Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana were without a doubt some of the biggest bands of the early
90’s. Both groups released their second LP’s one week apart in late 1991 on the
same label Geffen Records. Guns N’ Roses dropped their highly anticipated double album
use your illusion 1 and 2 on September 17 th, while Nirvana’s Nevermind came out the
following week. Guns N’ Roses albums took the number 1 and 2 spots on the billboard
charts, while Nirvana who was still fairly unknown at the time, wouldn’t top the billboard
album chart suntil January of 1992 when Nevermind displaced michael jackson.
One person who counted himself an early fan of Nirvana was gUns N’ Roses frontman Axl
Rose. In fact he stressed in interviews that he was excited about alternative rock and
didn’t see it as a threat to his band.. During the making of the band’s video for
Don’t Cry in 1991 Axl can be seen wearing a Nirvana hat and a Red Hot Chili Peppers
shirt.. In the actual music video you can see a Nirvana hat and Axl wearing a Jane’s
Addiction shirt. In fact when guitarist Izzy stradlin quit the band Jane’s Addiction
guitarist Dave Navarro was offered a chance to join the band, but was so deep in the throws
of addiction he never showed up for rehearsals.
There were even some paparazzi photos of the Axl wearing a nirvana hat in Ireland in the
spring of 1992 when the band played Slane Castle. Rose would be interviewed by Metallix
in late 1991 and was asked which bands he’d like to see cover Guns N’ Roses and he responded
'd saying the following I'd like to hear "Welcome To The Jungle." That's what I'd like to hear.
I'd like to hear Nirvana do "Jungle" their way he'd say.
Initially it seemed like the Axl and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain had a lot in common.
Both came from small towns, growing up in broken homes and turning to rock music to
get through life, but Cobain couldn’t stand Guns N’ Roses. Even ahead of Nevermind’s
release cobain gave numerous interviews slamming the band telling big-o in february of 1991
I think Guns N’ Roses are promoting the wrong values, like sexism and the way they
do drugs. I mean, what are they rebelling against? I don’t think this is rebellion.
Rebellion is standing up to people like Guns N’ Roses.”
One month after Nevermind came out Nirvana was performing at the Palace Theatre in Los
Angeles and in attendance that night was Geffen president Eddie Rosenblatt and Axl Rose. Nirvana
manager Danny Goldberg would recall in his book “ Backstage afterward, Eddie Rosenblatt
told me that he had come with Axl Rose and asked if he could bring him into the dressing
room to say hi to Kurt. When I conveyed this request, Kurt grimaced and said he really
didn’t want to meet the Guns N’ Roses singer. I didn’t want to put Geffen’s
president in an untenable situation, so I suggested to Kurt that he and I leave the
dressing room and then I’d give Rosenblatt a couple of passes. That way it wouldn’t
be like we were excluding them, just that Kurt couldn’t be found.
Prior to the feud erupting, Axl could see how alternative rock was changing things in
the music landscape as he told an audience during a concert in Phoenix, Arizona in February
of 1992. You ever feel like you' been let down by uh i don't know family, friends or
things you wanted or maybe just life in general you know the mood i'm talking about. when
like something you like maybe your friends are over and something you like comes on tv
something you like but you don't find care, you're just not in the mood because you've
been let down. I mean it's kind of like this band Nirvana why Teenage Spirit, why this
song is such a success, people relate to being let down
It was during that same month that Rose allegedly asked Nirvana to perform at his birthday party,
but the band said no according to their former manager danny goldberg. Things would only
escalated from there.
As Nirvana became more popular, they also did more press for the album Promoting Nevermind
in 1991, Kurt made many disparaging remarks against Guns N’ Roses telling Seconds “We’re
not your typical Guns N’ Roses type of band that has absolutely nothing to say,”
By the summer of 1992 it was announced that Guns N’ Roses would be doing a co-headlining
tour with Metallica across North America. Axl wanted Nirvana to open the tour, something
that their drummer Dave Grohl recalled years later saying Axl had been calling Kurt nonstop.
One day we’re walking through an airport and Kurt says, ‘F Axl Rose won’t stop
calling me.
In a recent interview with Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett magazine he would recall trying
to get nirvana to come on the tour saying to revolver
I remember having to call Kurt up, because we wanted Nirvana to open up the Guns N' Roses/Metallica
tour. … This came down to me from my manager saying, "Okay, we've talked to Nirvana's management.
