In Defense of Sucky Axl Rose

Not-So-Hot In Cleveland: Guns N' Roses, sans Axl, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Tortured artists have a long and ambivalent relationship with peer recognition. They secretly want to be liked, of course, but the “true artist” in them hates to admit that such trivialities as Oscar statuettes and sidewalk stars have any intrinsic value outside of the superficial hoopla they arouse. And yet when an artist flat-out eschews a high-profile accolade—as Axl Rose did last week when he publicly declined an invite from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—the decision never fails to evoke fierce ire from fans and industry pundits alike.

Criticism of Rose abounded when he refused to appear on stage with his former Guns N’ Roses comrades for the band’s induction ceremony in Cleveland this past Saturday. Judging from countless blog comments on the topic, many people who care about such things thought Rose’s very public denouncement—published in full by The Los Angeles Times—painted him as an ungrateful little snot. Others felt Rose was showing a blatant disregard for his fans, many of whom, it would seem, will not be complete until Axl, Slash, and the rest of the gang share a stage in solidarity once again. Granted, Rose has never been coy about the animosity that he still harbors for his old mates (the original lineup hasn’t performed together since the mid-nineties), but he nevertheless received an awful lot of flak for pulling the Hall of Fame no-show. Even fellow hair-band veterans sounded off on the issue.

“It’s crap,” snapped Dee Snider, of Twisted Sister fame, during a red-carpet talk with Slash in Los Angeles. “ If he can’t put this stuff aside for an event like that, for a recognition like that, to do the cool thing out of respect for what you guys have done, I think it’s totally screwed up.”

Rather than ask why anyone cares what Axl Rose is doing these days, I thought it best to comment on the matter from the perspective of someone who doesn’t consider Guns N’ Roses a wee bit overrated. Difficult as it may be for me to accept, there is a sizable subset of the human population for whom the sound of Axl Rose’s voice does not cause hearing damage. As such, I have long made peace with the fact that many people of taste do actually consider GNR a great band, even if it still kind of pains me to defend the author of such lyrics as, “You’re in the jungle, baby. You’re gonna diiiiieeee!”

Glory Daze: Axl in his prime.

Unfortunately, I must do just that. Like him or not, Rose did the right thing—at least as far as rock ‘n’ roll etiquette dictates—by snubbing the Hall and his former band mates. Despite what must have been enormous pressure to reunite with people he now can’t stand to be around, Rose stuck to his guns (kill me) and chose not to succumb to hypocrisy. It was kind of a dick move, but a classic tortured-artist display nonetheless. Had more old-time rockers possessed the seething stubbornness to resist the lure of former glory, music fans throughout the years might have been spared contentious and half-hearted reunion tours from Led Zeppelin, the Police, the Pixies, and countless others.

And yet many people—presumably the very fans who should understand that what once made GNR worth listening to has long since died—would disagree. When no-show Axl’s name was announced at Saturday’s ceremony, some 7,400 attendees booed and hissed to such a rowdy degree that one would think an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame actually means something. Lest we forget, folks, awards and accolades do not define an artist’s career. (The Sex Pistols’ legacy has been no more hurt by their calling the Hall a “piss stain” than Woody Allen’s has by his not showing up to the Oscars.) The bottom line is that, by some miracle twist of fate, GNR’s 1987 debut, “Appetite for Destruction,” has emerged as one of the defining rock albums of its era, an important bridge between late-eighties cheese and early-nineties alternative. Do we really need Cleveland—or Dee Snider for that matter—to remind us of that?