Veteran songwriter Noel Gallagher says he and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain had a deeper connection with one another.
While the Don’t Look Back in Anger singer has made his thoughts on more involved lyrics clear, once suggesting fiction is a waste of time, he found himself to be an unlikely fan of the Smells Like Teen Spirit hitmakers. Despite being a fan of both Cobain and the band, one song irked Gallagher, who put up a fair fight against the track. Though he may have disliked the song I Hate Myself and I Want to Die, featured on the band’s In Utero release, Gallagher regrets never having met the late frontman, who died in 1994.
Gallagher said: “At the time it was written in the middle of grunge and all that. I remember Nirvana had a tune called ‘I Hate Myself and Want to Die’, and I was like ‘Well, I’m not fucking having that.’ As much as I fucking like him [Cobain] and all that shit, I’m not having that.
“I can’t have people like that coming over here, on smack, fucking saying that they hate themselves and they wanna die. That’s fucking rubbish. Kids don’t need to be hearing that nonsense. Seems to me that there was a guy who had everything, and was miserable about it.
“And we had fuck-all, and I still thought that getting up in the morning was the greatest fuckin’ thing ever, ’cause you didn’t know where you’d end up at night. And we didn’t have a pot to piss in, but it was fucking great, man.”
The Oasis member went on to say he wishes he had met with Cobain, and that Nirvana is responsible for one of the best records of all time. Gallagher said: “I always had an affinity with him because he was left-handed, he had blue eyes, he was a Gemini and he was into The Beatles and that’s what I was so I was like fucking hell.
“Mark Coyle, who co-produced Definitely Maybe, at that time, he was also doing monitors for Teenage Fanclub when they went on their world tour with Nirvana. I said ‘what’s he like?’ and he said ‘you’d fucking love him, he’s great. He’s crazy as fuck but he’s great’. Then I remember signing for Creation and meeting Teenage Fanclub and them saying he’s a really fucking cool guy.”
Despite never having met Cobain, Gallagher suggested Nevermind still sounds “like the future of rock” and compared it favourably to the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks and The Stone Roses track, Fools Gold.
“I’m gutted that he died before I met him, I’d have loved to have shot the fucking shit with him,” Gallagher said. “All the great albums like Nevermind The Bollocks, Nevermind and The La’s, they just get greater with time. They start off being the album of the year and then they just never date. They never, never, never date.
“If you listen to Nevermind, it still sounds like the future of rock, the same for Fools Gold by The Stone Roses, somebody could record that tomorrow and it would still sound like the most contemporary piece of music ever. That’s why Definitely Maybe has never dated, it wasn’t by design all these things happen by accident.”
