In 1992, my husband had begun his Masters degree at Purdue University and I found myself living in Lafayette, Indiana. I was mostly a stay at home mom with our toddler-sized daughter. Besides being a mother, I was also a music enthusiast. I liked a variety of music but at that time I really liked hard rock/metal the most (I had a lot of anger issues). My favorite band was Guns N' Roses.
My brother-in-law, Brad, planted the idea for a writing project when he said to me, "Since you're already in Lafayette, why not write something about Axl." And so I did. I did research on Axl's early life in Lafayette - taking photos around town, looking up his birth announcement from the local newspaper, even going to the courthouse to see what could be found in open records. There was no use trying to interview anyone who might have known him when he was growing up. By then he was famous and he'd asked everyone who knew anything about him to please not talk.
I put together a booklet about Axl's early life. Then I also put together a booklet about GNR. This was pre-internet days. If fans wanted to communicate with other like minded individuals they wrote to them. Small ads would be placed in the back of some of the music magazines. Fans would share each other's addresses to gain larger circles of correspondence. Some fans or groups of fans had founded fan clubs or fanzines. Circles of friends could be enlarged if you wrote an article for these underground publications. Plus it was great to share your concert or personal experience. I entered those circles and found a new world of friends. These people were just as hungry as I was to know new details about our favorite bands. I wrote articles for a few of the fanzines. These were the people who began to make up my audience. I barely broke even with the Axl and the GNR booklets. However, it did lead to an offer from a small publisher for a long form book about GNR.
Then we moved back to Tennessee so that my husband could finish his Masters degree at the University of Tennessee. Guns N Roses as a band broke down. The publisher lost interest in the fan based book and declined. My interest and the interest of others changed. All the research and extra copies of the booklets were packed up and put in storage.
Then a lot of life happened. My husband finished his degree. I gave birth to a son. We moved five more times while he worked in the agriculture industry. And then there was the flood that destroyed much of my old writing that I had packed away in storage.
And now, over twenty years later, I've come full circle. When I heard that Guns N' Roses were getting back together I thought it was a good time to pull out what was left of all my old research materials and weave the dangling thread of that unfinished book into the tapestry of my life. I know, it sounds like I'm just trying to make a buck. However, I doubt that I profit financially very much from this project (not any more than I did the previous booklets). But it will give me relief to know that I completed this - finally.
WELCOME BACK GUNS N' ROSES!
