GNR Photos as GNR Songs

Rocket Queen

There are no pics of the actual Rocket Queen - Barbie Von Grief - with GNR. Sorry. Only GNR pics. I might make an exception and add a solo pic of her.

“That’s my favourite photo we’ve shot. That’s been hanging out with Barbi [Von Grief] lately. Barbi did my hair and makeup that day—that’s why I look so cool. No one else knows how to do hair and makeup like that because no one else has that mentality of drugs and heavy rock ‘n’ roll. Like, I wasn’t on drugs but I look like I’m annihilated. She’s smart. She knows how to do it.”—Axl, at the CBGB in 1987

Random GNR Fun Facts

@motley-queen Anyone please feel free to add to this and correct anything that's incorrect. -Slash really likes snakes. He had two named Clyde and Cranston that were mentioned on the Appetite for Destruction liner notes. -Axl gave Steven the nickname 'Popcorn' when introducing him at their concert at the Ritz in 1988 because of the way his hair bounced around while he played. -Steven loves pugs. -Axl recorded Appetite for Destruction line by line. -GNR used to be friends with Mötley Crüe and one of their first big tours was opening for them during their Girls, Girls, Girls tour. -Axl and Izzy are both kind of reclusive, so they didn't hang out with the Crüe much. I believe Steven and Nikki are still friends now. You may have noticed in the Dirt movie Slash and Steven were present at the gathering where Nikki died. -One time Steven got kicked out of a bar for being too drunk and he got mad an punched a light and broke his hand so he couldn't play and Fred Coury from Cinderella had to fill in for him for a while. -Axl was late to their label signing. The band spent a long time looking for him and eventually found him on the roof, meditating. -Axl's feud with Vince Neil happened because Izzy had made an inappropriate comment about Vince's wife, Sharise. Axl decided he had to get involved and defend his bandmate. Izzy apologized to Vince afterward, but Axl and Vince kept threatening to fight each other but never did. -An early friend of the band (maybe Barbie Von Grief) said that Axl talks a lot about people who've hurt him, which is why he spent so much time badmouthing Slash after Slash quit. -Axl and Izzy are actually country hicks from Indiana. -In the albume liner notes for Use Your Illusion they have "fuck you St. Louis" in reference to the St. Louis riot. During Rocket Queen, there was a guy with a camera who was taunting Axl and Axl told the security to take the camera and they didn't, so he launched himself into the crowd to take it himself. He then got back on stage and announced "thanks to the lameass security, I'm going home" and smashed the microphone on the ground and left. Fans rioted because the show was cut short and Axl was blamed and GNR was banned from playing St. Louis again. There's video of this incident. -All of them abused drugs, but Steven had the worst problem. It got to the point where the rest of the band wanted to kick him out because he couldn't clean up his act, but they didn't have an explicit reason to. The last concert they played together was Farm Aid in 1990. Steven tripped and fell while coming onstage. They did two songs, Civil War, which was new and they had only rehearsed it in the studio a few times, and a UK Subs cover Down On the Farm, which Steven had never heard before. Duff clapped the beat for him and Steven managed to play the song (well enough that I wouldn't have known he'd never heard it). He happened to be going through a period of trying to get clean (which, like Nikki Sixx he tried and failed many many times before finally getting clean in 2010) and he was super sick from withdrawal when they fired him. They made him come in to record Civil War and he could barely get through the song (the final version of his part had to be heavily edited to be a cohesive song) because he was so sick. They claimed it was evidence that he was too jacked up to be in the band and fired him. -Axl was married twice. Once to Erin Everly, who Sweet Child O' Mine is about, and once to Stephanie Seymour who appeared in the November Rain music video (I believe that's where they started dating) and likely many of the songs on Chinese Democracy are about her (and/or Slash). In both relationships, they were abusive to each other. -I believe it was Stephanie that Axl proposed to by threatening to shoot himself if she didn't marry him. -The bromance is strong in this band. Slash/Axl, Slash/Steven, Slash/Duff, Duff/Steven, and Axl/Izzy were all BFF pairs. -Axl and Izzy were actually BFFs from school. Steven and Slash were too. They met when Steven fell off his skateboard and Slash came and asked if he was ok. -Axl's singing career began as a child when he sang in the church choir. -Welcome to the Jungle was written about when Axl left home and went to New York City (it might have been LA, but I think it was NYC the first time) and got off the bus and as he tells it in the intro from the Ritz '88 concert "this little old black man comes up to me and my friend with our backpacks and about ten bucks between us and he goes, 'do you know where you are? you're in the jungle, baby, you're gonna die!" -Axl wanted real sex sounds for Rocket Queen, so that's him and Steven's girlfriend Adrianna (which Steven was pissed about). -Their first tour together was known as the Hell Tour. Duff had a band with some shows scheduled up in Seattle (where he's from) so they were going to play them but their car broke down and they had to hitchike there and leave all their equipment behind. -They at one point lived in what was essentially a garage with a loft. -Axl has bipolar disorder and is generally a very intense person. He's described as both a huge asshole and an incredibly sweet, caring guy. He's also actually very quiet and shy. -For example, one time when Steven overdosed and was in the hospital, Axl was the only one who came to visit him. -One time Axl was with some girls and wanted to go to one of Mötley Crüe's parties, but he was too shy to ask so he sent the girls and Nikki decided to let the girls in but not Axl just to be a dick. -The start of the whole "Axl is a control-freak dictator" thing is from when they toured with the Rolling Stones. Axl was so impressed with how the Stone's tour was such a well-oiled machine and he wanted GNR to be like that (I think it was GNR that Metallica said they learned everything what not to do from touring with GNR). Suposedly Axl forced Slash and Duff to sign away all the rights to everything GNR to Axl or else he refused to go on stage. They quit shortly after that. -Freddie Mercury and Elton John were Axl's idols (hence all the grandiose piano songs). -At Donington in 1988, two fans were killed during their set. That show is where some of the footage for the Paradise City music video comes from. The band didn't find out until afterward and they were devestated. The crowd had been rowdy and they could see people were getting injured and Axl had been trying to get the crowd to calm down, but the two bodies weren't found until after the show (it had been raining so much it was super muddy and they were partially buried in the mud). -Izzy is basically a recluse and no one knows where he is or what he's doing. But he does have a solo career. I don't think he ever wanted to be in a band as big as GNR became. -Slash and Duff founded Velvet Revolver together. Sebastian Bach auditioned, but they rejected him because they said they sounded like Skid Roses (so they went with Scott Weiland and sounded like Stone Temple Roses instead). -The first ideas for the music for November Rain came to Axl while he was on a bus in the early-mid 80s. -They didn't used to have a setlist. Axl would just pick songs based on the mood of the crowd. During the Use Your Illusion tour this meant that all the backing musicians and dancers had to be just waiting backstage for their song to be announced. -Axl threw ridiculously extravagant afterparties on the Use Your Illusion tour. -Slash proposed the original lyrics for Paradise City: "where the girls are cute and they've got big titties" -Right Next Door to Hell was written about Axl's neighbor who claimed that he attacked her with a wine bottle and there was a lengthy legal battle about it. -They were an overnight sensation basically. The Welcome to the Jungle music video was played on MTV at midnight or 3am or something ridiculous but fans loved it so much they kept calling in and asking for it to be played again. -They used to be glam in their early days. Steven argued against it became the makeup would run in his eyes while playing.

