1992.12.13 - Los Angeles Times - Heavy Metal's Silver Lining (Axl)

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Heavy Metal's Silver Lining

By RUTH RYON
TIMES STAFF WRITER

Heavy metal rocker AXL ROSE, one of music's most controversial figures, has sold his Hollywood Hills home and bought a Malibu mansion.

Rose, 30, is lead singer with Guns 'N Roses, which last week released its first concert videos in a pair of tapes called "Use Your Illusion World Tour-1992 in Tokyo." The Los Angeles-based band has sold more than 15 million albums since 1985, when Rose, who had come west from Indiana about five years earlier, joined it.

"Just as (Jim) Morrison hit a nerve two decades ago with counterculture fans who were looking for new social directions, Rose--a high school dropout--mirrors much of the restless anxiety of working-class youths who are trying to resolve contradictory impulses in their own lives," The Times' pop music critic Robert Hilburn wrote in 1991.

Rose, who has gone on tirades and stomped off stage during concerts, was given two years' probation and ordered to pay $50,000 in charitable donations after being found guilty in November of assault and property damage during an aborted concert in St. Louis that escalated into a riot.

He sold his Hollywood Hills home for close to its $699,000 asking price and bought the Malibu mansion for nearly $3.95 million.

The Malibu house is a contemporary Mediterranean with five bedrooms and 8 1/2 baths in about 7,000 square feet. The home, on a three-acre promontory with ocean and city views, also has a guest house, studio, tennis court, pool and spa.

The house he sold has two bedrooms in about 2,000 square feet. It is on an acre-size bluff with views of the city and the Hollywood sign. The new owner is Mark Mazzetti, a vice president of A&R;, a division of A&M; Records.

Rose had owned the Hollywood home since November, 1990, when he purchased it for $800,000 with Erin Everly, daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers. The April, 1990, Rose/Everly marriage was annulled in January, 1991.

Arleen Ruby of Prudential California represented Rose in both real estate transactions; Jim Muske of Fred Sands Estates represented the buyer of Rose's Hollywood home, and Brady Westwater and James Respondek, both of Jon Douglas Co., co-listed the Malibu compound.