September 9, 1992. Tape rewinding. It’s Wednesday night at the Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles and anywhere else, but here’s the place to be tonight because one of the biggest feuds in music history is about to get sparked.
Put Van Halen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns N’ Roses, Pearl Jam, Def Leppard and Nirvana together, shake not carefully at all, add cheeky girlfriends and taunting q.s. and leave to settle on the iconic beef that has been hanging for months over their heads, eagerly awaiting this moment.
“Anybody who wanted more space had to go outside, which forced a lot of people together who, normally, probably wouldn’t have anything to do with each other” explains Tabitha Soren, co-presenter of the VMA Awards. “Two of the bands were Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana, both of them at the height of their popularity.”
The lack of space is a major factor leading to the ignition of the backstage blaze, but the raillery previously addressed to Cobain by Guns N’ Roses’ haughty singer (“Kurt is basically just a fuckin’ junkie with a junkie wife. If the baby [Cobain and Love’s newborn daughter Frances Bean] is born deformed, I think they both ought to go to prison”), triggered by Nirvana‘s singer equally disdainful comments about Rose‘s band (“Rebellion is standing up to people like Guns N’ Roses”), sure don’t help.
“I remember that when Nevermind first came out, Axl Rose was a really big fan of us. Guns N’ Roses was about to do this massive stadium tour with Metallica [part of the promotional one for “Use Your Illusion I” and its twin, started in 1991] and they wanted us to open. So Axl had been calling Kurt nonstop. One day we’re walking through an airport and Kurt says, “Fuck, Axl Rose won’t stop calling me.” I think it represented something bigger” Dave Grohl tells Esquire.
Moreover, it’s rumored that Nirvana will play “Rape me” and it’s making everyone’s hair at MTV stand up. The band’s bassist, Krist Novoselic, claims they are “being asked from all corners not to”.
“They were going to replace us if we didn’t play Teen Spirit” adds Cobain.
Anybody who witnessed to Nirvana‘s Top Of The Pops performance back in 1991 wouldn’t be surprised to know they won’t play the infamous hit, that’s why the broadcast channel’s heads are about to blow.
By the end of the morning rehearsals, it’s decided that the song performed will be Lithium. Everyone is happy and relieved, even if the band will play an extract from the forbidden piece as intro to the official choice.
Amy Finnerty, director of MTV’s music programming, chosen by Cobain to take part in history, (20 at the time) reminds very well the tension characterizing the situation right before the crew reached a short-lived Nirvana.
“There was a lot of discussion but by the end of that day, they had reached an agreement. Before Nirvana went on, we were sitting in a circle in the artists’ tent. I was sitting next to Kurt, and he was pretty relaxed because he was holding Frances. Courtney was across the circle, there was a few of us.”
That’s when none other than Axl Rose comes into play, breaking the circle of peace to which Cobain belongs.
“He [Axl] came strutting by with five of his huge bodyguards and a person with a movie camera” the singer says.
The rare opportunity to tease Rose face-to-face is handed to Courtney Love, Hole’s front-woman and perfectly paired wife to the witty singer, on a silver plate and as expected, she doesn’t hold back.
“When Courtney saw Axl, she said: “Axl, Axl, do you wanna be the godfather to our child?” She was taunting him. You could tell by the tone of extreme sarcasm” remembers Finnerty.
Kurt adds: “Everyone laughed. We had a few friends around us, and he just stopped dead and started screaming… These were his words: “You shut your bitch up, or I’m taking you down to the pavement.” [laughs] So I turned to Courtney and said: “Shut up, bitch!” So I guess I did what he wanted me to do – be a man.”
Despite the singer’s apparent self confidence, Amy Finnerty is told by Kurt himself how conscious that everything could happen is, both regarding his wife and Axl.
“Anybody who knew Kurt and Courtney knew that a) Kurt wasn’t that type of person and b) nobody could ever keep Courtney in line, so what was he thinking?” she comments, referring to Rose. “I’d say Kurt handled that situation perfectly. He knew exactly what he was doing by turning to Courtney and saying that. It really lessened the tension in the room, allowed the rest of us to laugh a little bit. Then [Axl’s then girlfriend] Stephanie Seymour asked Courtney: “Are you a model?” and Courtney replied: “No. Are you a brain surgeon?” Axl didn’t seem to know how to respond, so he walked off. I leaned over to Kurt and said: “Wow, that was weird!” And he said: “I was really scared.” He wasn’t kidding. It was, like, scared of being beat up.”
It is the beginning of the end, with two sides of the same coin colliding with one another on the front burner and GNR‘s intoxicated bassist Duff McKagan ranting about the Nirvana camp, looking for a target to unload his frustration on, backstage.
