Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in March 1985 by Axl Rose, Izzy Stradlin, Tracii Guns, and others from L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose. The classic lineup, Rose (vocals), Slash (lead guitar), Stradlin (rhythm guitar), Duff McKagan (bass), and Steven Adler (drums), was finalized in June 1985. After signing with Geffen Records in 1986, the band released its debut album Appetite for Destruction (1987). Initially slow to sell, it broke through with the "Welcome to the Jungle" music video and went on to sell more than 30 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling debut album in the U.S. It produced three Billboard Hot 100 top-ten singles: "Welcome to the Jungle", "Paradise City", and the band's only number-one, "Sweet Child o' Mine". The follow-up, G N' R Lies (1988), reached number two and featured the top-five single "Patience".
Adler was fired in 1990 and replaced by Matt Sorum. The twin albums Use Your Illusion I and II (1991) debuted at numbers two and one on the Billboard 200 and sold a combined 35 million copies worldwide. The Illusion albums featured high-budget music videos, including "November Rain", which reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and later became the first 1990s music video to reach one billion YouTube views. The subsequent Use Your Illusion Tour (1991–93) was marked by the Riverport Riot and other incidents; Stradlin left mid-tour and was replaced by Gilby Clarke, who appeared on the punk covers album "The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993). Clarke was later replaced by Paul Tobias, whose presence contributed to friction that led Slash, Sorum and McKagan to leave between 1996 and 1997. By 1998, only Rose and keyboardist Dizzy Reed remained from the Illusion era.
Rose rebuilt the band with a rotating cast that included Robin Finck, Richard Fortus, Buckethead, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, Tommy Stinson, Chris Pitman, Josh Freese, Brain, and Frank Ferrer. The long-delayed Chinese Democracy (2008), reportedly the most expensive album ever made at $13 million, debuted at number three but undersold expectations and was banned in China. The Chinese Democracy Tour (2001-2011) included cancelled dates and riots. After years of public feuding, Slash and McKagan rejoined the band in 2016 for the Not in This Lifetime... Tour, which grossed $563.3 million and ranked as the second-highest-grossing concert tour at the time. Since the reunion, the band has released deluxe editions of Appetite for Destruction (2018) and Use Your Illusion (2022), a remastered Live Era '87–'93 (2025), and new singles "Absurd", "Hard Skool" (2021), "Perhaps" (2023), "Nothin'" and "Atlas" (2025). The current lineup is Rose, Slash, McKagan, rhythm guitarist Fortus, drummer Isaac Carpenter, and keyboardists Reed and Melissa Reese.
Guns N' Roses has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. Greatest Hits (2004) is one of the longest-charting albums in the history of the Billboard 200. Their early sound fused punk, blues, hard rock, and metal; the Illusion albums added progressive and art rock elements, and Chinese Democracy incorporated industrial and electronic textures. Appetite for Destruction is credited with helping end the late-1980s glam metal craze and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2024. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, though Rose declined to attend. Incidents including Rose's 1987 arrest in Atlanta, the deaths of two fans at the 1988 Monsters of Rock festival, and multiple riots earned the band the label "the most dangerous band in the world". Controversies arose over lyrics (notably "One in a Million"), a hidden Charles Manson cover on "The Spaghetti Incident?", chronic late starts and long gaps between albums.
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