There have always been rivalries in music. The Beatles vs. the Rolling Stones, East Coast Rappers vs. West Coast rappers, and The Backstreet Boys vs. *NSYNC the list goes on throughout the ages since music notes started to play.
Although rivalries aren’t anything new in music it’s rare to see them spill out at awards ceremonies. Yes, in recent years we’ve had Kanye West interrupt Taylor Swift’s Grammy acceptance speech (twice) and Oasis antagonised Blur during the height of their rivalry in the mid-nineties at the Brit Awards, but it wasn’t until the 1992 MTV Music Awards when this rivalry comes to a head. When the old genre met the new one. This week The Beat Marches On to 9th September 1992.
In the three years between the release of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and lead singer Kurt Cobain’s suicide, Nirvana was on top of the music world. A contrast to the rock scene before the band broke out when the music had shifted to angst and self-doubt from the sex, drugs and ‘rock n roll’ on the Sunset Strip.
Nevermind was Nirvana’s second album. Their first, Bleach now regarded as a good album was almost ignored by the masses when released in 1989. The band sold well in their hometown of Seattle and a few tracks reached the UK but no one had even described the genre as grunge.
The biggest band to come out of the Sunset Strip in the late 1980s was Guns n Roses. With a stunning debut album ‘Appetite For Destruction’ and lead single ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ they quickly rose to the top of the charts and dominated the world.
Although Guns n Roses were on top the signs of a struggle were starting to show. Drug addiction was taking its hold on the band. They already fired drummer Stephen Adler for not keeping his addiction under control and replaced him with The Cult’s Matt Sorum. Due to shenanigans on and offstage lead singer, Axl Rose was becoming a difficult person to work with.
The long-awaited follow-up to Appetite was released in September 1991. Just as Nirvana broke out with Teen Spirit and the accompanying album ‘Nevermind’, GnR released a double album that wasn’t a double album.
A little aside here in 1991, the Guns n Roses second album was meant to be a double album but to not outprice the fans with an expensive double album they released two separate albums on the same day called Use Your Illusion I and II. They ended up at one and two on the album charts and still sold millions.
Initially, Axl was a fan of Nirvana. He wore a cap with the band’s logo on in the video for ‘Don’t Cry’ but due to Cobain’s disdain for trendsetters, he started to bad mouth Rose and his band in the press. The comments hadn’t got through to the singer yet as he wanted the grunge band on the bill for a joint headlining tour in 1992 with Metallica (who had just released what would become their biggest album) but Cobain refused.
Now Rose heard the things Cobain said about the band and was angry. It doesn’t take much to wind up Axl and the singer did one of his infamous on-stage rants about Kurt and wife Courtney Love and their unborn child. The couple were widely known to be users of heroin and rumours were widespread of Courtney Love using during the pregnancy (although this has never been confirmed) The GnR singer called the pair “fucking junkies” and continued “If the baby’s born deformed, I think they both oughta go to prison, that’s my feeling”
Then in September 1992, the two were going to meet in person since their war of words through the tabloids started. At the MTV Music Video Awards, both bands were nominated for awards and both bands were performing at the show.
Chilling out in a tented area backstage Kurt and Courtney were sitting with their newborn daughter Frances Bean when Axl Rose strolled past. As he was walking past Love sarcastically asked Rose whether he wanted to be Godfather to their daughter. As mentioned earlier Axl has a short temper and started to shout at the couple and then his entourage started to get involved which got the other members of Nirvana and their entourage involved. Each of the band’s bassists almost come to blows. Axl was quoted “You shut your Bitch up” and Kurt replied in a sarcastic tone to Courtney “Shut up Bitch”
That was the first incident that happened at the show. When Nirvana took to the stage to perform at the ceremony, they first decided they wanted to play a new song called ‘Rape Me’ however the MTV executives were not happy with that and wanted ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ Cobain reluctantly compromised to play ‘Lithium’ which is a track off the ‘Nevermind’ album. When they took the stage, they decided to play the opening seconds to ‘Rape Me’ but it was just enough to hear the song and just enough for MTV not to cut to commercial.
