Any rock band is usually on the verge of breaking up at all times. Regardless of how much musical chemistry they might have together, no amount of goodwill has ever been able to account for the personal relationships in a band. And once the money starts rolling in, that normally becomes an issue. Ozzy Osbourne had already been burned by getting the boot from Black Sabbath, but he was pissed off when Guns N’ Roses didn’t reach the same heights as the greatest acts in the world.
Because when Guns arrived on the scene, it felt like the beginning of the next musical movement. They have come out of the same rock and roll dungeons that housed the hair metal bands. But you weren’t going to mistake a Guns N’ Roses song for any of their contemporaries.
If anything, the fact that their debut album, Appetite for Destruction, was so good almost killed hair metal by comparison. Everyone might have been clinging to their Winger albums like a life raft by the end of the decade. But why would you ever want to listen to one of those songs when you had ‘Welcome to the Jungle’?
Ozzy Osbourne was no slouch, either. He had already gotten a new guitarist into the mix, and now that he was about to embark on tours for albums like No Rest for the Wicked, Guns seemed like one of the bands that would continue the same bluesy hard rock that he had loved from as far back as the British Invasion.
Once a band gets big, egos come in. And there’s a good chance that no other singer had a bigger ego than Axl Rose. He already had a great set of pipes, but somewhere in the 1990s, that frontman seemed to disappear up his ass on Use Your Illusion. Although those albums remain classic for a reason, Rose’s decision to take the band around the world twice and make everyone sign over the rights to the name Guns N’ Roses wasn’t exactly going along with the Three Musketeers mentality.
By the time everyone not named ‘Axl’ was let go or quit Guns N’ Roses, Osbourne was pissed, recalling later, “What’s always gotten me about the Guns N’ Roses guys and I say to Slash all the time, ‘Do you realize what you guys did? You’ll never understand. You guys could’ve been the next Rolling Stones, the next superband”.
Even though Osbourne wasn’t happy about what happened, he channeled his anger into song, with Slash in tow, no less. Since the guitar legend had filled in on other people’s records. His debut solo outing meant bringing on a bunch of singers. It included Osbourne’s scathing critique of Rose on ‘Crucify the Dead’.
Ozzy Osbourne hasn’t changed a thing with his vocals since the late 1990s. But he does have a bit more grit in his voice this time around. From Slash’s perspective, Osbourne intended to write his personal diss track directed at Rose. He thought that he had snuffed out the fire that they once shared.
Slash has managed to patch up his differences with Rose and has rejoined Guns N’ Roses. But it’s probably too late to create that same magic again. The same musicians might be together again, but the sound of Appetite for Destruction was the kind of perfection that a band only ever gets once.
