W. Axl Rose (born William Bruce Rose Jr.; raised as William Bruce Bailey; February 6, 1962) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and musician. He is the lead vocalist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, and has also been the band's sole constant member since its inception in 1985. In addition to Guns N' Roses, he has been the lead singer of AC/DC since 2016. Due to his powerful and very large vocal range and energetic live performances, Rose has been named one of the greatest singers of all time by various media outlets, including Rolling Stone and NME.
Born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, Rose moved in the early 1980s to Los Angeles, 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, 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 one of the best-selling debut albums of all time in the U.S. with 18 million units sold. Its full-length follow-ups, the twin albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II (1991), were also widely successful; they respectively debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and have sold a combined 35 million copies worldwide.