Axl Rose Misconceptions Addressed By Tracii Guns

03-01-2025

L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns appeared on a recent episode of The Bad Decisions Podcast With Scott Nathan and reflected on the early days of Guns N' Roses, specifically frontman Axl Rose and explained where some of the misconceptions of the vocalist came from.

During the chat, Tracii was asked what Axl was like as a roommate and he responded, "He was a great roommate. The interesting thing about Axl is he really knows right from wrong. Let's just start there. He's smart, he's responsible, he is not afraid to ask for help when he needs help, he's always ready to give help. A really solid person.

"We really had a great friendship. We were inseparable for a few years. The thing that changed, and I had known, he had told me, he had, what did we call it back then? Manic depression is what he called.

"'Well, yeah, I have manic depression,' blah, blah, blah. 'I'm supposed to be taking these meds, but I'm okay.' And I would have never known, until the one day. And the one day was, he was off with a junior high school friend of mine. And he had taken some ecstasy, and we didn't see him for, like, a week and he showed up at this gig and he was just like a completely different person.

"I was, like, 'Whoa. Who are you? Who's this guy?' And that's when the other side of that kind of kicked in. I knew I wasn't gonna, I couldn't deal with that. I loved him on the one side, the person I knew, and we were creative together, we were funny together, but at that time, he really wanted to take control over everything around him."