At the end of the performance Cobain started trashing the equipment, bass player Krist Novoselic threw his bass in the air and misjudged it coming down and caught the instrument with his face. Novoselic stumbled off the stage and went to seek medical attention. Kurt even stopped to see if his bass player was okay. As his drum kit was being destroyed by the frontman, drummer Dave Grohl went up to the mic and antagonised Axl Rose more by shouting “Hi Axl” repeatedly.
Novoselic and the rest of the band went underneath the stage to tend to his injuries. Then Cobain noticed that there were two pianos stored ready for Gun’s n Roses’ performance of ‘November Rain’ with Sir Elton John at the show. Being opportunistic the Nirvana frontman decided to spit on what he thought was Roses piano. It wasn’t until the two took the stage that Kurt realised that the piano he abused was Elton Johns. The Nirvana frontman was horrified.
Still angry by the earlier shouting match with Novoselic, GnR bass player Duff McKagen went to Nirvana’s trailer with a few of his entourage and tried to tip it over. None of the Nirvana members was there but three-week-old Frances was in the trailer with her Nanny. Luckily, they didn’t tip it over.
After all, that ruckus at the MTV Awards the rivalry quietened for a few months until Kurt Cobain was being interviewed by LGBT+ magazine The Advocate, where he discussed an interaction with a fan asking to work out the problems. The initial reasoning for the interview was for a benefit show in aid of the rights of the LGBT+ community. In the interview, Cobain branded Axl Rose “a sexist and a racist and a homophobe” and continued “You can’t be on there and our side” It wasn’t the only band they were against in this old school community but due to the recent history the Guns N Roses quote stood out.
There was no public response from Axl Rose after Cobain’s quotes in The Advocate. In, Fact that was the last the two bands spoke about each other until Kurt’s death. There is only one known interaction between any members before the lead singer’s untimely demise when on their way back to Seattle from Los Angeles, Cobain and McKagen sat next to each other on the flight and were quite friendly to each other.
The rivalry cooled down after Cobain’s death as most of the war of words was between the two frontmen. One of the first people to get in touch with Dave Grohl was Guns N Roses Drummer Matt Sorum after his bandmate’s death.
The remaining members of Nirvana and Guns n Roses (bar Axl) managed to bury the hatchet over recent years. In 2009 a Guns n Roses side project, Velvet Revolver, covered an early Nirvana song, ‘Negative Creep’. In 2010 McKagen produced an article in the Seattle weekly publication apologised for his actions at the MTV Music Awards to the surviving members. The two bass players even performed together at the 20th anniversary of the Nevermind album concert.
Axl finally ended the rivalry in 2016 when Grohl gave the throne that he used for when he broke his leg while on tour with his band The Foo Fighters to Rose when GnR reformed and before performing he broke his foot. The singer tweeted out and personally thanked the drummer and everyone assumed the rivalry was over.
Axl finally ended the Rivalry after breaking his foot after Guns n’ Roses reformed in 2016. Dave Grohl gave Axl the throne he had used following him breaking his leg on a tour with the Foo Fighters. Axl tweeted out and personally thanked Dave Grohl. Everyone assumed the rivalry was finally over.
There is a way this all could’ve been prevented. There is an extract from a book called ‘Everybody Loves Our Town’ Where Axl’s sister calls Nirvana’s record label, Geffen, which coincidentally was the same label as Guns n Roses. She spoke to the label’s public relations officer asking why the band wouldn’t return the singer’s calls. The publicist replied “Nirvana is against everything Guns n Roses represents” If she had spoken to one of the members of the band, it could’ve ended up very differently.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for six years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
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Websites used for research are:
Guns N’ Roses vs. Nirvana: A Beef History – Rolling Stone
This is why Nirvana and Guns ‘N’ Roses hated each other (faroutmagazine.co.uk)
On this day in 1992 Nirvana do the MTV Video Music Awards | Pop Expresso
There is a selection of videos on YouTube on the subject. The pages GnR Central and American Spy Fox were especially helpful.
If you want to request a story for The Beat Marches On blog, then you can contact jwhiteheadjournalism@gmail.com. We cannot guarantee that the story will be published but will be considered.
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