Nirvana perform 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' on TOTP 1991
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Two of the defining bands of the 1990s, Guns N Roses and Nirvana’s sounds couldn’t have been further apart. It wasn’t just their music either, as they famously feuded over the years. Kurt Cobain wanted nothing to do with Axl Rose, who repeatedly tried to get a collaboration off the ground. It didn’t faze him though, as years later he was still looking at the grunge group for inspiration, especially when it came to Chinese Democracy.
The record was released in 2008, 15 years after their cover album The Spaghetti Incident? and was the last one they put out. Anticipation couldn’t have been higher and lead singer Axl Rose was looking for the perfect sound for its title track.
Speaking to Loudersound, A&R manager Tom Zutaut looked back on the song’s creation and surprisingly revealed that Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit was the final piece of the puzzle for Rose.
The lead singer was putting a lot of pressure on himself, as he had been striving to create “the best record that had ever been made,” when Zutaut first met him in 1985.
It’s no surprise then that he turned to Nirvana for the sound of GNR’s last album.
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Rose told the studio execs that he wanted the drumming on the track to sound like Smells Like Teen Spirit. However, even though the crew claimed they found it, the musician kept pushing for perfection.
Zutaut said: “I went and bought Nevermind [Nirvana’s second album] at the local Tower Records. I guess maybe they heard the Nirvana hits on the radio and they just thought that they knew the sound, but none of them had thought to just go buy the album and listen to it.”
After extensively comparing the original drumming by Dave Grohl, tweaking their own song in the process, they eventually sent the finished thing over to Rose.
After listening to it, Rose called Zutaut and said: “I’ve only been asking for that for, like, six f*****g months! You don’t understand: I’ve been losing my f*****g mind! I ask you for something, I get it. I’ve been asking other people and they can’t get it?!”
He added: “I wish I’d called you a couple of years ago. Can you come out here and do this?”
Chinese Democracy peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at 34, while Smells Like Teen Spirit reached number 6.
The two groups had a messy and storied history as Cobain wanted nothing to two with GNR despite Rose repeating asking to work together.
Cobain was critical of GNR’s lyrics, as they didn’t align with his progressive and feminist views. Eventually, Rose hit back.
On stage, he brutally called out the grunge icons, particularly Cobain and his wife Courtney Love. He called them “f*****g junkies” and even said: “If the baby is born deformed, I think they both ought to go to prison.”
It all came to a head in 1992, when the two confronted one another backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards.
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