When Slash rose to popularity with Guns N’ Roses in the late 1980s, the so-called “Hair Metal” subgenre was the most popular in Rock and Roll music. A few years later, the band faced another formidable foe: Grunge Rock, which was “killing” Hard Rock and Heavy Metal and gaining control of the mainstream Rock scene. The most well-known group of that era’s emerging subgenre was Nirvana, which disbanded prematurely in 1994 following the sad passing of lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain.
Numerous musicians have discussed Nirvana over the years; Slash was one of them, offering his thoughts in interviews while also discussing other bands from that era.
What is Guns N’ Roses Slash opinion on Nirvana
In a 2019 interview with Kerrang!, Slash expressed his dislike for the way journalists portray Guns N’ Roses, claiming that Grunge was the band’s demise. Since, in Slash’s view, they had already achieved fame and that had stopped affecting them: “It was kinda lame that music writers at the start of the ‘90s could only create an identity for the Seattle bands by setting them up as anti-Guns N’ Roses. I know writers like to consider the whole ‘birth of grunge’ as the death knell for Guns.”
“But we were so big at that point that the emergence of the grunge bands didn’t really matter to us. Personally, I thought Nirvana were cool. I have four of their albums. But they weren’t as heavy or riff-oriented as Soundgarden or Alice In Chains. So those were actually my two favourite Seattle bands. I guess Axl and Kurt Cobain had some issues. But Dave Grohl is on my album with Duff (McKagan). So at least one member of Nirvana didn’t hate me!”
Slash further acknowledged Kurt Cobain in an interview with MTV, saying: “I thought the guy was brilliant, it’s a loss but at the same time was probably inevitable that he did what he did but he wrote some great stuff.”
Grunge fans used to make fun of Slash
In a 2021 interview with 80s Metal Recycle Bin, Slash’s former bandmate Gilby Clarke described how, during Grunge’s heyday, Slash was teased by the public. “Somebody saw Slash and goes, ‘Oh, my God – look, it’s Slash!’ But they were laughing, like he was a cartoon character, not Slash from Guns N’ Roses.”
“Three or four years before that, (he) was the coolest motherfucker on the planet. So that was a couple of things that we could kind of tell that things were changing a little bit. Some bands were starting to be a little cartoonish rather than having the musical credibility.”
Nirvana refused Guns N’ Roses invitation to be their opening act
Several well-known bands offered Nirvana to open for them in the early 1990s, including Guns N’ Roses. But as Kurt Cobain disclosed in a 1991 interview with Gilbert Blecken, they declined the offer, stating that “We don’t really wanna play in huge arenas supporting someone.”
In addition to their critically lauded earlier albums, Guns N’ Roses achieved their peak in 1991 with the publication of “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II,” which featured songs like “Don’t Cry,” “November Rain,” “Civil War,” and “You Could Be Mine.” The two albums were promoted with a tour that visited 27 countries between January 1991 and July 1993.