Metal Mania: Guns N'Roses - America response

Guns N' Roses had great success in the 1980's and living up to the traditional guitar wielding rock band with a bad boy attitude and enjoying the excesses of life has to offer.

Guns N'Roses consisting of Axl Rose, Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Steve Adler had emerged from the nightclub scene in Hollywood by performing in esteemed clubs such as Troubadour and The Roxy. They belted out old Aerosmith material dressed in the traditional leather. The band were not particularly going anywhere and were being compared as the American answer to British Goth-Metal band The Cult.

The 1980s still had a gap in the market for rock 'n' roll that was neither hardcore and fancy perms, the bands record label boss David Geffen took matters into his own hand. He tirelessly campaigned MTV to play Guns N' Roses and soon he enlisted there help when Welcome to the Jungle promo video allerted the attention of the serious rock fan and the song hit the top 10 in the USA. This was the major breakthrough the band had needed. This was followed up by love song 'Sweet child o mine' the song appealed to all genders and the video began to get heavy airplay on the Radio and MTV.

It became clear that this was going to be a band that no-one would forget and the aptly named album release of Appetite for Destruction hit number one. More joy was to follow when Paradise city was released and also hit the top spot. A world tour followed and soon they were the hottest ticket in town for the show these guys would put on. However, Destruction was the key word. The band suffered negative press following deaths at there concerts, heavy use of drugs and alcohol coupled with internal band fighting and the protracted legal issues which prevented the follow up album being released. By then the world had moved on and music changed but the bands image suffered with tantrums, walkouts and the eventual exit of key members such as Slash effectively ended the band.

There influence and music is still proving resilient and if you can ignore the devil in the band they did make fantastic music.
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