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I became infatuated with Axl Rose in high school. We were both from Indiana. We both had long stringy hair, were skinny, and pretty. He had a whole lot of fuck you with an ounce of sweetness and I had a whole lot of sweetness with an ounce of fuck you. I used to do impressions of him with a bandana on my head, showing off for my friends, moving my body in the snake like dance. He had so much pent-up energy in that cobra dance, and I had pent up energy in the liturgical church dances I performed around town. That’s the other thing. We both grew up in the church and spent hours in church choir. His experience though seemed to have helped him grow into a voice of incredible vocal range while mine is strained in either direction past one octave. And his experience in church seems to have been entirely negative while mine had a lot of love and openness within the constraints that always accompany religion. And like Axl claims he was confronted with memories of being raped as a child, so was I faced with such horrific memories. Though in my case, not by the hands of a family member.
I wasn’t a true fan in that I didn’t listen to Guns N Roses all the time or know who all the band members were or buy their albums. I liked the most popular songs on the radio. Welcome to the Jungle, Paradise City, Sweet Child O Mine and November Rain. Beyond that, I wasn’t very interested. But consistently if those songs came on the radio, I would turn them up and feel a beautiful free teenage feeling that I could find in little other music. There was music that came close, but it just wasn’t the same. And every time I saw a photo of his beautiful Barbie boy face, I stared and stared at it. There was just something I couldn’t get enough of.
For many years, I forgot about Axl and Guns N Roses. I didn’t follow celebrity news and didn’t listen to their later music purposefully or follow all the stories about him and the band. But as music became increasingly important to my sons, it became more important to me too. Someone recommended Slash’s autobiography to me, and I thought, hey I want to hear what the talented guitar player of Guns N Roses has to say. I started reading it on a trip with my eleven-year-old musician son to visit my mom who had recently fractured her knee and needed help. Coincidentally, while we were visiting, my uncle died. My uncle was an incredible jazz musician and choral director of sacred music. I was reading the last lines of Slash’s book when my mom and I got the text about her brother dying. “They are definitely [Slash’s children] a product of their parents...In fact they’re a mirror of their parents; they are both defiant yet sweet.” It felt strange reading about Slash’s battle with heroin addiction and alcoholism and prolific sex life while I was in my parent’s sweet little Indiana house beside the painting of Jesus surrounded by the little children, the satin pillows, the prayer books, and all the while curled up underneath a blanket knitted by my Nana. When I finished reading Slash’s autobiography, my kindle suggested that I read the bass player, Duff’s autobiography. When I finished that, my kindle suggested I read the unofficial biography of W. Axl Rose by Mick Wall. Let’s just say by the end of the week visiting my hometown in Indiana, I got a lot of perspective and information about being in the band Guns N Roses and particularly about the front man that I had a thing for, W. Axl Rose.
My husband Marc and oldest son greeted me and my youngest son at the Tampa airport in the humid night air. I was angry. I didn’t want to come back to Florida. I wanted to stay back in Indiana. I wanted to help take care of my parents in their senior years. I wanted the Indiana plants, the fuzzy lambs’ ear leaves, the fat brown squirrels, the abundance of Canada geese, the trains howling me to sleep at night, my dad’s little cozy church with the royal blue carpet.
“Welcome Home,” Marc said as he closed the trunk as I double checked that my son’s precious guitar was inside. To be honest I felt suicidal. Florida would kill me, I thought. I couldn’t keep suicidal pictures from entering my mind as we drove over the bridge in St. Pete.
I felt a sudden rush of warmth towards Marc and rubbed his arm. Instead of filling my family in on how my parents were doing, I went on to share with them my new knowledge about the band Guns N Roses. This mostly one-sided conversation went on for days.
A few days later, they were going to go out to eat without me so I could have alone time. But unbeknownst to them I decided to go along, afraid that I might kill myself while they were gone. I tried to think of something else to talk about, really, I did, but of course I talked about Axl Rose again.
“Did you know,” I informed them, “that Axl and Kurt Cobain didn’t get along?” No one really answered. “I feel dumb,” I said.
“Don’t,” said Marc, “You can talk about what you want to talk about.” So, I continued.
