Guns N' Roses formed in Hollywood, 1985 with singer W. Axl Rose, lead guitarist Slash, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff "Rose" McKagan and drummer Steven Adler. Taking the L.A club circut by storm, in 1986 GN'R was signed to Geffen Records by A&R executive Tom Zutaut and that fall the band produced and released a four song EP, Live ?! Like A Suicide, on its own Uzi Suicide label. Appetite For Destruction, the band's first full length album, was released in July 1987 and broke into the Top 100 of the pop charts 10 months later. The album peaked at for five weeks and would become the best selling album on the Geffen label residing on the Billboard charts for 147 weeks - nearly three years (!!). Three singles released from the album reashed top 10 status, with the certified-gold "Sweet Child O'Mine" topping the charts at the position. "Paradise City" hit and "Welcome To The Jungle" reached. Guns N' Roses also won the 1988 MTV Award for Best New Artist with their "Welcome To The Jungle" video. In November 1988, Geffen released the GN'R Lies EP, which included songs from the earlier EP as well as new acoustic material, including the single "Patience" which reached and went gold. GN'R Lies went to on the charts and received a Grammy nomination. Guns N' Roses was lauded in Rolling Stone's Readers Poll as "Best New American Band" and in the Critics Poll as "Best Heavy Metal Band" and "Best Male Singer".

In 1989, "Sweet Child O'Mine" won an American Music Award for "Favourite Single, Pop/Rock" and the MTV award for "Best Metal/Hard Rock Video." To date, Appetite For Destruction has sold more than 17 million copies world-wide and GN'R Lies more than 6 million. The band contributed to two albums in 1990: the soundtrack to the film Days Of Thunder with a cover of Bob Dylans "Knockin' On Heavens Door" and Nobody's Child, the project to benefit Romanian orphants, with the original "Civil War". In April 1990, GN'R performed at Farm Aid IV and won two American Music Awards, "Favourite Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Artist" and "Favourite Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Album".

Individually, Slash and Duff played on Iggy Pop's Brick By Brick album, and Slash recorded with Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Lenny Kravitz, and on the tribute album for Les Paul. In July 1990, the band reluctantly fired Steven Adler after repeatedly trying to help him resolve the drug problems that hindered his drumming. A month later, Matt Sorum joined Guns N' Roses after touring with the Cult for one year. He performed in concert with the band for the first time in January 1991 in front of 260 000 fans at the Rock in Rio II festival in Brazil. Keyboardist Dizzy Reed, a friend from the early days, had been added the previous year to give some additional color to the GN'R sound.

On May 24 1991, GN'R kicked of a two year tour, the band's first time as headlined on a world tour. On September 17 1991, Geffen released Use Your Illusion I and II, marking the first time a major contemporary artist released two separate albums on the same day. UYI I and UYI II debuted at and respectively on the Billboard charts. "Don't Cry", the first single from UYI I, went gold. Earlier that summer "You Could Be Mine (on UYI II) was released as a single and featured in the blockbuster film Terminator 2: Judgement Day. In the first 30 days, world-wide sales of the single exceeded 1,5 million copies. Together, combined sales of the two albums have reached over 27 million copies world-wide.

In November, Izzy Stradlin resigned and was replaced on tour by Gilby Clarke, formerly of the band Kills For Thrills. When GN'R was developing in its early days, Clarke was in bands that played many of the same gritty Hollywood clubs. Supported by a performance video, "Live And Let Die" was released as the third single from the UYI albums on December 3 1991.

The second U.S leg of the GN'R tour was launched December 5, running through February 1 1992, including 25 predominantly sold out shows. It was followed by a tour of Japan, plus shows in Mexico City and a couple of U.S cities before GN'R appeared as featured guests at "The Freddy Mercury Tribute: Concert For AIDS Awareness" at Wembley Stadium in London on April 20. The all-star show was shown live around the world via satellite, garnering the largest audience for a music concert in history. GN'R then toured Europe again loggin 19 shows between May 16 and July 4. Following the European stint, the three GN'R albums and EP were all charting in Norway and Germany (where more than a million Illusion albums have been sold). Led by the single "Knockin' On Heavens Door", GN'R was entrenched in the upper reaches or the charts in England, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Greece, Holland, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and Hong Kong. In the U.K., the royalties from the "Knockin'" single have been pledged to organisations fitghting AIDS. On June 16 1992 "November Rain" was released as the next single. It was supported by an epic concert video that reached the position on MTV's Top 20 Countdown. At the 1992 MTV Awards the band received the prestigious Vanguard Award and "November Rain" won for "Best Cinematography". As the band returned to the U.S. for stadium dates, "November Rain" was certified gold.

GN'R marked its entry into home video with Use Your Illusion World Tour - 1992 in Tokyo (Geffen Home Video), presented in two separate packages, I and II. The band then embarked on tour legs that included South America, Japan, Australia and the Far East, extending the tour into early 1993. The Use Your Illusion world tour became the longest in rock history; 28 months, 192 concerts and 28 countries.

In the summer of 1993, Geffen Home Video released two more long-form music videos, Makin' F@*!ing Videos Part 1: "Don't Cry" and Makin' F@*!ing Videos Part 2: "November Rain". In November 1993, Guns N' Roses unveiled its fifth album "The Spaghetti Incident?" - encompassing covers of favourite bands who had influenced GN'R through the years. In 1994 they released the video "The Making Of Estranged; Part IV Of The Trilogy!!!". The same year they also released the single "Sympathy For The Devil", a cover of an old Rolling Stones tune that appeared on the soundtrack to the movie "Interview With A Vampire". Gilby has been fired by Axl for several different reasons (1995) Slash is now out of GN'R. The news was released at October 30 1996. The rest of the band, now including Axl, Duff, Matt and Dizzy are scheduled to spend 3/4 weeks of February -97 in studio recording new material. The new album is due in spring/summer 1997.

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