Axl Rose sues Guitar Hero for$20 million

Fri 26th Nov, 2010 in International News

Former Guns n’ Roses drummer Steven Adler might be calling on divine intervention to get the band back together, but God isn’t listening. Despite Adler’s prayers, Axl Rose still hates Slash so much that he doesn’t even want to be associated with him as a video game graphic.

The regularly bottled Guns N’ Roses frontman with a loose grip on concepts such as time, has filed a $20 million lawsuit against Guitar Hero claiming the game violated a deal not to include any imagery of ex-guitarist Slash with the use of the Welcome to the Jungle.

The bizarre lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court claims that the game’s makers, Activision Blizzard, fraudulently induced Rose into authorising the use of the song in Guitar Hero III by telling him during negotiations that it wouldn’t feature any reference to Slash or his band, Velvet Revolver.

The complaint states that ”[Activision] began spinning a web of lies and deception to conceal its true intentions to not only feature Slash and VR prominently in GH III but also promote the game by emphasizing and reinforcing an association between Slash and Guns N’ Roses and the band’s song Welcome to the Jungle... [with] an animated depiction of Slash, with his signature black top hat, long dark curly hair, dark sunglasses and nose-piercing”.

Rose’s lawyer Skip Miller explained that “This lawsuit is about protecting Guns N’ Roses and Welcome to the Jungle and is about holding Activision accountable for its misuse of these incredibly valuable assets… The relief we are seeking is disgorgement of profits and compensatory and punitive damages.”

Slash has not made a comment on the lawsuit, but he has told RockAAA.com that the antics of Axl Rose’s current version of Guns N’Roses “doesn’t have too negative an effect on the original Guns, so it doesn’t bother me. If everybody was looking at the old Guns and lumping the two together and the history got blurred, then I might have a different opinion. “

Slash also recently revealed that his second solo album will be far less star studded than his debut with Alter Bridge singer Myles Kennedy set to provide all the vocals and promises that a “big name” is due to audition soon from the currently singerless Velvet Revolver.

Axl Rose and his current Guns and Roses lineup are due to arrive in Australia next week, with Slash set to return for Soundwave in February.