The Frogs: Kurt Cobain’s favourite band
The Frogs, an American rock band founded in 1980 by brothers Jimmy and Dennis Flemion, built a prolific cult reputation in the years since they were active, thanks in no small part to Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain.
The brothers, who mainly wrote catchy pop-rock songs, were shrouded in controversy – an area of infamy in which they felt most comfortable. Most notably, the uproar the band caused emerged from their improvised home studio recordings, which touched on issues such as race, religion, and sexuality. Predominantly, The Frogs focused on homoeroticism, which royally angered the gay community. Despite growing anger, each of the home recordings was delivered in a comedic manner, which just about summed up their attitude.
At one point, shortly after the band had recorded Bananimals and fury began to grow about the unreleased Racially Yours, the two brothers were stopped at Canadian customs as airport officials seized all of their tour merchandise and declared it “pornographic”. It is these infamous details that would pull in followers like Cobain and his grunge disciples. However, despite record sales struggling and controversy raging, The Frogs managed to garner a cult fanbase that included the likes of Beck, the Smashing Pumpkins, Sebastian Bach, Eddie Vedder and, of course, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain.
After meeting Cobain in 1993, The Frogs wrote two songs about the Seattle native. Not content with that show of appreciation, the two brothers also made him a videotape entitled Toy Porno, which featured a number of live performances and stop-motion animation with painted toys. The porno bit? Well, that’s because the animated toys were used as sexually promiscuous characters in various short sketches. According to urban myth, this tape became constant viewing material on Nirvana’s tour bus.
As aforementioned, it is not only Cobain who took inspiration from The Frogs. In 1995, Beck used a sample of The Frogs’ song ‘I Don’t Care If U Disrespect Me (Just So You Love Me)’ as part of his track ‘Where It’s At’. On top of that, Beck included the sample on his 1996 release Odelay.
Billy Corgan, founder and lead singer of Smashing Pumpkins, was perhaps one of the leading cheerleaders of The Frogs. After joining them on stage at Lollapalooza in 1994, Corgan went on to support and promote The Frogs by producing a short film, Meet the Frogs, which he ended up using on other Smashing Pumpkins video compilations.
The band, who continued to play and record music until 2012, is now just made up of Jimmy Flemion after his brother and co-founder, Dennis, tragically drowned in a lake that year.
See some footage below.
