"November Rain" is also "Mr Naive Boner"

August 26, 2015 1:58 PM

Has Axl Rose ever commented on the fact that his stage name is an anagram for "oral sex"?

In my ideal world, he chose this name and this spelling for just the reason. But I feel like if this was true, it would have been mentioned before and this wouldn't be something I was just finding out in 2015.

Google searches for "Axl Rose oral sex" certainly shows the world is aware of this phenomenon, but I've not been able to find the former Mr. William Bruce Bailey commenting on the fact. (Yahoo Answers claiming this without actual sources do not count.)

Please help.

posted by MCMikeNamara to Grab Bag (2 answers total)

Best answer: According to both W.A.R.: The Unauthorized Biography of William Axl Rose and Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns 'N Roses, the former Mr. Bailey adopted the last name Rose after discovering that Stephen Bailey wasn't his biological father--William Rose was. So he insisted on being called W. Rose. The Axl comes from a band he used to play with--AXL (the sources vary if it's all caps or not)--that he liked the name of and kept.

It looks like there's a little more to that story, but the Preview function only turns up so much. It seems like the anagram is just a coincidence, but maybe someone has more info. That's the extent of my Google-fu.
posted by xenization at 2:36 PM on August 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

if it helps, he was born "william bruce rose" - so that part of his name at least was gotten to honestly.
posted by nadawi at 2:37 PM on August 26, 2015