“Okay. Well apparently, Axl went to see Kurt play and he stood right next to Courtney Love and did his little snake dance beside her and after the show he went up to Kurt and said, ‘You’re everything I could have been.’ But Kurt went on to say to the media that Axl and his bandmates were basically talentless assholes that he didn’t want to be associated with and that hurt Axl’s feelings and then they were both playing at this thing and after Nirvana played, Kurt spit on the keyboard that he thought Axl was going to play but he didn’t know that actually it was going to be Elton John playing it as a guest with Guns N Roses.”
“Oh no!” said my oldest.
“Yeah!” I said, “And then after the show, Courtney was being sarcastic and asked Axl to be their baby’s godfather and then Axl told Kurt to shut his bitch up or he or she or one of them would be on the pavement and then Kurt shook his finger in a joking way at Courtney and said, ‘shut up bitch’ and everyone laughed at Axl, like the jokes on you man.”
“This sort of sounds like somebody talking about the Kardashians,” my oldest said. Well, that kind of hurt. I have always prided myself with the fact that I know absolutely nothing about that family.
Well, the next book that my kindle recommended was another biography by Mick Wall about the Foo Fighters. Except, unlike Axl’s book, this one was not unofficial. That makes sense, I thought, Mick Wall is on Axl’s shit list. I’ve only read about half of the Foo Fighter book but I’m not sure Dave Grohl, the lead singer, even has a shit list. So far, Wall writes about Dave as if he is the kindest musician on the planet. I have to say, after studying Axl, this should be refreshing. Wall warned me at the beginning of the book about Axl,
“Some of it will make for unsettling reading, especially to those who have stood in line for tickets or been waiting all this time for a new album. But then what did they think was really going on here? Whatever it was, think again…”
It was very uncomfortable. The discomfort started in the book when Axl was accused of rape by a young woman. This incident was dismissed in Slash’s book and Duff’s book, both of whom were there when the incident occurred. Was it really a false accusation though? Two of Axl’s ex-wives sued him out of court for domestic violence of which he adamantly denied. Really though? Axl wrote a song with two highly derogatory words. He claimed it was a joke that most of us didn’t seem to understand or recognize the irony in. I have not heard the song. After reading about it, I couldn’t bring myself to listen.
“He isn’t a very nice person,” I told Marc. “I mean, he like, wouldn’t even show up for shows. But you know, can you really blame him for not showing up when all the other band members were doped up on heroin all the time?”
“I think you can appreciate someone’s art, and not the artist,” Marc said. Yeah, I guess so. I think that’s right. Is it? Well, I could become infatuated with the Foo Fighters, and they seem so kind, they could be a replacement and I wouldn’t have to worry about the asshole part.
The reason I haven’t read the Foo Fighters book in a few days is because I’ve been busy trying to write my own music and doing mostly a crummy job recording little songs of my tinny voice with my mediocre keyboard skills. I felt guilty making a little cover of Guns N Roses, My Michelle. I shouldn’t support someone like Axl. The song has been repeating itself in my mind as I try to sleep, like a haunting. I can’t really support this guy, can I? I can’t really be his fan. In one article, I read that he said something like, “If you don’t like me but pay attention to what happens to me, you’re a fan.” Well…
But back to Foo Fighters, I was listening to them a lot, while I drove, around the house, when I went to bed. It seemed to help the depression. I was still feeling very low after returning to Florida. Every time Marc would walk into a room where I was listening to Foo Fighters, he would say “Who are you listening to?” “
“Foo Fighters! Why do you keep asking me that? I keep telling you!”
He’s not affected by my defensiveness. “If you haven’t learned in twenty years of marriage that I’m just curious, I don’t know what to say. Why do you like them?”
I turned over in bed. “You know, I’m tired,” I said and truly I was and didn’t want to have this conversation. “They make me feel better. I don’t know. Why do I have to know why I like them?”
“I just think it’s good to know how to describe why you like something,” he said. This is true. Marc can describe why he likes and dislikes everything. Even lettuce. The texture makes him cringe, he says. It makes his teeth almost hurt. It feels like nails on a chalkboard. Lettuce makes everything around it taste like lettuce instead of the thing it really is. Lettuce when it gets warm has a horrible smell. Lettuce was served in too many sickly mayonnaise dressings at too many church potlucks out in the heat growing up in Florida. He rests his case.
The next day I watched a Foo Fighters concert, a recent one in New York. No one was home when I started it but soon everyone is home surrounding me in our small condo.
