Being Axl Rose
Searching the web in 2005 Daryl Waller came across a forum called ‘How to Find Axl Rose’. Amazed to see the amount of people posting messages searching and obsessing about Axl. He posted a message saying that he was the ‘real Axl Rose’ and could be emailed at axlrose01@hotmail.com: -
Dear fans and un-fans. I am getting tired of reading these things on-line all the time, so here is my email address for you all to write your questions to me. If it goes crazy then I'll just let it go over its limit and set up a new account. I can't say I will read everything; I'm very busy these days.
I hope to hear from you all soon.
Best Wishes,
Axl
Hundreds of emails poured into the mailbox in a matter of weeks sent from people from all over the world, and while some assumed (rightly) that the email address was phoney, they wrote anyway, just in case.
The messages ranged from the canny “If you really are Axl, what was the name of your new song?” to the downright psychotic “Dear Axl, If you don’t reply to this I’m going to kill myself!” One girl wrote that she had been hiding in the bushes outside Axl’s house, stalking him, waiting for a glimpse of him at the petrol station, this girl later sends a harrowing letter as a Word document describing in depth a theory that hundreds of years ago Axl and herself were once one complete soul, a soul that she felt needed to be rejoined. After getting no response from Daryl throughout her final email is a vicious read where, ironically, she wishes it were Axl that had killed himself, and not Kurt Cobain.
You can see, that for some, Axl has made a really positive impact on their life, but there are also some really tormented souls out there who just cannot stop thinking about this man. Some emails had obviously taken hours to compose – they were long, egocentric monologues giving their complete autobiography, sometimes
writing to Axl as a psychoanalyst.
Daryl had a fascinating four months reading all the emails. He replied to the few who needed further encouragement or wanted me him ‘prove’ he was Axl. For this proof he used information about Axl that is widely available on the web, details of where he lives, what he eats, what he likes to do and where he grew up, etc.
After being was satisfied with the amount of emails he’d received he posted another message on the forum telling everyone that he wasn’t the real Axl Rose after all, and that he had posted the message as a social experiment and apologised for causing any distress or upset. He reassured everyone that wasn’t trying to ridicule anyone and that it was just an idea that needed to run its course. A few people wrote asking how the project went. They were interested in the results, or how he felt about messing with people feelings. Predictably, he also got some angry ranting. The most interesting though were the ones who went into complete denial. One girl wrote to him (Daryl) saying how annoyed and angry she was, then a few days later she wrote to him at the same address saying she believed that Daryl was still the real Axl pretending to be a guy named Daryl to stop the rest of the fans emailing him. She took Daryl’s confession as a message that Axl loved her and nobody else. After it all had died down, he edited the thousands of emails and compiled the best of them into a book.
Daryl finds the extremes sycophants are prepared to go to find their idols captivating. It reinforces a belief that when you are famous and a fan approaches you, they often want something from you. There are many other threads to this piece of work such as notions of the celebrity era we live in and where the boundaries of public vs. private life lie. But maybe the most interesting factor was the amount of pure faith and 'hope against hope' that people had, it is absolutely extraordinary. You could liken it to the search for, or the attempt to communicate with, God. Except in this case they knew for a fact that ‘their’ God, Axl, was real, alive, a recluse hiding out in his mansion in LA.
Mr Dave Winter 2006
* Being Axl Rose is avalible to buy through the Devils Work Press, click here to buy