Photo: Marc Canter
Apologies to Tom Waits, Ozzy, Henry Rollins, and especially Bon Scott, but tattoos did not exist in rock'n'roll before Guns N' Roses. It was with Axl and Slash that arm ink became a permanent part of the rock star recipe.
As a kid, I memorized all of G'N'R's tattoos. It wasn't a conscious decision; the tattoos were there in every photo I saw, as distinctive and etched-in-stone as each band member's face. Motley Crue may have worn tattoos years before Guns N' Roses, but can anyone remember what Nikki Sixx or Tommy Lee have on their arms? There is no mystery in green limbs.
Axl carried three tattoos on each arm, each marking some aspect of his past. Besides the mystery stare of Monique Lewis (the penultimate "woman's face" tattoo), there was the following:
Photo: Marc Canter
The "Rocker" tattoo on his upper left arm was paid for by Chris Weber, who founded Hollywood Rose with Izzy Stradlin. When Izzy's friend Bill Bailey flew into L.A. from Indiana, he was brought on as the singer. "First things first," I imagine Weber saying to Bailey. "You're the singer--you need a tattoo."
Below that is the "Victory or Death" tattoo. The motto of the 32nd Armored Regiment of the U.S. Army is one of Axl's favorites.
On his upper right arm there's the "Black Rose" tattoo: a replication of the cover of Thin Lizzy's 1979 record of the same name. "The only bummer is, I always wanted to show it to Phil Lynott, then he died on me," Axl later said.
Below that is Monique Lewis.
Below Monique is the cross tattoo, probably the most famous in rock'n'roll. Like most of his tattoos, Axl had it done at the legendary Sunset Strip Tattoo studio by Robert Benedetti, who inked most of the rock stars of the era. Designed by Bill White Jr. and redrawn for the cover of Appetite by Andy Engell, it is still the ultimate tattoo: a marker of a specific time, place, and a group of people; equally realistic and surrealistic; classic enough to resemble something belonging to a sailor, but scary enough to unnerve strangers.
Axl put the cross on his arm while the band was recording Appetite. He'd been steadily acquiring tattoos as he rose through the ranks of L.A. notoriety, first with Hollywood Rose and later G'N'R, but the cross was the last tattoo he would get during his time with Guns. In this interview from 1987, Axl has a premonition about the destruction of the band:
"I got the (cross) tattoo first (before the Appetite album art). I had a friend design it because I just felt that no matter what happens with this band, where it went, what we sold, or if it broke up, changed, or whatever, any other members, that at that time it was the most important thing. And it's like, I like tattoos and I wanted something that would always remind what was once there. You know, a symbol of it."
You could trace the last of the many, many nails driven deep into the coffin of Gun N' Roses to the moment in the late Nineties when Axl paid someone to blot out the faces in the cross. It now appears as blank and black as Axl's own career. A tattoo ruined reeks of desperation and anxiety. There must have come a day that he couldn't stand to be reminded of what he was once so sure he wanted to remember. Of course, tarring over it won't make the shapes of your past disappear.
