The Ultimate Fan Tribute to Guns N’ Roses

When I read that Guns N’ Roses might be reuniting, I immediately knew who needed to hear about it: my coworker Stephanie Billman. When I told her, she reponded:

“THIS IS THE BEST NEWS EVER!!!!”

So in honor of the momentus occasion, I asked Billman to share a relic from her past life: her high school Guns N’ Roses scrapbook. You can see some of the pages with her thoughts below.

A detail from the cover

(Courtesy of Stephanie Billman)

On her discovery of Guns N’ Roses:

Oddly enough, it was through a Clint Eastwood movie called “The Dead Pool.”My mom was a huge Clint Eastwood fan, so I watched a lot of his movies with her. “Welcome to the Jungle”was playing during a scene in the movie and the guitar rift hooked me. At the end of the movie, I paid attention to the music credits and found out it was a Guns N’Roses song. I went to a Camelot music store the next day and listened to “Appetite for Destruction”at one of their listening stations. “Welcome to the Jungle” hit me in the gut (still does to this day) but it was “Paradise City” that made me fall in love with them. I was learning how to play drums at the time and the drum work in that song stands out for me. Steven Adler had a lot of talent.

The opening pages of Billman’s Guns N’ Roses scrapbook

(Courtesy of Stephanie Billman)

On the decision to make a scrapbook:

I had subscriptions to Circus, Hit Parader, and Rolling Stone magazines and I saved every GN’R article they published. I was fascinated with not only their music, but their story and how their lives shaped what they were creating as a band. When my pile of articles began to lean precariously towards the end of my desk, I realized I should do something with them. I started organizing the articles by members and the history of the band and put them in an old photo album my mom wasn’t using. And the scrapbook was born!

(Courtesy of Stephanie Billman)

The beginning of the section dedicated to Axl Rose — he gets a whole 12 pages

(Courtesy of Stephanie Billman)

On telling the story of GN’R:

I decided to tell the story of the band first and then piece apart the personalities behind the band. You will notice the Axl section is much larger than the other members. This is both because there was a lot more material on Axl (he does love the sound of his own voice) and I found him fascinating/hot (still do, much to my husband’s horror).

Axl 4 ever

(Courtesy of Stephanie Billman)

The section devoted to GN’R guitarist Slash

(Courtesy of Stephanie Billman)

GN’R bassist Duff McKagan

(Courtesy of Stephanie Billman)

Tell me about Izzy Stradlin, the guitarist — you only have one photo of him.

Izzy Stradlin is an enigma — he hated the publicity aspect of the band and was extremely private. At the time I was putting together the scrapbook, it was hard to find anything about him. Even his leaving the group was a bit of a question mark. In the video for “Don’t Cry,” you see someone wearing a sign that says “Where’s Izzy?” The story was (and I’m not sure if this is true) he quit with no notice — just got on his motorcycle and drove away from everything. He has said in more recent interviews that once he sobered up, dealing with the machine of Guns N’Roses (and Axl’s volatile personality) was too much. He’s since worked with both Velvet Revolver and even the new lineup of Guns N’Roses. So I guess fences have been mended? *fingers crossed for a reunion tour*

The lone photo of Izzy Stradlin

(Courtesy of Stephanie Billman)

A final look at Axl

(Courtesy of Stephanie Billman)

The back cover

(Courtesy of Stephanie Billman)

We’ve highlighted lots of fan tributes — from our recent drawingof the Rugrats all grown up (by one of the show’s animators) to the Louvre of fan art.
Have you made an amazing tribute to one of your favorite bands or shows? Tell us about it in the comments.