The artists Kurt Cobain claimed to have no respect for
Every generation of rock and roll wants to outdo the one that came before. Even if some artists are inspired by the legends of old to pick their own instruments, the biggest names in music are the ones that break down barriers and try their best to leave every other artist in the dust whenever they start climbing the charts. Although Kurt Cobain did have a healthy obsession with bands like The Beatles, he felt that two rock stars could never get through to him if they tried.
Because there’s a certain image of what a rock star should be, which didn’t fit Cobain. Whereas every other person on the Sunset Strip had their mind set on being the next David Lee Roth or Vince Neil, Cobain was walking in the footsteps of people like J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr or Paul Westerberg of The Replacements, both of which were interested in keeping their heads down and playing the best music they could.
In fact, Cobain was always adamant about being born at the wrong time. Despite loving the sounds of The Beatles and getting immersed in punk rock, he was always slightly outside of that timeframe when he first started writing his own melodies. The one thing he did have in common with the older generation was his ongoing dependency on drugs, which came about due to his ongoing stomach issues.
Even when working on some of Nirvana’s best material, Cobain depended on heroin to help numb the pain that he had in his stomach, but after years of abuse, he had started to become more strung out. While there had been various attempts to get him into rehab, Cobain knew that none of the pep talks from ageing rockstars would help him find his way out of the darkness.
When talking about one attempt to seek treatment, Cobain remembered rejecting the idea of having some rock legends come in to help him, saying, “[They] would come in and try to talk to me on a rock and roll level. Like, ‘I know where you’re at, man. Would you mind if David Crosby came in and said hello? Or Steven Tyler? Rattling off these rock stars’ names. I was like, ‘Fuck that, I don’t have any respect for these people at all.’”
Granted, that’s because those rock stars were speaking a completely different language than what Cobain was doing. He had a brief moment liking Aerosmith, but the casual misogyny behind their lyrics was the first major turn-off for someone who was adamant about feminist rights. And compared to what Neil Young was doing for the grunge community, David Crosby may as well have been a disgruntled grandpa compared to what Cobain was looking for.
That’s not to say that some people didn’t try to help. Young, in particular, said that he was disheartened that he never got to break through to Cobain, saying, “I was going to say, ‘Listen, you don’t have to do anything that anyone fucking tells you to do. Just stop.’ I had this whole I was going to tell him, but I never got a chance.”
While Cobain may have known his demons better than most, the fact that he never got to see the legacy of his art is the real tragedy behind everything. He may not have had as much respect for the old guard of rock and roll, but what his music has done since has set the blueprint for what every game-changing artist should do afterwards.