“Who’s this?” Marc said. Seriously.
“Foo Fighters!” Now the entire family was asking me why I liked them. “Why don’t you guys like them?” I asked. “What’s wrong with them?” I could have just cried. I just wanted to watch the concert in peace.
“We didn’t say we didn’t like them,” Marc said, “We just want to know why you do.”
I sighed.
“You know, Tom Petty wanted Dave Grohl to be his drummer, but he said no. They say he is like this generation’s Tom Petty.”
“What generation?” he said. “How is this like Tom Petty?”
“I don’t know!” I answer. “I just thought it was interesting that somebody said that!” He furrowed his deep brow.
“I don’t see how it is like Tom Petty,” he said.
“That’s not really what they [Mick Wall] said. They said Foo Fighters was like an ANSWER to Tom Petty” I said. He goes on.
“How is it an answer to Tom Petty?” (I really have no idea.)
“I don’t know but isn’t it neat that they said that?”
He puts his chin in his hands. “I just don’t see how it is an answer to Tom Petty. I mean, an answer like punk is an answer to music of the 70s…?”
“Forget it.”
“I mean, they’re fun,” he said.
“Yeah. Well, they’re also really nice people! I mean Dave Grohl is supposed to be like the kindest musician ever.” The concert was paused at this point so we could have this conversation. I could see my family from above, crowded in this little living room with the big screen tv paused on the lights of Foo Fighters in New York. As much as this conversation was frustrating me, I have to say I love my family. Oh my God, I love them.
“How do I know that name Dave Grohl?” he asked.
“Nirvana! He was the drummer for Nirvana!” I said this like it was obvious, but I didn’t even know this for a while. In fact, I think originally Marc is the one that pointed this out to me a long time ago.
“Oh yeah! That’s right,” he said.
“Yeah! I mean he is really nice. I mean like one thing; I think the band was at an airport and there was an autistic child having sensory issues and they laid on the floor and so the band all laid down with him. There’s a picture and an article about it.” Since we lost our fourteen-year-old son with special needs a few years earlier, we are all quiet and pensive and sad for a minute.
“Really?” my oldest finally said.
“Yeah! I mean I think that’s right. I think that’s the story. I think that’s right.”
“That’s cool,” he said, “But just name like five reasons you like Foo Fighters. I mean I like Iron Maiden because they are energetic, literary…”
“Oh! Did you know Guns and Roses opened for Iron Maiden once? But they were like why are they writing about fairies and elves and shit, and they were annoyed because Iron Maiden had this big fake glacier on stage, and they didn’t want to sing around this cheesy glacier.”
My family just sort of stared at me. And then they were off to do stuff while I finished the concert. This is typical. My family gives me alone time. It’s nice of them. It’s that or maybe I’m just a little exhausting sometimes and they need space from me. Either way, it kind of works out. After they left, the concert slowed down and got a little emotional. Oh! I wish Marc was here, I thought. He sounds a little like Bruce Springsteen. That would convince him! I text Marc.
“I think you would like this part of the concert. It slowed down a little and got emotional.”
Dave talked to the audience for a while. He had a sore throat, but he said he finished a concert after breaking his leg once and he would be damned if he didn’t finish this concert because of some voice problems. He kept going and his voice got worse and worse.
“I’m trying so fucking hard!” he said with pathos to the audience “I’m doing this for you, motherfuckers!” Oh man. He really cares. I teared up a little. Geez, Axl wouldn’t do this. He would have and said,
“My throat fucking hurts and it’s your fault motherfuckers. I’m outta here” and then thrown his mic on the ground like an exclamation point.
I looked up the article about them at the airport. Okay. It wasn’t an airport it was backstage. And it wasn’t a boy with Autism, it was a boy with Down Syndrome. And it wasn’t sensory issues it was a panic attack from being overwhelmed about meeting the band. And it wasn’t Foo Fighters, it was Maroon 5. But anyway, it is still a beautiful story! I texted the article to my oldest.
“I was a little mixed up,” I texted, “but it’s still a great story.”
Five reasons I like the Foo Fighters: energetic, happy, nice. What else? I needed two more. Well, I didn’t know yet. I needed time. They are catchy though, I’ll say that.