They've told us no. … Kurt doesn't want to do it, because he doesn't want to be affiliated
with Guns N' Roses… [He] doesn't approve of Axl's behavior." A long laundry list of
stuff and it's all about Guns N' Roses and Axl. It had nothing to do with Metallica.
They loved Metallica.
Looking back Nirvana was probably happy they turned down the tour as Axl would frequently
show up late to gigs, he'd walk off stage, cancel gigs due to his throat problems and
of course there was the riot in Montreal.
By late 1992 Cobain gave an interview to the Advocate an LGBTQ publication where he blasted
Rose saying the frontman was and i quote “a f**** sexist a racist and a homophobe, and
you can’t be on his side and be on our side. I’m sorry that I have to divide this up
like this, but it’s something you can’t ignore. And besides they can’t write good
music.”
By the late summer of 1992 Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain gave the infamous interview to
Vanity Fair which documented love’s drug use during her pregnancy. It resulted in the
couple almost losing custody of their child, something Rose would pounce on during a concert
in Orlando, Florida on Sept 2, 1992 as he said here.
'we've had our problems with so called Alternative bands. What is this word, i mean i even find
myself using it alternative, like someone who lives an alternative lifestyle all i know
is that when Guns N' Roses started no radio stations wanted to play our radio stations
either. Ain't no radio stations wanted to play metallica. So i think we have the world's
biggest alternative crowd here tonight. i think the problem starts when you start thinking
you're different from other people on the planet. You maybe a little different in what
you're doing or how you go about doing it, but I got a good feeling that you're probably
a human. Right, you're probably a human being. So right now alternative the only thing that
means to me is someone like kurt cobain and nirvana who is basically his junkie wife and
if the baby is born deformed i think they both gotta go to prison. That's my feeling
& he's too good and too cool to bring his rock n' roll to you, because the majority
of you he doesn't like or want to play to or even have you like his music. It seems
to be a general feeling among a lot of alternative bands that they don't want a majority of people
liking them, they like it on the outside.
Everything would come to a head a week later on Sept 9, 1992 at the MTV Video Music Awards
in Los Angeles. It was an event that would see both Nirvana and Guns n’ Roses perform.
That night Guns N’ Roses were performing november rain with Axl's childhood hero elton
john. Ahead of thh band’s performance Kurt would admit as reported by Loudersound “I
spat on Axl’s keyboard… it was either that or beat him up. We’re down on this
platform that brought us up hydraulically, I saw his piano there and I just had to take
this opportunity and spit big goobers all over his keyboards. It had turned out that
kurt had spit all over Elton John’s piano and was horrified when he learned that.
Backstage things escalated pretty quickly as Axl spotted Kurt with the Nirvana frontman
recalling you last night my wife and I were sitting at a tent at the MTV music awards
and Axl Rose walked by us and we yelled at axl axl will you be the godfather of our child
and he said he stoppe, he turned around pointed his finger at my wife with his bodyguard.
Well, he had 20 bodyguards with him a Madonna documentary he's got his little film camera
with him and you had a 3-week old baby in your arms and i have a little helpless child
in my arms and he said to my wife you better shut up don't give me any shit tonight because
tonight was obviously the highlight of his career. Then he looked up at me and said you
better keep your wife shut or i'm gonna take you to the pavement and i was shaking and
i went what? what?what are you gonna do? You're gonna beat me up and he said you better keep
your wife's mouth shut you embarrass everybody. You embarrass your wife, you embarrass your
old man, you embarrass me And then i was shaking and i told my wife shut up
That same night Nirvana performed their single Lithium and towards the end of the performance
Dave Grohl would poke fun at Axl as you can see here. hi axl hi axl. hi axl. hi axl.
Backstage other members of Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana got involved in the feud, as bassist
Duff McKagan confronted Krist Novaselic but before anything got physical security got
involved. McKagan and guitarist Gilby Clarke would shake one of Nirvana’s trailers which
Kurt’s baby Francis Bean was in. Amy Finerty who worked for MTV at the time and who discovered
nirvana for the network, threatened to call security and the Guns N’ Roses members walked
away. Slash for his part claimed he didn’t have any animosity toward Nirvana and wasn’t
involved in the altercation backstage saying and i quote “i don’t have time for this
s****”
McKagan would look back at that moment in his life recalling Kim ‘Fastback’ Warnick,
my mentor, called me the day after my embarrassment and scolded me for it. I felt so low. We had
so, so many things in common. We have so many things in common today.
