Nirvana Foo Fighters by Jeff Apter

Author:Jeff Apter [Apter, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-85712-021-2
Publisher: Music Sales Limited
Published: 2006-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

If Cobain was impressed with Grohl’s abilities — before the sessions, an excited Cobain had put in a call to Vig saying, “I’ve found the greatest drummer in the world” — he wasn’t dispensing such compliments during the making of Nevermind. Cobain’s frequent mood swings often affected the atmosphere in the studio. Grohl would back off whenever a situation turned ugly, reminding himself that he was “just the drummer in the band”. It proved to be a handy defence mechanism.

During the first week of June, as the album was being mixed by Andy Wallace, Cobain, Grohl and Novoselic would frequently drive around the Hollywood Hills, a tape of the mixes-in-progress blaring out of their rented car stereo. “That was something else,” Grohl remembered.

In spite of Cobain’s future rejection of Nevermind — he moaned about it being overproduced, too polished, not sufficiently punk-sounding — he couldn’t deny that Vig had worked wonders in the studio. The relatively fresh producer had transformed poor-sounding boom box demos into a hard rock masterpiece.* As Grohl recalled, “All of a sudden, you have Butch Vig making it sound like Led Zeppelin IV.” He was especially impressed when first hearing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ blasting from the studio’s speakers. It was a reaction soon to be shared by several million others.

“[Nevermind] was the great experience of my life,” Grohl told Rolling Stone in 2001. “I celebrate it every now and then.”

Grohl and the band also had a blast filming the iconic ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ clip, in which Grohl sported his Scream T-shirt — either an affectionate nod to his old band or an admission of guilt for deserting them, depending on whom you speak with. Cobain’s concept for the video could be described in two words: teen spirit. Directly inspired by two of his favourite films — Over The Edge, an obscure cult flick starring Matt Dillon, and Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, a Roger Corman-produced B-movie vehicle for the Ramones — Cobain wanted to see a lot of young kids running amok. He got way more than he bargained for.

The director, Sam Bayer, knew nothing of Nirvana beforehand, but had been flogging his promo reel among the various LA record labels, trying to hustle work. He figured that Nirvana hired him because his reel “was so bad”.† Bayer also worked cheaply; the entire shoot came in under $50,000, with most of the youthful extras — many of them Nirvana fans — working for free. “They weren’t from central casting,” Bayer said to Classic Albums. “That was real.”

‘Teen Spirit’ was shot at GMT Studios in Culver City, California, beginning at 11.30 am and continuing for the entire day, with only a break for lunch.* The filming was both physically and mentally draining. Towards the end of the day, Bayer says that he threw his arms up in the air and told the extras to destroy the set, which led to the carnage taking place in the latter half of the clip. Grohl had a slightly

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