The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has a rule. A band or artist cannot become a member until twenty five years after the release of their debut album. With 'Bleach' just past that anniversary,and today marking twenty years since Kurt Cobain's death, it's not surprising Nirvana have been voted in at the first time of asking. In five days time, at the Barclay's Centre in Brooklyn, Kurt, Krist and Dave will be inducted by Michael Stipe of R.E.M.
Every band entering the hall of fame this year has confirmed they will be performing themselves, or what tribute will have the honour, with one noteable exception. Nirvana. We had our first hint who it would be when a few days ago, Krist Novoselic stated on Twitter "Been playing those @HalLeonardBooks bass tabs to get up to speed. Muscle memory is good too. #PracticeMakesPerfect @nirvana". It was easy not to get too excited by this, the tweet was posted on the first of April after all, but it wouldn't have been a very funny joke. The surviving members of Nirvana do have recent previous, performing for charity in 2012 alongside Paul McCartney. But they didn't perform any Nirvana tracks. What if they did decide that twenty years marked the point at which they were happy to take that step, to perform together again, as Nirvana?
Who would front the band? The frontrunner at the moment appears to be Stipe. Stipe was a close friend of Cobain's who, if rumours are to be believed, was collaborating with him on early demos for the fourth Nirvana LP at the time of his suicide. Stipe would be able to pull off Kurt's occasional incoherent mumble was aplomb. He was the instigator of the art in American Alternative rock. But he couldn't be trusted with the raw, animal screams and howls that Kurt was known for. Stipe is one of the greatest frontmen of all time, charismatic and engaging with an audience like no one else, but he doesn't have the versatility to switch gears from About A Girl to Teen Spirit to Heart Shaped Box, for example.
There's only one option, surely. One of the two men being inducted alongside Kurt, Dave Grohl. Not everyone would be happy with that option for sure. It would be easy to say that he was trying to assert himself as the bigger name than his former bandmate after twenty years, or that he was making himself out to be a bigger part of the bands history than he was. Yet in terms of the being one of the biggest names in rock today, with the status worthy of fronting Nirvana, who else wouldn't feel shoehorned in somehow? He was the only other man trusted with fronting Nirvana whilst Kurt was alive, on B-side Marigold, so why should that be any different in death?
His vocal versatility is up there. He's got a soft, delicate voice when he needs, as witnessed on many Foo Fighters hit, but look at early B-side Podunk, or White Limo from latest album Wasting Light. He can do the scream too, and it's a scream with attitude and feeling, not a by the numbers hardcore diatribe. With his confidence as a vocalist and frontman having visibly grown in public over the past two decades, Dave could pull it off, crucially, without it turning into a Kurt tribute act. That just leaves the drumming question.
If Dave's up front, who takes the stool? Chad Channing could, and he'd be the obvious choice, being the only other person to drum on a Nirvana LP. Like Stipe though, it's unlikely he'd have the chops to make it believable. He may have been a great choice for the early, basic, punky sounds of 'Bleach', but when it comes to the hits, he just doesn't have the raw power to push along what became one the greatest rock bands in the world. Plus he's already made it known he won't be present. Here's a controversial one. How about Taylor Hawkins? Grohl often calls the Foo Fighters drummer his little brother, and having witnessed the drum battles the two perform live, he is every inch the equal of his more revered band leader behind the kit. Whilst Grohl would be the man stepping into Kurt's shoes, whoever drums would be the man new to the band, the man whose induction would not be into the hall of fame, but into the biggest rock band of all time. Hawkins has the presence for that, having performed on some of the grandest stages in the world with its most revered names.
Some say the Nirvana legacy should never be touched again; left well alone, but there'd be a symmetry to this line up that would be somewhat beautiful to see. Exactly half-Nirvana, half-Foos, it would be an eye to the past AND to the future. Grohl wouldn't be the name he is now had he not joined Nirvana. Scream and Dain Bramage were far from commercial, further from successful. By Grohl fronting Nirvana we would be celebrating not just Kurt Cobain's music, but the influence he had on the rock music of the following twenty years, the fact a whole generation, and now that generations children are still soaking up his music, and those that followed on in style, attitude and successes.
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