The following day Nirvana talked to the media giving their version of events, but Guns N’
Roses did the talking from the stage. At a September 13th show, four days after the VMA’s
in Toronto Canada Axl once again blasted nirvana on stage and burnt that cap of his you saw
in the don’t cry and paparazzi photos i showed earlier. We're gonna get this on film
tonight. This is a band. It's not working guys. Nirvana! Woooo.
By the end of 1992 things seemed to die down in the press with a few interviews mentioning
the feud. Guns n’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum would tell Raw Magazine in 1993. “That little
punk,” referring to cobain“We did nothing but treat those guys fucking good. We asked
them to tour with us, we talked good stuff about them in the press. Axl even fucking
wore their hat.
“But they basically slag us everywhere they go, including the MTV awards. We had a little
row backstage haw haw! And Duff almost kicked the bass player’s (Chris Novoselic) ass!
And I was ready to help him...”
“I mean, they have some good songs – though they’re not a great band – but it’s
as if they don’t want the fame. I don’t understand, man...” he'd say.
Days before the Nirvana frontman was found dead in his home, Cobain was on a flight from
LA to Seattle and sitting next to him was Duff McKagan. Rolling Stone would publish
The musicians discussed rehab and addiction, and they discussed mutual friends they shared.
with Duff recalling “We were talking about what it feels like to be going back home,”
ONce they got to seattle they went to baggage claim and McKagan noticed Cobain was feeling
down and thought about offering Cobain to stay at his house but he disappeared before
he could talk to him.
On April 5, 1994 Cobain would be found dead in his seattle home. Years later while promoting
Foo Fighters on Jon Stewart’s daily show Grohl would reveal how Matt Sorum was one
of the first people to express his condolences telling the late night host saying “After
Kurt died, one of the first phone calls I got was from Matt Sorum,” Grohl told Jon
Stewart on The Daily Show. “He left a message and said, ‘Man, I’m really sorry, and
I hope you’re doing well.’ I thought that was really cool.”
In the book everybody loves our town Brynn Bridenthaal who worked in PR for geffen records
recalled Axl Rose’s reaction to Kurt Cobain’s death revealing
“The first thing I did when I got back to my hotel room, was to call Axl because I was
afraid of how the news might impact him. He was such an emotional roller coaster, I was
afraid that Axl would hurt himself. He felt things really deep and felt a real connection
there, even though there was no connection from the other side. I think he had a lot
of empathy for Kurt. I was on the phone with Axl until about 3:00 in the morning" she'd
remember
Fast forward to 2010 & Duff was working as a guest columnist for his hometown paper Seattle
Weekly. He would write a column apologizing to Krist Novaselic for his behavior at the
1992 VMA’s writing I“I blew my lid when I perceived a slander toward my band from
the Nirvana camp,” “In my drunken haze and drug-induced mania, I heard what I wanted
to hear, and I went after Krist Novoselic backstage. I had no control of myself then.
And Krist, I am sorry for that day.”
The same year Dave Grohl, Slash and Duff would join Lemmy at the Revolver golden god’s
awards and perform the classic motorhead tune Ace of Spades. The same year Grohl would guest
star on Slash’s solo album along with mcKagan on the instrumental track Watch This.
Fast forward to 2016 and Guns N’ Roses reunion of Slash, Duff and Axl was about to kick off.
During the band’s first gig at the Troubadour, Axl would break his foot jeopordizing their
planned stadium tour of America. Rather than rescheduling the dates Grohl lent the band
a throne he himself had used the previous year after he fell off stage and broke his
leg in Sweden. Since then Axl, Slash and Duff have joined Foo FIghters on stage in Italy
performing it’s so easy while Grohl has appeared on stage with the band several times
performing their set closer paradise city. Axl would end up thanking grohl by for his
kind gesture by buying him a guitar as Grohl revealed to Classic Rock Magazine saying “He
had Slash go pick me a guitar,”“And he picked me an early-’60s Gibson ES 335 Dot,
which to this day is the nicest Xiong guitar I have ever played in my life. It was an incredibly
kind and classy gesture, and I was very appreciative he'd say. That does it for today;'s video
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