CARRIE UNDERWOOD Explains How She Got AXL ROSE 'Out Of Hiding' For STAGECOACH Guest Appearance

In a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, country-pop superstar Carrie Underwood was asked how she got Axl Rose "out of hiding" to make a guest appearance with her at the Stagecoach country music festival in Indio, California for performances of "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Paradise City". She responded: "It was many years in the making. I've been covering GUNS N' ROSES my whole life, pretty much, and definitely onstage for the past 15 years at least. I had asked before if he would ever come sing, or if I could come to him somewhere. We had a couple almost maybes, where it almost maybe would have happened but for various reasons it wasn't the right time. But [for Stagecoach] I asked. I sent him an e-mail and said, 'We're so close to you,' and explained the why and what he meant to me. The way I learned how to sing was I would pick really hard vocalists to try to emulate, and his voice always mesmerized me. I was, like, 'How is he doing the things that he's doing?' So I told him all that… and he came! We had rehearsals and everything went very smoothly. It was easy for all of us to be around each other. Hopefully he had a good time."

When Rose performed with Underwood at Stagecoach, Carrie called the collaboration "the greatest night of my life."

A little over three months ago, Underwood joined GUNS N' ROSES on stage during the band's concert at London, England's Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Underwood made a surprise appearance toward the end of GUNS N' ROSES' main set, performing "Sweet Child O' Mine" with Axl and his bandmates. She later returned to the stage during the encore to sing "Paradise City".

More recently, Underwood performed a cover version of "Welcome To The Jungle" at the kick-off show of her "Denim & Rhinestones" tour on Saturday night (October 15) in Greenville, South Carolina.

Back in 2015, Underwood told E! in an interview with she really wanted to sing with Rose at some point in her life. She said: "I've covered enough GUNS N' ROSES stuff, and it was people like him who taught me how to sing."

"I look at people like him and Freddie Mercury, those people who were doing all these crazy runs. It was so different," Underwood added.

In 2013, Underwood delivered a faithful cover of "Paradise City" at the CMA Music Festival in Nashville.

Two years ago, while promoting her book "Find Your Path: Honor Your Body, Fuel Your Soul, And Get Strong With The Fit 52 Life", Underwood appeared on an episode of "The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon" and talked about flying to Las Vegas to see her favorite band GUNS N' ROSES and called it "one of the best nights" of her life.

"We were nowhere near Las Vegas, so naturally I said, 'Let's go to Las Vegas with the band and go see GN'R play,'" Underwood shared with Fallon. "It's kind of a life-long dream of mine I never thought would happen. Couldn't waste that opportunity, so I abandoned my husband, abandoned my children, went to Vegas, and saw GUNS N' ROSES. Amazing."

She continued: "Usually, when I go to concerts, I'm like, in a box on the side, which is great — it has its perks, there's usually a bathroom in there, it's kind of awesome,' she explained. "But you miss the energy of the crowd. Because we were in Vegas, we were just in there with everyone else, it was absolutely incredible. You could feel everybody, everybody was screamin', I was screamin' — I was, like, 'I'm never gonna see none of these people ever again, I'm gonna act like a fool!. It was amazing."

Following that show, Underwood actually met Rose backstage. "It's hard to meet your heroes, because I do consider him someone who taught me how to sing," she said. "But he was super cool and great and nice and we talked. We're best friends."