Distortion is characterised by fat, fuzzy sounds greated when ou play more than one string at once. Where on a clean channel is crystal clear, on a overdriven channel the chord or notes become distorted.
So if you bar the all the 17th frets and pick the first string then 2nd u get distortion.
You have to palm mute a string after youve play it and moved on to the next.
Sweet Child o Mine intro is crystal clear. So you wonder how thats possible considering the tone comes from an overdriven guitar! Well after each note is picked it is muted before the next note is played. All guitarists do this.