The frontman Kurt Cobain was bored watching: “He’s such an egotistical person”
Being a frontman is usually a much more difficult task than many people realise. Few artists have truly mastered the odd mix of showmanship and authentic sincerity required to pull it off in the most effective manner. While Kurt Cobain could be that kind of magnetic presence even with a guitar in his hand, he had plenty of gripes with what he considered tired old posturing as he chased down the punk dream.
Axl Rose was the kind of frontman whose instrument-free, strutting schtick had already been played out, and Cobain wasn’t having it. Then again, the idea of a frontman expressing himself through a guitar wasn’t anything new by Cobain’s standards, either. You just had to look at everyone from John Lennon to Joe Strummer to know that someone laying down a solid rhythm guitar part and singing was half of the greatest frontmen in the world.
It’s always about how you sell it, though, and Cobain wasn’t looking to put on a show for his audience. He wanted to express himself every time he played the guitar, and that normally meant taking out a lot of his aggression on his instrument or incorporating sheer chaos into a lot of his songs whenever he played.
Take a song like ‘Breed’. Does it really have a great solo? In theory, yes, it does, but when you look at what Cobain’s playing, the “solo” is more or less a case of him flying up and down the guitar neck and managing to sound like he’s strangling his instrument. That’s not a bad thing at all, but it was something that most mainstream bands hadn’t done before.
Whereas Guns N’ Roses were the kind of group that the 1970s never managed to spit out. After going through the umpteen hair metal acts that were clogging up the airwaves, hearing a rock band that actually sounded like a rock band was a breath of fresh air, especially with Rose playing up his role as a gutter punk with a heart of gold on ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’.
He may have meant his music sincerely, but Cobain only saw a lot of posturing from Rose, saying in Come As You Are, “His role has been played for years. Ever since the beginning of rock and roll, there’s been an Axl Rose. And it’s just boring to me. Why it’s such a fresh and new thing in his eyes is obviously because it’s happening to him personally, and he’s such an egotistical person that he thinks the whole world owes him something.”
Considering this is the same frontman who threatened to give a personal beating to any journalist who dared say mean things about him in ‘Get In the Ring’, Rose wouldn’t take kindly to that remark. While he was a self-admitted Nirvana fan, Rose’s hatred for Cobain kicked into overdrive throughout the next few years, including one instance where he almost got into a scrap with him at the MTV Music Awards.
Cobain chose to laugh off the entire situation at the time, but the more you look at it, the more Rose’s beef becomes laughable in retrospect. Nirvana was bound to become one of the biggest bands in the world no matter what, and even if Rose tried to sink his teeth into Cobain, it didn’t stop him from looking like the braggadocious caricature of what a pampered rock star was supposed to be.
