Why the world needs Axl Rose

Remember Axl Rose? Probaby not, since he disappeared when Nirvana happened.
He was the volatile lead singer of rock and roll’s greatest band in the world from 1988 to 1991 – Guns N’ Roses. Every guy wanted to be him because every girl wanted to be with him. And every band during that time period tried to imitate the Gunners, even if they were just superb imitators themselves.
Then he disappeared after the vastly underrated punk covers album, “The Spaghetti Incident,” in 1993, only re-emerging briefly to fire the other members of Guns N’ Roses, make an appearance or two at the MTV Video Music Awards, headline a few money-grabbing tours or leak a few songs from the forever-in-progress “Chinese Democracy,” an album that always seems ready to come out but that never does.
As a middle school student in 1988 when Guns N’ Roses released “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” an ode to Axl’s model girlfriend that turned their 1987 album “Appetite for Destruction” into the best-selling debut of the 1980s, I immediately became addicted to Guns N’ Roses. The hard-edge of songs like “It’s So Easy” and “Mr. Brownstone,” contrasted with the power ballads like “Sweet Child” and “Patience,” along with Axl’s seemingly endless personalities he created by singing in five different voices, was candy to my Midwestern ears.
Never before and never since have I experienced so much dynamic emotion, both anger and love, from a single band. Axl’s voice hit a vein that made my arm hairs stand straight.
His tendency to rant about a variety of issues in concert and interviews made the subject matter of GNR’s songs seem real. People credit Kurt Cobain and Nirvana with bringing raw emotion back to music. Those people are wrong, though. Axl was doing it before them; he just wasn’t as subtle. Need examples or proof. Go to YouTube and type in “Axl rant.” You’ll get dozens of them, including several that started riots.
But to understand why the world needs Axl, you need to know about a specific one from 1992 in Chicago. During a concert there, he spent seven minutes ranting about his family and how they messed him up. Some concert-goers booed him, wanting to hear music instead of a therapy session. He responded by telling them that although they may not have had home lives that messed them up later in lives, the person next to them may have had this life. And he wanted those people to know they should not let others bring them down.
And then he disappeared. It was obvious Axl had emotional issues because of a messed up family life, but it seemed he had overcome them. He fronted the biggest band in the world, he married (and divorced) a supermodel, he earned enough money for him and any future children and grandchildren to be set for life, and he could do anything he wanted with his career because no record executive was going to tell him otherwise. Unfortunately for fans, he went away, only teasing us every once in a while that he was going to come back, making it appear that his emotional issues were a problem still challenging him.
A comeback would show the world, and all those fans who listened to him say they shouldn’t let others bring them down, that life is all about overcoming obstacles. Axl’s emotional issues were the result of a bad upbringing. We need to know, from him, that he beat this barrier.
Since the last Guns N’ Roses album, I have graduated from high school, from college, begun a 10-year career, got married, bought a house, had a kid and have gone through five different vehicles.
I still cling to the hope Axl will return soon. He will release “Chinese Democracy,” and he will show us, at age 45, that he didn’t let anybody bring him down.