Who was the original drummer of Nirvana?
The legend of Nirvana is one that, without question, changed the trajectory of rock music forever. In some senses, it’s so mystical that those of us born after the stratospheric Cobain era can sometimes struggle to fathom that it ever actually existed, such is the level of their unreachable heights shrouded in a kind of rosy fantasy. But this ethereality is also subject to widespread myths and misconceptions, primarily in many cases surrounding where the roots of the band began.
Of course, everyone thinks they know the core lineup of Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl, but the truth when it comes to the latter is that he was not the band’s original drummer and only jumped on board in 1990. Some three years after their inception and on the early fringes of their break into the big league.
Yet naturally, with the bolt-out-of-the-blue rise of Nevermind in 1991, Grohl has come to take all the credit for Nirvana’s drumming hot seat – not that he doesn’t deserve it, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. As it turns out, there’s a whole sonic saga that preceded the band’s time in the spotlight, very little of which Grohl was actually involved in.
In reality, Nirvana went through a whole line of drummers before the gig landed at Grohl’s feet. Most notably this included Chad Channing, who sat at the kit for their debut album Bleach in 1989, but even he was not the first thrasher that Cobain and Novoselic enlisted. They had actually gone through no less than three previous drummers before him, none of which clearly held the highest rocking standards the founding pair knew they could achieve.
Who was the first drummer in Nirvana?
Subsequently, the real original drummer of Nirvana was Aaron Burckhard, whose tenure with the band lasted only for a short stint of their pre-fame days in 1987. He had joined the group before they had even settled on the moniker that gave them iconic status, instead variously hurtling through the decidedly less catchy names of Skid Row, Pen Cap Chew, Bliss and Ted Ed Fred.
However, Burckhard’s role in the band was not without its tensions – he was apparently highly confrontational and was subsequently fired for as much, so his impact on the legacy of Nirvana as a whole was limited to one unreleased disc, later heard in 2004 compilation With the Lights Out.
Eventually, with the third role replaced by Dale Crover, they made their debut as Nirvana on March 19th, 1988 at the Community World Theater in Washington. But the drumming drama wasn’t over yet – Crover was bombed out by Dave Foster, who then got sidelined by Burckhard again, who later was replaced once more by Channing before finally landing at Grohl. Frankly, it sounds exhausting.
But with the three musketeers in place, at long last everything began to fall in line. The unexpected success of Nevermind, followed by 1993’s In Utero cemented Nirvana among the all-time rock and roll greats, never overshadowed despite their tragic ending. Thank God they found Dave Grohl, though – they might just have gone through every drummer in the world otherwise.
