Rocket Queen

Song infobox
Name = Rocket Queen


Artist = Guns N' Roses
Album = Appetite for Destruction
Released = July 21 1987
track_no = 12
Recorded = Rumbo Studios, Canoga Park, California; Take One Studio, Burbank, California; Can Am Studio, Tarzana, California
Genre = Hard rock
Length = 6:13
Writer = Axl Rose Slash Izzy Stradlin
Label = Geffen Records
Producer = Mike Clink
prev = "Anything Goes"
prev_no = 11
next =
next_no =

"Rocket Queen" is the last song on "Appetite for Destruction", the debut album from hard rock band Guns N' Roses.

A credit in the booklet for "Appetite for Destruction" reads "Barbi (Rocket Queen) Von Grief", implying that she was "this girl" Rose mentions in the quote. Slash states that he and Duff McKagan wrote the main riff to "Rocket Queen" when they first got together, before either of them had joined Hollywood Rose or L.A. Guns. [Bozza, Anthony, & Slash (2007). Slash. Harper Entertainment: New York. pp. 87]

It has also been said that Rose brought a woman, Adriana Smith, to the studio for recording. Steve Thompson, an engineer on the album, said the following in an interview:

It was later stated in the music magazine "Classic rock", as well as "Rolling Stone", that the person who had been recorded performing sex noises on the song was Adriana Smith, an on-off girlfriend of drummer Steven Adler, who also allegedly had an intimate relationship with frontman Rose. [cite news
title = 'I slept with Axl to get Steven jealous...
url =
publisher = Classic Rock, July 2007, Issue 107
date = 2007-06-09
accessdate = 2007-06-09] [cite news
title = 'Filthy Sexy Cool
url =
publisher = Rolling Stone Australia, October 2007, Issue 670
accessdate = 2007-10-08]

Slash states that though Von Grief was only eighteen at the time, she had a notorious reputation and was "a queen of the underground scene back then. She'd eventually become a madam, but Axl was infatuated with her at the time." [Bozza, Anthony, & Slash (2007). Slash. Harper Entertainment: New York. pp. 120-121] She was also mentioned in the acknowledgments section on L.A. Guns self-titled album.

At a handful of shows during Guns N' Roses 1991-1993 Use Your Illusion Tour, Axl Rose would sometimes sing a small part of a song called "It Tastes Good, Don't It?" in the middle of the song. "It Tastes Good, Don't It?" had been written by the band in 1988, as they hoped its explicit lyrics would get them thrown off a tour with Iron Maiden. A performance of this song can be seen on the second half of the band's Live In Tokyo DVD.

References