A Kickstarter campaign has been launched for the first ever recordings of a fresh off the bus, untattooed Bill Bailey, aka Axl Rose, on a never released 1983 Rapidfire CD.

This was the first time in a recording studio for all members of Rapidfire, who also featured Kevin Lawrence on guitar, Mike Hamernik on bass and Chuck Gordon on drums.

Says Kevin Lawrence: "In 1983 a three piece band called Rapidfire was gigging around the Los Angeles area with me, Kevin Lawrence on lead vocals and guitar, Mike Hamernik on bass and Chuck Gordon on drums. Well... I admittedly kinda sucked as a singer, so we needed a new singer. Luckily I met a fresh off the bus, untattooed rookie named Bill Bailey, later to be known as Axl Rose, who informed me that he was a singer. I asked if he had a PA, he said "yes," That was basically all it took. He auditioned and got the lead singer slot for Rapidfire. He was given a set of songs to learn in a week before the March 20th,1983 Battle Of The Bands gig at Gazzarri's, which he brilliantly did... By the way, we won.

We rehearsed more in Chuck's Mom's house, gigged a bit, did a photo session, and quickly went into Telstar Studios on May 25th,1983 to record five Rapidfire songs written, produced, copyrighted, and paid for by myself Kevin Lawrence. The band did a great job even though we were just a bunch of kids.

With all Copyright PA and SR forms in order, as well as physical possession of the original tapes, digitized multitracks, and a payment receipt in my name, this CD of 5 songs which has never been heard by the public except for the short sample of "Ready To Rumble" is almost ready to release and in need of your backing to press CDs and maybe vinyl. I hope you choose to help, get some perks, and get this piece of musical history off the ground, and in the publics hands once and for all. Its been 31 years. Let's get "Ready To Rumble"."

More info at this location.

Rapidfire demo tracklisting:

'Ready To Rumble'

'All Night Long'

'The Prowler'

'On the Run'

'Closure'