Carrie Underwood says her Stagecoach Festival collaboration with Guns N' Roses' frontman Axl Rose was "many years in the making." She was persistent, because she has always been a very big fan.

"We had a couple of almost maybes," Underwood tells Rolling Stone. "But for (Stagecoach) ... I sent him an email and said, 'We're so close to you' and explained the why and what he meant to me."

Last weekend, fans learned that Underwood sings GNR's "Paradise City" toward the end of her Denim & Rhinestones Tour set. She says she has always covered their songs, and a peek at SetList.fm proves that true. Versions of "Paradise City" have been a part of her show since at least 2008!

"The way I learned how to sing was I would pick really hard vocalists to try to emulate, and his (Rose) voice always mesmerized me," Underwood tells the magazine. "So I told him all that ... and he came!"

At Stagecoach in April, Underwood and Rose sang "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Paradise City" together. She'd call it the best night of her life.

Underwood's fans have always known of her love of rock music (Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin are two others she covered), though it's only recently that she has fully expressed the depth of her Guns 'N Roses fandom. Talking to Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show in March 2020, she revealed how she once "abandoned" her husband and kids to see the band live in Las Vegas.

"I mean, I might have like, hung out with Axl after the show a little bit," she shares.

The Denim & Rhinestones Tour resumes on Thursday (Oct. 20) with a show in Lexington, Ky. She'll continue on the road through next March.

See Inside Carrie Underwood's Nashville Mansion

Carrie Underwood and husband Mike Fisher sold their 7,000-square-foot Brentwood, Tenn., home for $1,410,000 in March of 2019, and pictures reveal a spectacular mansion worthy of one of country music's biggest stars.

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