When Grunge Fans Made Slash a Joking Matter Former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke recalled an incident outside a club that proved how the grunge revolution had changed music in the early ‘90s. He admitted the new movement had more or less passed him and most of the other band members by, because they were touring when the change came – although frontman Axl Rose had been aware of what was going on. “Axl was always on top of that stuff,” Clarke told ‘80s Metal Recycle Bin (below). “He loved Nirvana, he loved Soundgarden, he loved Pearl Jam. He liked a lot of those bands a lot more than, I would say, myself, Slash and Duff [McKagan]. … We were a little slower to the change.”