Axl's Early Career

[disease51883]

I bought the Hollywood Rose CD a couple days ago. So I tried to look up whatever I could find on Axl?s early career. There were a few different stories from different sites (the dumbest claiming that Slash, Steven, and Duff were in L.A. Guns), but for the most part, they were all pretty much in agreement. Axl started the band AXL in Indiana, he used the name again in California, he changed the name to ?Rose?, and he again changed the name to ?Hollywood Rose?.

It?s somewhere around there that there seems to be two stories. I?m not really sure how much of either is true. The traditional story I?ve always accepted is that Hollywood Rose merged with L.A. Guns to create Guns n Roses. At least one other site that I came across claims that Axl left Hollywood Rose, founded L.A. Guns with Tracii Guns, reunited with the original Hollywood Rose for a show, added Guns, Rob Gardener, and Steve Darrow to Hollywood Rose, and finally changed their name to Guns n Roses after sometime.

That would track the roots of Guns n Roses all the way back to AXL in Indiana more than the accepted ?Axl and Tracii just made a band that had their names? story. I?m sure that seems pointless to most of you. I?m the type of fan that analyzes the continuity between Quentin Tarantino movies and such though, and it?s not like ?Behind the Music? went into this sort of thing. So can any more knowledgeable fans tell me more about the time between Axl leaving Hollywood Rose and the first time the name ?Guns n Roses? was used (any recommended sites, pictures, corrections)? Eh?

[AdZ]

At least one other site that I came across claims that Axl left Hollywood Rose, founded L.A. Guns with Tracii Guns, reunited with the original Hollywood Rose for a show, added Guns, Rob Gardener, and Steve Darrow to Hollywood Rose, and finally changed their name to Guns n Roses after sometime.

That's the one I've always thought of as correct.

[disease51883]

So he co-founded L.A. Guns? Did they do any shows or demos during that time?

[Butch Français]

At least one other site that I came across claims that Axl left Hollywood Rose, founded L.A. Guns with Tracii Guns, reunited with the original Hollywood Rose for a show, added Guns, Rob Gardener, and Steve Darrow to Hollywood Rose, and finally changed their name to Guns n Roses after sometime.

That's the one I've always thought of as correct.

as far as I know, Axl didn't take part in founding LA Guns, I think they already existed when Axl joined them.
and who's Steve Darrow? never heard of him...wasn't it only Tracii Guns that joined Hollywood Rose (to replace Chris Weber I think?), so that it became (Tracii) Guns N' (Axl) Roses
wasn't Rob Gardner the drummer for Hollywood Rose also? don't think Ive heard about him being in LA Guns...

[norway]

There are some stories in the articles section, I think tracii and axl met before they did gnr. The story i think comes from tracii himself is that they presented themselfes as a band using their lastnames...
axl had found the rose-last name when he was seventeen so if you know his date of birth and the year of the bands (axl, hollywood rose, gnr) you might find out. But no one knows for certain...

That's axl's story, hope to hear it sometime "soon"...
 

[disease51883]

Well, I found quite a bit about that particular time period after re-checking the history section of this very site. I wish I would have thought of that before I scoured Google yesterday. Heh. Oh well. At least it brought the topic to everyone's attention since people on here seem to have different opinions on how the band formed (judging from this thread and another I read). If anyone does have anything else to add, feel free to do so...

Here's the link: http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/history/history-86.php

[grabaraxl]

i asked steven adler about this. he didn't helped much!
he said that they all played in all those bands, it was really just jamming.
from what i've read through the years, "Axl" was the band in Indiana, the "rose" and "hollywood rose" in LA with axl and izzy on it. izzy shared a room with tracii and played in other bands as "london", and introduced axl to tracii. i haven't found anything saying that axl was in la guns, but i assume he must've been in some old line up of that band, or at least he wrote frequently with tracii.
the "guns n'roses" name came when izzy had booked a show, and some old members of  hollywood rose left so he didn't have a band. tracii didn't have a complete line-up of la guns at that time as well, so axl had the idea of joining the members that were left of each band and do the show - since it was a combination of those 2 bands, he called it "guns and roses".

before that show slash was trying to have axl to play with him and steve. duff had already been playing with slash and steven on roadcrew, but he decided to leave roadcrew since they wouldn't rehearse that much.

back to "guns and roses" -  it didn't last long (just that show), and tracii and rob headed back to form la guns. axl and izzy had got duff in the band at that time, and duff sugested the 2 old bandmates slash and steven to get in gn'r, since he had booked some shows on the east coast (the infamous "hell tour"). slash wanted axl as singer of his band so he accepted it. they learned some songs and did that tour, and it started all there.

that's my version! there are lots of different versions.