Axl Rose: “I’m a %$@# Hoosier rocker, too!”

Axl Rose is making a comeback of sorts, performing a handful of shows with recently reunited Guns N’ Roses this month (most notably at Coachella), and signing on as the replacement singer for AC/DC for that band’s upcoming tour.

As part of a celebration of Indiana’s 2016 bicentennial, IM included Rose, a product of Lafayette, in a roundup of greatest-ever Hoosier musicians. Contacted about Rose, noted Indiana University rock-music professor Glenn Gass shared the following anecdote.

“I think people forget how huge that band was. I went to the last night of the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels tour in December 1989, when Axl and Izzy [Stradlin, GNR guitarist] performed ‘Salt of the Earth’ with the Stones. I snuck into the Trump Club in Atlantic City afterwards, and Axl and Izzy showed up a few minutes later (they were not, apparently, invited to the Stones’ end-of-tour party). I yelled, ‘Axl, Indiana!’ which brought him to our table for a couple of hours of hanging out. He was utterly charming, drank only orange juice, and agreed to come guest-lecture in my rock-history class at IU. He also seemed obsessed with the fact that everybody called Mellencamp ‘the Hoosier Rocker’ — ‘even though I’m a fucking Hoosier rocker, too! NO ONE ever says that!’ He was angry and hurt that his home state had not embraced him. It was actually kind of sad and sweet.”