining notoriety. (Full article...)