The now crumbling “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll” attitude drop forged during the previous decades clings to Guns N’ Roses‘ textbook troublemakers, and McKagan is not immune. Fashion is slowly changing, hard rock milestones – with a few remarkable exceptions – spectates helplessly to / are spectators of the early beginning of a new era. Some bow to the inevitable, others embrace it and make it their own.
Among the latter, Duff himself and drummer Matt Sorum, GNR’s newest addition, are surprising admirers of the Seattle sound and Cobain’s work. The punk print engraved on the bassist’s teenage experiences, the appreciation of Grohl’s exceptional talent and Sorum’s eye for Nirvana’s unique business card, the widely known artwork on the cover of “Nevermind”, make clear that, once again, it is just leaders fighting for supremacy at a point in music history where the gold spikes of rock’n’roll are supposed to be fighting for survival.
“I remember Nirvana coming out” affirms the drummer. “We were on the same label [Geffen]. Duff McKagan turned me on to them. He had the demos from before Dave Grohl came into the group and he gave me a copy of Nevermind. I remember looking at the album cover, with the image of the baby on it, thinking, ‘That is really iconic.’ We asked them to tour with GN’R and they turned us down. They called us ‘corporate rock’.”
Premises like these can only lead to a collision… escape by the skin of MTV’s teeth, when the bassists of team Cobain and team Rose met backstage a few moments before Nirvana’s performance.
Novoselic claims Duff McKagan , where the band is “wanted to fight me and he had about three bodyguards who were, like, pushin’ me around. I was already a little bent out of shape and instantly replied with the same sentiment. The production people grabbed me and we continued toward the stage” about to play Lithium. The staff quivers with anticipation until the very last minute, ready and willing to honor the tacit agreement and cut to commercial if necessary.
However, everything goes smooth after a daring intro, until Krist Novoselic throws his bass 20 feet up in the air as usual and doesn’t catch it (not very usual).
“I’m plugged into some awful bass rig that’s distorting terribly. I can barely hear what I’m playing, and the tone deteriorates into an inaudible mess. Fuck it – time for the bass-toss schtick. Up it goes! The only time I’ve ever dropped it was then in front of 300 million people. Ouch!” the bassist remembers. “I was fine, but I faked like I was knocked out, perhaps expressing my inner torment over a taxing evening. Maybe I was just embarrassed.”
While Novoselic stumbles to the backstage, the show goes on like nothing happened. The rest of the band goes on with its ordinary “Who-thing”, as labeled by Bruce Gowers, director of the VMAs, involving Dave kicking the drums over and jeering at Axl through the microphone as the singer is busy skewering the bass amps with his guitar.
During all this time, Dave Grohl, the meek sheep of the Nirvana family, stays out of trouble, allegedly sick of the worthless drama going on between the two camps.
“Nirvana didn’t want to turn into Guns N’ Roses. So Kurt started talking shit in interviews, and then Axl started talking back. It went back and forth like tenth-grade bullshit. Then we got to the awards and our trailers were all in the same one hundred yards. And Courtney was there, which never makes anything easier” says Grohl, at the time unaware that he was going to face Cobain‘s wife in a harsh trail for the band’s royalties a few years later. “So it didn’t take much to blow up into a full-fledged showdown. Kurt and Courtney were screaming at Axl. Axl screamed back. It was all just soap-opera bullshit. Kirst, our bass player, almost got in a fistfight. I was just the drummer, so I shouted some loud, funny shit and hit the bar.”
Then again, Nirvana‘s main man has other ideas and it’s clear to everyone that the catfight is not over when Kurt goes below the stage, headed to where Axl and Elton John‘s pianos are awaiting for the duet of November Rain, the widely-known hit off GNR’s then latest album, “Use Your Illusions I”.
“I spat on Axl’s keyboard… it was either that or beat him up” the singer recalls. “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.”
The night is almost over and by the time Guns N’ Roses get ready to play for their grand finale, Kurt is done and satisfied of his dirty job. Although, Earnie Bailey, Nirvana’s former guitar tech, will assure you bad karma does exist and it comes into play when least expected, for instance to supply such a troubled story with a proper bottom line.
“Kurt came in, laughing his ass off. He told me he’d spit across the keys of Axl’s piano as he left the stage. So we’re laughing about that, watching the ceremony on TV, when these two pianos come up and Kurt goes, “Oh fuck! I spit on Elton’s piano by accident!” I’m not sure which was funnier, Kurt’s horror at what he had done or the sight of Elton John hammering away on that piano.”
Moral of the story: don’t spit on the piano you think is your rival’s, that might be Elton John’s. Also, I don’t recall Nirvana keeping their mouth shut about Guns N’ Roses and vice versa after that night…
