W.A.R.: The Unauthorized Biography of William Axl Rose

by Mick Wall

Book Overview

A journalist who had unprecedented access to Guns n' Roses at their peak delivers a big, brash history of the band's charismatic, fantastically talented and idiosyncratic leader-W. Axl RoseEven in the world of rock and roll, a figure like Axl Rose doesn't come along very often.? Mercurial and brilliant, deluded and imperious, Rose defies easy description or analysis. Few people have studied Rose as closely as Mick Wall has.? Traveling with Guns n' Roses and writing about them in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Wall first earned Axl's trust and later his fury.? W.A.R. goes back to the beginning, revealing Rose's childhood influences (and how he got his name), and tracking the birth of the band and their enormous success with albums like "Appetite for Destruction" and "Use Your Illusion."? With fame and money came substance abuse and infighting, and a lead singer who morphed from eccentric to seemingly unhinged.? Wall's book is richly detailed and offers surprising new views on some celebrated Guns 'n Roses and Axl Rose incidents, including: - the death of two fans at a concert in Donington Park in England, - Rose's fall-out and eventual split from every one of the other original Gn'R band members, - fights with perceived enemies like Kurt Cobain, Motley Crue's Vince Neil and fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, - Rose's consistent refusal to show up at concerts throughout his career, - Axl becoming a virtual recluse at his Malibu mansion for most of the past 15 years. The book goes right up to the present, to explore why a new Guns n' Roses-with a reconfigured band-has toured but still hasn't released their long-awaited album "Chinese Democracy", now over a decade in the making at a cost of over $13 million. W.A.R. is about great music, bad relationships, and the public and private personas of one of the most controversial performers of our time.?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312377673
• ISBN13: 9780312377670
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Tardy Axl

I enjoyed this book. Didn't go too deeply into Axls private life but shows he has or had a huge chip on his shoulder. And what a shame he had to be late all the time for concerts. I would have been outraged. I recommend it.

The definitive "Behind the Music" about Axl

If you want to know what makes Axl tick, then this is the book for you. Shoot, that should have been the title for my review lol! Seriously, this unauthorized biography is probably as good as it's gonna get, Slash's self-titled book being a second choice. After reading this book I find I can relate closely to Axl, I had a similar childhood that he did and when I grew up I had a lot of the same self destructive symptoms. I can heavily relate to the anger, the pain, the endless quest to prove oneself to the world..and then tell that same world to kiss my you know what. Axl became IMPOSSIBLE when he got to the point where he could do ANYTHING he wanted with no repercussions. I thank god this never happened to me. This book lets you understand Axl that no other book can. The author has had inside access to the band ever since it's inception, and right there that's unprecedented. It's true the author could have an axe to grind as Axl turned on him like a snake but honestly, I don't sense a vendetta book here. He's just telling the truth. Heck, even his quotes from Axl are revealing enough that it's obvious that Axl was truthful about all his faults. This book just puts all the pieces of the puzzle together. In the end, this is a very satisfying but horrifying read as you'll find you know Axl like you've never known him before. And that's one little flaw in this gem of a book as towards the end it's the same ole song and dance by Axl (late shows, no shows, angry outbursts, failed relationships) that just gets repetitive and tiring. There's a reason why the uneducated, neglected, dysfunctional youths are not able to foster healthy relationships when they grow older. They're simply monsters that were created at a very early age, and the "grown up" Axl is a monster who mauled everyone in his path: his family, friends, business partners, girlfriends, etc. However, the ultimate sin that I cannot forgive is he terrorized his own fans. Read this book and you'll agree. Unforgivable.

Forget Watch You Bleed

Forget Watch You Bleed or any of the other so-called insightful books about Axl and GNR, Mick Wall is the only one I've read by anybody that actually knew the singer and the band. I've been a huge Guns fans since 87 and thought I knew it all - but I really didn't. I'm amazed at all the other reviews on this page saying there's nothing new in it. They must be written by nerds who spend their lives on GNR chat rooms cos this book is full of stuff I'd NEVER heard before. Brilliantly written too, in that classic style you just do't get here in the US. No, Axl don't come out of it smelling of roses, but he sure comes out packing his guns. And so does Mick Wall. A great book, one of the best of its kind I've ever read. Don't be fooled by the fools who don't want you to know the truth - get it!!

Engaging

After reading this book, I did not come away with the understanding that Axl was a complete jerk. I felt that he was demanding that he be respected. It appeared that he knew that he had some unresolved issues that he needed to deal with and he was trying to deal with them in ways that did not involve abusing drugs and alcohol.Some of his demands may have seem outright over the top, but I would imagine that other people after reading this book, wished they would have done some of the same things that Axl did.

An informative but superficial biography

If you don't already know too much about Axl Rose and Guns 'n' Roses, this is a very informative read. On the other hand, there's nothing here that's really new. Most, if not all, of the information is from secondary sources (published articles and interviews, website posts, etc.) rather than original research. It's as much a biography of the original members of Guns 'n' Roses as about W. Axl Rose. Their stories are inextricably interwoven--it's only to be expected that a bio of Axl will cover a lot of GNR territory; however, as the title promises a bio of Axl, I was expecting a little more than I got. It's tempting to compare this book with the recently published biography of ex-GNR guitarist Slash, but I won't, because Slash was cool enough to give us a window into his own life in the writing of that book and was completely on board with its content, while this bio of Axl is, as the title says, unauthorized. It does cumulate to some degree the timeline of Axl's *still* unreleased CD Chinese Democracy, and I came away with a slighly better understanding of the mystery behind its perpetual delay. Writer Mick Wall also covers the known facts of Axl's seclusion and the emotional and legal entanglements of the years following the disintegration of the original Guns 'n' Roses, the evolution of the "new" Guns 'n' Roses, and the persistent striving toward perfection that seems to inform (and torment) every choice made by Axl Rose. While this is a worthwhile read for anyone who wants to know something about the provocative frontman to one of the world's biggest rock bands and how it all went down, as a biography W.A.R. fails to meet its own challenge. True biography requires much more in-depth research into the biographer's subject, with input from the primary players in the life of the subject, from the subject him/herself when possible, and it requires a willingness to delve in a balanced, serious way into the influences and motivations of the subject in order to see the large framework of a life and its influence, and what that life can contribute to our understanding of ourselves and the world we inhabit. Axl and his raw genius deserve as much. Hopefully his story will one day be told with the honesty it deserves.