If one were to set out to build a prototypical badass hard rock band in a lab, chances are they’d end up looking a hell of a lot like Guns N’ Roses. When a delinquent William Bruce “W. Axl” Rose upped sticks from Lafayette, Indiana for Los Angeles, California in 1982, the pieces began falling into place. After Axl’s stints with Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns, a fledgling Guns N’ Roses took shape, with childhood friend and guitarist Jeffrey Dean Isbell (aka Izzy Stradlin), fellow six-stringer Saul “Slash” Hudson, bassist Michael Andre “Duff” McKagan and drummer Steven Adler forming the definitive line-up. Living at full-throttle was the name of the game, with the sex and drugs of life on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip distilled directly into their edgy, anarchic sound. Burning bright and fast ...
