Dear Axl -- No Soup for You!

More from G'n'R front man, Axl Rose as he tries to capitalize on the extension of his 15 minutes of fame.

To: Cleveland, Ohio, Guns N' Roses Fans and everyone who's shown support
for my decision regarding the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

I seriously didn't plan on or expect the overwhelmingly positive response
and public support for my decision regarding the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
With such a generous outpouring of solidarity from fans, media outlets, writers
and other artists, I'm truly humbled, blown away and unbelievably relieved! To
be honest, I thought it would go the other way and was just hoping to weather
the storm. As I said, I sincerely didn't want to disappoint anyone. It gets old
being the outlaw even if "it's only rock and roll".

It took a lot of focus and soul searching to be sincere and informative
while making a genuine effort to be somewhat diplomatic. We made, what I feel,
are real efforts to learn about the Hall and the Board, spoke as I said with the
president and various members, and though I inducted Elton John and Bernie
Taupin in '94 saying something to the effect of "I'm learning what the Hall's
about..."

I still don't exactly know or understand what the Hall is or how or why
it makes money, where the money goes, who chooses the voters and why anyone or
this board decides who, out of all the artists in the world that have
contributed to this genre, officially "rock" enough to be in the Hall?
This isn't an attack. These are genuine issues I don't have enough
verified information on to have more than rough ideas. Certainly not enough
information to make any judgments about.

I would like to apologize to Cleveland, Ohio for not apologizing to them
beforehand for not attending [the ceremony] in their city. I think they know how
much I genuinely love performing there. Cleveland does in fact Rock!!
Now that the smoke's cleared a little, any desperate, misguided attacks
have been just that, a pathetic stab at gossip, some lame vindictiveness, the
usual entitlement crap, he's obsessed, crazy, volatile, a hater. I once bought a
homeless woman a slice of pizza who yelled at me she wanted soup. We got her the
soup. You can get your own.

Again: HUGE thanks to the fans and to everyone for the incredible public
support. My congratulations to the other artists inducted. And my apologies to
the city and people of Cleveland, Ohio. I hope you'll forgive me and we hope to
see you again soon!

Keep Rockin',Axl

Unlike my open letter to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Guns N' Roses
Fans and Whom It May Concern this was written for GNR's official website,
Facebook account and my personal twitter account and not intended as a press
release. If anyone does choose to pick this up as has been done previously I'd
appreciate if you'd run in full including this paragraph so as not to give a
partial picture, have things taken out of context or to imply or inadvertently
give the impression this was intended for other outlet.

I spent a lovely weekend at the Rock Hall. It's a great place with a ton of music history on display for all to enjoy. I didn't even think the ticket prices were all that outrageous.

Axl is not the first to decline induction. The Sex Pistols also famously declined. But Axl, you're not them.