Axl Rose was pissed off. That’s not exactly breaking news if you lived through the early nineties, but Guns N Roses Get In The Ring took that legendary volatility and turned it into a permanent, recorded hit list. It’s track four on Use Your Illusion II. It’s almost six minutes long. And it’s basically a verbal middle finger to every music critic who dared to say something Axl didn’t like.
Honestly, it’s a weird song.
Musically, it’s a straight-ahead hard rock chugger. Duff McKagan wrote the main riff, and it has this driving, punk-infused energy that feels a bit more "old Guns" than the sprawling, cinematic epics like Estranged or November Rain found elsewhere on the albums. But nobody talks about the riff. They talk about the screaming. They talk about the "rant."
The Press Wars of 1991
You have to understand the context of the time. Guns N' Roses weren't just a band; they were a cultural supernova. They were massive, bloated, dangerous, and incredibly sensitive to criticism. Axl Rose, in particular, felt like the media was out to get him. He wasn't entirely wrong—the tabloids were obsessed with his late starts, his riots, and his personal life.
So, what does he do? He names names.
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In the middle of the song, the music drops down, and Axl launches into a diatribe that would make a modern PR agent faint. He calls out specific journalists and publications. Mick Wall from Kerrang!. Bob Guccione Jr. from Spin. Andy Secher from Hit Parader. He invites them to "get in the ring" and fight him. It's aggressive. It's petty. It's totally captivating because of how raw it feels.
Why the Critics Were Targeted
Let's look at Bob Guccione Jr. He was the founder of Spin magazine. Axl tells him that his dad (who ran Penthouse) "gets more pussy than you." It’s juvenile, sure. But it was also a response to how Spin covered the band. Guccione actually took it in stride, famously saying he’d accept the fight if it was for charity, though he noted Axl would have to learn how to box first.
Then there’s Mick Wall. He was actually quite close to the band in the early days. He wrote a biography of the band, but Axl felt betrayed by how he was portrayed in certain articles. The feud with Wall is one of the more famous "rock star vs. journalist" battles in history. Wall eventually wrote a book titled Get in the Ring, leaning into the notoriety.
The Sound of a Band at its Breaking Point
If you listen closely to the live crowd noise on Guns N Roses Get In The Ring, you’re hearing something a bit "manufactured" but also real. The song was recorded in the studio, but the crowd sounds were taken from a GNR performance at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in 1991. It gives the track this gladiatorial vibe.
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Slash’s guitar work here is often overlooked because of the lyrics. His soloing is biting and frantic. It matches the lyrical vitriol. It’s funny because Slash and Duff have both mentioned in interviews over the years that they weren't necessarily as angry at the journalists as Axl was, but they went along with it. That was the GNR dynamic. Axl drove the bus, and everyone else just tried to keep the wheels from falling off while the bus was doing 100 mph toward a cliff.
Use Your Illusion I & II were released on the same day in September 1991. It was an arrogant move. Most bands wouldn't dream of dropping 30 songs at once. But GNR was the biggest band in the world. They could do whatever they wanted. Putting a track like this on such a high-profile release was a statement: "We see you, we hear you, and we don't care—but also, we're going to scream about you for six minutes."
Is it Actually a Good Song?
That depends on what you want from rock and roll.
If you want polished, radio-friendly hooks, this isn't it. If you want the "dangerous" vibe that made Appetite for Destruction a masterpiece, you’re getting closer. The song is a relic of a time when rock stars weren't curated by social media managers. There was no Twitter. If Axl Rose wanted to talk to the world, he had to put it on a record and wait for it to hit the stores.
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Some fans find the rant cringeworthy now. Others see it as the ultimate punk rock moment from a band that was becoming too corporate. There’s a certain irony in a multi-millionaire rock star complaining about a magazine writer, but that’s the Axl Rose experience. It’s all heart, all ego, and zero filter.
The Legacy of the "Get In The Ring" Mentality
What most people get wrong about the song is thinking it was just a random outburst. It was calculated. It was Axl drawing a line in the sand. He was telling his fans, "It’s us against them." It built a siege mentality that defined the Use Your Illusion era.
Nowadays, artists just post a "Notes" app screenshot or go on a 2:00 AM rant on X (formerly Twitter). In 1991, you had to commit your anger to 2-inch magnetic tape and press it onto millions of CDs. That takes a different level of commitment. It makes the anger feel more permanent.
What You Should Do Next
If you haven't listened to the track in a while, go back and put on a good pair of headphones.
- Listen for the Bass: Duff’s bass line is actually the glue holding this chaotic track together. It’s one of his better "punk" performances in the GNR catalog.
- Read the Credits: Look up the journalists Axl mentions. It’s a fascinating rabbit hole into the world of 90s music journalism. Most of them are still around, and most have stories about that era that are even wilder than the song.
- Compare the Versions: Check out live bootlegs from the '91-'93 tour. Axl would often change the names or add new people to his "hit list" during the mid-song breakdown. It was a rotating door of grievances.
- Contextualize the "Diss": Compare this to modern diss tracks in hip-hop. In many ways, Axl was doing exactly what Drake or Kendrick Lamar do today—using his platform to settle personal scores and control the narrative.
The song stands as a monument to a time when rock and roll felt like a blood sport. It’s messy, it’s loud, and it’s unapologetically angry. Whether it’s "good" is up for debate, but it’s undeniably Guns N' Roses. It is the sound of the biggest band in the world refusing to play nice.
To truly understand the band's peak, you have to accept the petty alongside the poetic. You can't have November Rain without Get In The Ring. They are two sides of the same volatile coin. If you want to dive deeper into the band's history, look for Mick Wall’s biography Last of the Giants. It provides the other side of the story that Axl was so desperate to shout down.