The next day I went to coffee with my friend. Her dad just died. For a while this was at the forefront of my mind but when she went up to order another drink, I stared out the window and started thinking about Axl and Dave Grohl again. When she came back, I told her I think I’ve figured something out. I explained to her about my reading adventures. She looked puzzled.
“Do you even like Guns N Roses? She asked. Oh man. My friend is a real musician and knows A LOT about music.
“Well, yes” I answered sheepishly. Honestly, she kind of looked like she wanted to throw up.
“Well, it’s like a nostalgia thing from my teenage years. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. It’s bothering me. I can’t get away from this infatuation. I know it means something, but I don’t know what. Do you think I’m just distracting myself?” I asked her.
“No,” she said.
Somewhere in the conversation we got into the topic of what it means to be an artist. She admitted to being a bit of a snob and being particular about who she considers an artist.
“I’m like the opposite,” I said, “I’m more like ‘everybody’s an artist.’” I laughed but then added a bit more seriously, “But I always think of that Picasso thing where he said all children are artists but then we forget.”
“Some children are artists,” she said.
“Children with talent?” I asked.
“Children that have something to say.” she said. “An artist doesn’t just have something to say. They have something to say that needs to be said in a particular time.” Now I was the one having a hard time swallowing this. I didn’t want to barf, but I didn’t want to accept it.
I went home and thought a lot. I didn’t know what to make about all these stories about Axl. As Kate Bush once sang, “I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.” I know how twisted stories can get, believe me. I also know that people can justify anything with anything anymore. It’s ridiculous. But leaving information and articles and unofficial biographies and memoirs and autobiographies aside, I want to just talk to Axl directly for a minute.
Dear Axl,
First, I love that haunting guitar riff at the beginning of Welcome to the Jungle, but you know years ago before I even read all of these books or knew of anything or rumors of anything, a thought entered my head about this song. Rape. Something felt like rape. “I wanna watch you bleed,” and “You know where you are? You’re in the jungle baby. You’re gonna die.” Maybe it is the words here that make me think of rape, but maybe it is also the clear honest aggressive anger in your voice when you sing these words. Was this intentional? I’m just wondering. Was it meant to be a metaphor for rape or is that just inside of me? If it was meant to be, are you identifying as the rapist or the raped or both? Also, I have something to say about the video for November Rain. Was that little measly rainstorm in the music video really supposed to be strong enough to kill the bride? And you should know that my eleven-year-old can’t stop laughing at the part where the guy crashes into the wedding cake because it looks like he just dives into it on purpose. We kept rewinding that part over and over and holding our sides. Was that funny to you too? Because it was funny to us. And I think when you said to Kurt Cobain, “You’re everything I could have been,” well I think this was the most real thing I ever heard you say, and I completely agree. The song that I think could have been your best is “My Michelle.” The lyrics are honest and raw, and you have taken the very tragic life of your then girlfriend and made it into a real poem. If only you had sung it in the slow ballad manner of November Rain with the haunting guitar at the beginning of Welcome to the Jungle with an ounce of sweetness from Sweet Child O Mine and an ounce of joy from Paradise City and stripped the rest down to the essentials to mirror the lyrics. If you had done this, I think it would have been so much better. I can’t get over that line, “you never can tell.” My question is, are you telling Michelle that she never can tell anyone something or are you saying that none of us can ever really tell what the actual truth is in any situation?. I don’t know if I am going to keep listening to your music from the past anymore or watch what you do with the future, but if you ever do a remake of “My Michelle”, I’ll take a listen. Oddly enough, I’ve been writing this while listening to Tori Amos. It crossed my mind. What would Tori say to you if you were alone in a room together? This question is less fun when I think about the fact that maybe this has already happened, and I could google the answer online. I tried to read Tori’s memoir too, but I couldn’t get into it. What does that say about me? Am I not feminist enough? The last line I remember reading was about how she felt she was born a feminist but had to come up with better tactics for this when they weren’t working on her grandmother. That’s where I stopped. Hey Axl, she grew up in the church too, like us. “Why do we crucify ourselves?” Right? This morning though I listened to Ella Fitzgerald. I was just kind of ready for something else..
Christy Spaulding Boyer is a writer, painter and amateur musician living in Florida. She has been creating since her girlhood and was highly influenced by the creative play with her older sister while growing up. She lives with and is very proud of her beautiful family.