Gilby Clarke was axed by 'pissed off' Axl Rose

Former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke recalls how a “pissed off” Axl Rose brought his spell with the band to an abrupt end.

He spent three years with GNR after replacing Izzy Stradlin in 1991 and says Rose was the one who wielded the axe.

Clarke tells Front Row Ravers: “Axl one day just wanted to change things up. I honestly didn’t know what he wanted to do. He never talked to me directly, I always dealt with Slash.

“There was one week I was in the band and then the next week he was just pissed off with something. And finally one day, the cheques stopped coming. That’s how it all ended.”

Clarke, who recently said couldn’t see Slash reuniting with Rose in GNR, is still on talking terms with the guitar hero. And he says Slash is even more famous now than he was at the height of GNR’s fame.

He adds: “Slash nowadays is very different from the Guns N’ Roses Slash. Back then everyone was a lot younger abusing alcohol and drugs. It was a different time. Now, everybody is grown as a person, now we all have families.

“Slash is a great guy. If you met him at an airport he would say, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ But obviously he’s more famous now than he was with Guns N’ Roses. He can’t just walk into a bar or a restaurant and hang out, that’s hard for him, he’s too famous now.”

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.