GUNS N’ROSES

Once the biggest rock band in the world, Guns N’Roses have finally returned with a new album – the endlessly-awaited Chinese Democracy. What better time to ask one-time Gunners Slash and Duff McKagan about their descent into alcoholic hell? Words: Joel McIver

Countless words have been written over the years about the filthy exploits of Guns N’Roses, the self-proclaimed ‘most dangerous band in the world’. Most of these breathless accounts focus on the LA quintet’s early days as a bunch of penniless losers on the south California club scene, living off strippers and trust-fund girls while they scraped together the amazing songs for their masterpiece, 1987’s Appetite For Destruction.

Alternatively, more than a few features have told the story of the Use Your Illusion era, when Guns co-headlined a planet-shaftingly huge tour with Metallica, one of their few metal equals in sales terms. And if Chinese Democracy turns out to be the album that we all hope it’ll be, perhaps you’ll be reading about New Guns N’Roses in the future – the heyday of the modern line-up, featuring singer W. Axl Rose (or ‘William’ as his mum calls him) and a band of session musicians.

After the commercial peak of 1991-92, it all started to go wrong for the Gunners: new material was stuck in limbo (where it remained for another decade and a half), and Axl began to lose the other members, one by one – first bassist Duff McKagan, then drummer Matt Sorum, and finally, Saul ‘Slash’ Hudson. Trying to keep afloat …

by Joel McIver
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