“Didn’t like it”: The band Kurt Cobain denied influenced Nirvana
The late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain knew what he liked, and what he didn’t, and was very vocal about his positions on fellow musicians, politics and various other topics in his time. It was this unbridled commitment to his interpretation of the punk spirit that made Nirvana such a resonant band sonically and spiritually for listeners.
Naturally, given his punk ethos, Cobain ardently hated most classic rock. He openly derided Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith for their deeply misogynistic attitudes and lyrics and even kicked off a feud with his contemporaries, Guns N’ Roses, who were steeped in the essence of the classic rock era. However, the diminutive frontman was also prone to surprises regarding other artists you would have expected him to be a fan of.
Famously, Cobain despised his Seattle peers, Pearl Jam. While he said he’d never fought with the ‘Even Flow’ group, he maintained, “I’ve always just hated this band” when speaking on MTV during the early 1990s. He would also lament his connection to them and fellow grungers Alice in Chains in another interview in 1992, stating that they’d come out of the “hairspray/cockrock scene” but suddenly stopped washing their hair and wearing flannel shirts and were now seemingly ‘grunge’. He said he was offended by such shameless culture vulture manoeuvring.
If Cobain was so bold as to publicly slag off some of the bands he was in the same social circles as, then he certainly wasn’t scared to reveal his honest thoughts about others to whom he had no direct link. One of these was The Replacements, whose raucous fusion of punk with the influences of inspirational 1960s bands would see them form a heart-on-the-sleeve sound that pioneered alternative rock on 1984’s Let It Be and the following years.
Due to their anthemic songs, self-deprecating lyrics, and raucous live shows, The Replacements became a cult band of the most esteemed sorts. Since then, the likes of The Cribs, Gaslight Anthem, The Goo Goo Dolls, and They Might Be Giants have cited them as an inspiration. Yet, these three similar aspects to Nirvana were always purely coincidental. Cobain explicitly said of their music: “I didn’t like it.”
In 1993, Cobain spoke to Much Music, and was asked if The Replacements had any influence on him. He denied the association and explained: “I kind of wish they did because there’s so many comparisons to us, you know? I have to be honest, I really didn’t like The Replacements when I was into punk rock music, I listened to them.”
He continued: “I mean, I like the sound of it… I think my appreciation for R.E.M. and The Beatles and stuff like that had more to do with it because I really wasn’t aware of Soul Asylum and The Replacements and those bands. I mean, I knew about them, and I actually saw them live and stuff, and I just didn’t get it, I didn’t like it that much.”
It seems that Cobain really didn’t like The Replacements. According to their frontman, Paul Westerberg, one day, he and the Nirvana frontman rode up an elevator together. Neither of them said anything to each other, and despite being in rooms next to each other, they took their keys out, fumbled them into the lock, got inside and slammed the door shut. Blackly, he recalled: “He was dying to be dying, and I was dying to be somewhere else.”
