Guns N' Roses album cover artist Billy White Jr., who designed the "Appetite for Destruction" cross logo, has died, Slash confirmed in a new social media post.
On Slash's Instagram page, he shared a photo of White Jr. and the "Appetite for Destruction" album cover, referring to him as a "long-time friend" of Guns N' Roses who designed the band's cross logo. The guitarist also expressed how much the designer would be missed following his passing.
Guns N' Roses Album Cover Designer Billy White Jr. Receives Tribute
In the same post, Guns N' Roses colleagues and fans also left tributes to White Jr. as they praised him for giving the band the image that became known to the world.
Meanwhile, an Instagram user @luna_plutonium introduced themselves as the designer's sibling, writing, "Thank you for memorializing my brother and his work."
Billy White Jr.'s cause of death remains unknown as of press time; his family has not confirmed details about his funeral and memorial.
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Guns N' Roses' "Appetite for Destruction" sold whopping 18 million copies in the US alone, letting White Jr. conquer the music industry with the album's cover art, as well. Initially, they used Robert Williams' painting as the album cover, but they changed it after retailers in the US refused to stock the album in the stores due to the art's graphic nature.
After pulling the copies from the stores, they decided to use the cross White Jr. originally illustrated as a tattoo for the band's frontman, Axl Rose.
How Billy White Jr. Created the "Appetite for Destruction" Logo
Years before White Jr.'s death, he sat for a 2016 interview with Culture Creature alongside Guns N' Roses members in which they explained the story behind the album cover art.
They revealed that Rose visualized the idea of having the members' skulls on the cross, and the artist added more detail and his own style to complete the whole cover art. Aside from using it as "Appetite for Destruction" art, the frontman soon followed its original purpose and had it tattooed on his right arm by Sunset Strip Tattoo artist Robert Benedetti.
According to White Jr., the knot in the cross was actually a reference to his and Rose's favorite band, Thin Lizzy.
Meanwhile, his comment resonated with what the rocker said in an interview in the 1980s, saying that he wanted a tattoo that could remind him of Guns N' Roses' history.
"I just felt that, no matter what happens with this band, where it went, what we sold or if it broke up, changed, whatever or any other members, that at that time, it was the most important thing," Rose explained. "And it's like, I like tattoos, and I wanted something that would always remind me of what was once there, a symbol of it."
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