Axl has a thing for brunettes doesn’t he?

WHEN THE CURTAIN DROPS...

From the instant you could stand on your own small feet, you knew what you wanted them to be capable of, delicate tricks that would make you a living one day. It had always been so crystal clear to you, your future shining in vivid shades of pastel dreams and blinding stage lights and the odds were in your favour as long as they could be, catapulting a girl to stardom who could not yet celebrate her successes with anything stronger than weakly concentrated wine. Through the nightly streets of Paris, your name echoed in anguish and awe alike, the suspicion of something so supreme inevitably crumbling to pieces instilled in your admirer’s minds long before you could have ever seen it coming. It came in the form of a man, the beginning of the swan’s end, in love and a change of perspective, in a fragile heart besotted to otherworldly extents. The girl who only ever dreamt of being a prima ballerina longed for it all: marriage, a house, maybe a child or two once the time was right. The ring you got, the house you were working towards — all of that in exchange for nothing more than your career, a small sacrifice in relation to the wonders of happily ever after. And you came so close to it you could graze the vision with your fingertips as lightly as your lover’s jawline until the day came on which he was never to return. The day your misery commenced.

...YOU SHOW YOUR TRUE COLOURS

'The boy died,’ a line in A Streetcar Named Desire tearing on your heartstrings since childhood had become your reality, abruptly so, without even the faintest hint of a warning. Destiny had turned its cruel back to you, a fallen star, your shine too dim for Paris’ boulevards as you spiralled further and further into the gloominess of your unendurable grief. They’d give you another chance, they claimed mercifully, but you knew all too well that they would never cease to see the weeping widow in black silk in you, your past a heavy shadow pushing you back onto your soles whenever en pointe. Only word of your glory had reached neighbouring shores, the light at the end of the tunnel for you appearing to be making your escape, a Parisienne delight fallen from grace packing her bags for Birmingham and never looking back. Your youth you had wasted along with your skill, your time in the spotlight had passed, the realisation sinking in as they eyed your ID with unconcealed disdain after praising your performance. Albeit age having never been just a number in your business you would not cave, not completely, never again. Your current employment comes with its ups and downs, responsibility at times making your head spin more than the pressure of perfection on stage but you pull through with a smile on your face, the genuinity of it no longer your concern. It is what it is, je ne regrette rien you whisper to yourself as La Môme Piaf lulls you to restless slumber. One day, in a world of such unpredictable mortality, this too shall pass.

