The next couple of posts will be about 80's hard rock, hair bands, glam bands - whatever you want to call them. I'll be talking about some of my favorite bands from that era. I'll start off with Guns n Roses, although it's hard to call them a hairband since they started to take LA rock in a darker grittier direction and stood side by side with many of the Seattle bands in the early 90's.
It all started when William Bailey - aka Axl Rose (yeah now you can see why he wants to be known as Axl, Bill Bailey just doesn't have the same charm) hit the streets of Los Angeles. Axl was in the band Hollywood Rose when he joined forces with guitarist Traci Guns, who would later form LA Guns. So that's where the early version of Guns n Roses came from. Guitarist Slash (Saul Hudson, one of my favorite guitar players) would later join and help finalize the original GnR lineup.
Although Slash almost teamed up with another LA rock band. You may find this tough to believe but he could of ended up in one of the ultimate hairbands at the time - Poison. Yup that's right, he auditioned and Brett Michaels thought he would be a perfect fit, although he wasn't too much into the whole makeup thing. So thankfully Poison found guitarist CC Deville and Slash made his way to GnR.
In the late 80's Guns released their groundbreaking debut "Appetite for Destruction" with mega hits like "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Paradise City". In the early 90's "Use Your Illusion I & II" were just as successful even in the middle of the Grunge scene - Guns was played back to back with bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam - while most bands of their decade just disappeared.
The band tended to have an appetite for self destruction and imploded in the mid 90's, although Axl has continued with a new lineup still called Guns n Roses - and finally released Chinese Democracy earlier this year - a decent album, but still pales in comparison to when G n Fn R was the biggest band in the world.
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