Five bands that Axl Rose hates
You’ll struggle to find someone as opinionated as Axl Rose in the music industry. While many of us recognise him for his gritty vocals and eccentric stage performances, just as many people know him for his inability to hold his tongue and the many professional feuds that have erupted as a result. Regardless of genre or style, Rose has never been worried about letting the bands he hates know it.
Throughout his career, Rose has found himself at the centre of a number of different feuds. A lot of these have stemmed from jealousy, as some bands that he was fond of didn’t feel the same way about him. Other feuds come from a place of bitterness, as backstage brawls have become public knowledge and led to elongated spells of disdain.
A lot of people roll their eyes when they see Axl Rose’s comments on various bands, but regardless of whether you believe what he is saying or not, it makes for an entertaining read. When you have a hot-headed rockstar with a venomous tongue and a reluctance to hold it, how can you not read his comments with an inquisitive mind?
Rose has spoken poorly about a number of different bands, but these are some of his harshest words about various outfits.
The bands Axl Rose hates with a passion:
Metallica
Rose’s feud with Metallica stems from a place of jealousy. Guns N’ Roses were once respected as being one of the greatest hard rock bands in the world, so when Metallica burst onto the scene, they felt somewhat threatened. Guns N’ Roses drummer, Matt Sorum, put it best. “Axl’s intention was to rule the world and wasn’t afraid to say it,” he recalled, “Then Lars Ulrich came along, and he wanted to rule the world. We were like, ‘You’re going to have to open for us because we rule the world’. They were very competitive with us.”
Rose went so far as to call Metallica inauthentic, saying in an interview that they were cartoon characters. The feud went both ways, though, as Kirk Hammett commented, saying that Rose was unprofessional and unpredictable. “That tour was very stressful because there were so many problems,” he said, recounting his time on the road with Rose, “At that point in time you never really knew if Axl felt like he was going to play the show or not, or if he was going to be on time or not, or if there was going to be an issue with the actual show or not. And that kind of drove everyone crazy.”
Nirvana
Axl Rose was actually quite a big fan of Nirvana at first; he thought they played well and had an exciting energy to them. This changed; however, when Rose asked Nirvana to come on tour with them, the band refused. In an interview, Kurt Cobain made his disdain towards the band known as he said, “We’re not your typical Guns N’ Roses type of band that has absolutely nothing to say.”
Rose grew frustrated at this supposed hatred, as he was initially confused as to why Nirvana weren’t a fan of his. His confusion led to anger, and it peaked during a gig in Orlando when during a rant about Cobain and Courtney Love, he called them both “junkies” and when referring to Love’s pregnancy said, “If the baby is born deformed, I think they both ought to go to prison.”
Mötley Crüe
One of Rose’s biggest feuds was with Mötley Crüe’s frontman Vince Neil. It escalated so much that the two almost had an organised fight, with rumours of them hiring a stadium and boxing ring beginning to circulate. It wasn’t Rose who started the feud, but Guns N’ Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin. There were rumours that Stradlin had hit Neil’s wife, so the Mötley Crüe frontman confronted him.
Neil sucker-punched Stradlin, which led to Rose trying to fight Neil and threatening to kill him. After Rose hurled a number of threats at Neil in various interviews, the Mötley Crüe frontman decided to challenge him to a public fight.
“I’d like to do it at an arena where people can come and see. I’d like to have it televised. I want the whole world to see this fight,” said Neil, “I think it’s gonna be great. I’m really psyched for it because I need to put an end to this. It’ll end it once and for all the bad blood between us. So let’s do it. Men should do it.”
Poison
When Guns N’ Roses burst onto the scene, rock music was going through a tricky phase, as a lot of bands were more focused on following a trend than they were making exciting music. Axl Rose was never afraid to call out bands who he thought were following a trend, and he blamed Poison for starting this dull period of music.
“This is the only real rock and roll band to come out of the last ten years,” he said, referring to Guns N’ Roses, “Van Halen was the last. Poison fucked it up for all of us. They said that everybody was following a trend.”
Slash’s Snakepit (and other side projects)
When Slash left Guns N’ Roses, many people wondered what he might do next. The guitarist saw his parting with the band as a good opportunity to branch out into more diverse music, so he started working with other artists from different backgrounds, putting together tunes that fell into various subsections of rock.
While not technically a band, essentially every side project that Slash pursued outside of Guns N’ Roses, Axl Rose detested. The two parted ways on terrible terms, so it should hardly be seen as a surprise that Rose wasn’t a fan of the work that Slash went on to do. “Personally, I consider [Slash] a cancer and better removed, avoided,” said Rose, “And the less anyone heard of him or his supporters, the better.”