VICTIM OR CULPRIT?

With your sights set on the stage, your mind roaming behind the curtains, your physical form remains banned to the rehearsal rooms. Adeline Moreau, the former star du spectacle turned ballet mistress, the most appropriate position, they say, for a danseuse of the age of forty. Ethereal beauty had become your trademark in your days of glory, many likening you to Dita von Teese, but the eyes that stare back at you from the mirror now have lost their shine long ago, the glow of liveliness only returning to your features for fleeting moments of success. Oh, don’t you wish you could make it last?

IN RELATION TO

MILLICENT BABIČ: No relationship has ever been as conflicting as the one you share with this woman, your boss, your saviour but also a frequent thorn in your side. Piteous stares were glued to your steps as you first entered the Queen Victoria’s Opera House’s main stage with the exception of hers, alert and riveted, glimmering with a fierceness commonly mistaken for viciousness. Friend and foe alike, she has believed in you when no one else was willing to yet her way of ruling over creative freedom distresses a woman used to getting her way, not to even mention the colleague she has cursed you with. In the end, you keep your lips sealed, tightly pressed together in detestation, always the smart one, always giving in, with the hope that suppressed accusations may never bubble out in a fit of unladylike rage. BARBARA DONNE: In no other danseuse have you ever spied so much of yourself, the urge to take her under your wing inexorable. A biased frown directed at everyone underestimating talent and composure laced with vulnerability, you’ve shown her the occasional trick or two a nobler woman would have shared with the entire company, however you know when you are merely wasting your breath and that such would never be the case as long as Barbie is the one addressed. With your help, she has finally increased in rank and the gratefulness in her smile is enough to console you for another night, another week, her joy your reward, a blissful feeling you imagine a woman normally harbours only for her own flesh and blood. FRANCISCO GARCÍA: You hang your head in shame at the thoughts he evokes, passively stirring up memories you’ve been so insistent on forgetting for too many years of your tragic life. Too akin are his mannerisms to those of the man you lost, too deeply rooted is your despair for those similarities to not oscillate you to the core. At times you fear he interprets your distant demeanour as dislike for both his performance and his person when, in reality, there is no other danseur whose skill you admire quite like his. If only yours words didn’t fail to sound sincere, the sadness that swings in your tone too heavily weighing them down for them to not sound like excuses, carefully selected to avoid hurting a struggling artist’s feelings; if only you could look at him without your husband’s features morphing into his.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

Chances of Survival: Slim Applicant must be open to portraying intrusive thoughts Faceclaim is non-negotiable

Taking auditions!

The quality sucks but in the last picture on the drums is Barbie Von Grief

Barbie Von Grief was an aspiring singer who dated Axl Rose for a while, and inspired him to write the song "Rocket Queen". She is mentioned in the credits of Appetite for Destruction, as "Barbi (Rocket Queen) Von Grief". She was also mentioned in the acknowledgements section of L.A. Guns' self-titled debut album.

According to Slash, Barbie was "a queen of the underground scene back then. She'd eventually become a madam, but Axl was infatuated with her at the time."

"I wrote this song for this girl I know. She kinda kept me alive for awhile. She was gonna have a band and call it Rocket Queen. I’m singing as though I was in her shoes, and then at the end of the song I’m singing the song to her. The last part of the song is my message to this person, or anybody else who can get something out of it. It’s like there’s hope and a friendship note at the end of the song." - Axl Rose

Ps: Não estranhes o nome ;)

Barbie von Grief, a “strippah ho” that Axl Rose was having sex with back in the 80’s when Guns N’ Roses was up. She’s so hot!

AXL ROSE AND BARBIE VON GRIEF

Barbi was the madame of a whorehouse. She had a notorious reputation at age 18; she was a drug addict and a queen of the underground scene. Axl was infatuated with her. "I wrote this song for this girl I know. She kinda kept me alive for awhile. She was gonna have a band and call it Rocket Queen. I'm singing as though I was in her shoes, and then at the end of the song I'm singing the song to her. The last part of the song is my message to this person, or anybody else who can get something out of it. It's like there's hope and a friendship note at the end of the song. The girl it's written about, her life's history now. I mean, she's alive, but there's not much left of it.. For that song there is also something I tried to work out with various people - a recorded sex act. It was somewhat spontaneous but premeditated; something I wanted to put on the record. It was a sexual song and it was a wild night in the studio. This girl we knew [Adriana Smith] was dancing; everyone was getting really excited. The night could've gotten really explosive, lots of trouble for everyone, and I thought 'wait a minute, how can we make this more productive?' " Axl - Hit Parader March 1988 

From :  http://ladydairhean.0catch.com/