Despite Nirvana being one of the most influential bands of all time, they were not rock stars in the traditional sense. Kurt Cobain, Kirst Novoselic and Dave Grohl made it clear that they hated such an immense level of fame, and while they had a tendency to raise hell, they did it from a distinctly punk-informed perspective, wherein the music came before all else.
Frontman Cobain, meanwhile, was an outspoken critic of the familiar excesses that were part and parcel of rock ‘n’ roll when he was growing up. Cobain was also a defender of women’s and minority rights, something that a handful of the most prominent names in the industry could not claim to be. A contemporary band in the mould of the traditional outfits Cobain took particular exception to was Guns N’ Roses, a group he felt were antithetical to him and Nirvana. This outlook kicked off one of the era’s most bitter feuds.
Another classic band known for the age-old excesses that Cobain was known to have disdain for was Led Zeppelin. Although he admitted to enjoying some of the British band’s music when he was in his youth, the Nirvana mastermind would come to believe that much of their era’s music, including from bands like Aerosmith, had “to do with sexism”, as he explained to Rolling Stone in 1992.
This realisation emerged during his final years of high school, a time when the world was starting to irritate Cobain in an all-encompassing way, and he discovered punk as the perfect expression of how he felt socially and politically. Despite delving head-first into the world of punk, former Nirvana co-manager Danny Goldberg would later tell Forbes that he believed Cobain was torn about Led Zeppelin and their ilk, given that he liked the music but was majorly uncomfortable with the lyrics, meaning he distanced himself.
Regardless of Cobain’s weighty criticism of his work, Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant would be graceful in his account of Nirvana. During an interview given alongside Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl in 1998 for Ray Gun, Plant was asked by the younger musician if his band liked Nirvana. The frontman maintained that he felt the trio were “very strong” before outlining some slight misgivings.
He explained: “Well, to me, it seemed to make far more sense than a lot of the alternative stuff, the 99.9 per cent of everything that was just hollow rebellion without any real commitment and without a conscience. I thought it was very strong. The only thing is, with everything that is new and that’s reactionary to such a degree, there’s an air of doom that surrounds it, through excess of one kind or another.”
Striking a more serious note, Plant then revealed that his “heart bled” for the surviving Nirvana members following Cobain’s suicide in April 1994. Notably, Led Zeppelin also came to an abrupt end when drummer John Bonham died after a day of heavy drinking in 1980. Touching on the heartbreaking parallels between both acts, he concluded: “My heart bled for that because we’d been through that. We lost Bonzo (John Bonham). We lost loads of people around us. Every time there’s something that’s really prolific and strong and full of intention, you get so wrapped up in it that you start to self-destruct.”
