Guns N’ Roses are obviously a rock ‘n’ roll band, but they do have some country-ish songs.
We’ve already done a list of Metallica’s best country songs, so we figured we’d look at some other hard rock and metal bands that have had country moments — and Guns N’ Roses are definitely one of them.
Firstly, Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin grew up in the suburbs of Lafayette, Indiana, which is a far cry from where the band formed years later in Los Angeles. The rest of the members grew up in different places, so they all brought in different influences when creating their sound.
READ MORE: Yes, There’s Really a New Country Song About a Guns N’ Roses Shirt
Appetite for Destruction was mostly a raw, hard-rock record from start to finish, but it had a few tender and softer bits laced throughout it. It wasn’t really until GN’R Lies that they really tapped into their acoustic side, and then they experimented even further with different styles on the Illusion records.
Guns N’ Roses don’t really have any songs that are purely country, but there are tracks in their catalog that have a southern twang and are more reminiscent of Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Allman Brothers Band than AC/DC and the likes.
Scroll through the songs below to see which of Guns N’ Roses’ songs we think sound the most country and why. We also ranked them from worst to best, though we don’t think any of them are actually less-than-good.
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5
“You Ain’t the First”
“You Ain’t the First,” featured on Use Your Illusion I, is probably Guns’ most country-sounding song of all. It sounds as if the band played it around a campfire, mainly due to the laughing effects and how casual the atmosphere of the track is. Slash’s contributions on the slide guitar are a nice touch, too.
You don’t normally tell off your ex at a campfire, but with Guns N’ Roses, anything is possible.
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4
“Breakdown”
“Breakdown” starts off with a banjo melody accompanied by Axl Rose’s signature whistling. It doesn’t really get more country than a banjo, until the piano chords come in. Then it just sounds like you’re listening to something that was written in the Bible Belt.
The track gets progressively harder as it goes on, but the bluesy, southern feel to it never quite wears off.
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3
“Dust N’ Bones”
As we stated earlier, the Illusion albums were the most experimental. “Dust N’ Bones” is another offering from Use Your Illusion I that was written by Izzy Stradlin, who sang lead vocals throughout most of it too.
This one’s a more upbeat, bluesy honky tonk track that also has a Wild West feel to it — think Route 66 out in the desert. The piano and talkbox add a few extra yeehaw layers to the song as well.
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2
“Used to Love Her”
Typically, country artists write songs about their tears falling into their beer and the other ways they handle heartbreak, not murdering their spouse. GN’R have always liked pushing the envelope a bit, though. And luckily, this one wasn’t based on a true story.
“Used to Love Her” is one of several acoustic tracks that were written for GN’R Lies, but it certainly has the most southern rock feel out of all of them. Axl Rose incorporated a bit of twang into his vocals to emphasize just how badly his partner’s complaining grew to be.
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1
“Paradise City”
While “Paradise City” is the least country-sounding track on this whole list, it’s inarguably the most well-known. It’s really a hard rock song through and through, but the opening guitar riff sounds like an electric banjo, and there are other country accents in the song too.
Plus, longing to go home to the countryside fits in with a lot of other country songs.
