W. Axl Rose (born William Bruce Rose Jr.; born February 6, 1962) is an American singer and songwriter. He is best known for being the lead vocalist and lyricist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, and has been the band's sole constant member since its inception in 1985. Possessing a distinctive and powerful wide-ranging voice, Rose has been named one of the greatest singers of all time by various media outlets, including Rolling Stone, NME and Billboard. Born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, Rose moved in the early 1980s to Los Angeles, alongside friend Jeffrey Isbell (Izzy Stradlin), where he became active in the local hard rock scene and joined several bands, including Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns. In 1985, he co-founded Guns N' Roses alongside Stradlin, with whom he had great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their first album, Appetite for Destruction (1987), has sold in excess of 30 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. with 18 million units sold. Rose’s high-profile relationships with Erin Everly and Stephanie Seymour in the late 80’s and early 90’s inspired multiple songs, including the number one hit “Sweet Child o' Mine”. However allegations of abuse by Rose caused significant controversy, as did the band’s band’s next release G N' R Lies (1988) due to his inclusion of multiple slurs on the song “One in a Million”. (Source: Wikipedia.org, CC BY-SA)