(Credits: Far Out / MUBI / Apple Music)
Thu 26 February 2026 19:56, UK
There’s practically nothing that Kurt Cobain and Axl Rose ever saw eye-to-eye on.
Both of them certainly loved the rock and roll music that they played every single time they performed live, but each of them was coming from a completely different angle whenever they put their emotions down on record. Cobain was the one looking to take rock and roll out of its superficial phase, and all he could see was Rose epitomising all of the misogynistic tendencies that he despised whenever he turned on MTV.
Granted, it’s not like Cobain doesn’t have a small point. Rose did live up to his title of being in ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Band’, but hearing him have such disrespect for women, men, and almost everything in between wasn’t going to earn him that many fans in the grunge scene. Soundgarden had already made a quasi-parody of them on ‘Big Dumb Sex’, but given that Guns N’ Roses would eventually cover the tune on one of their later records, it’s safe to say that Rose didn’t exactly get the joke.
And when listening to Cobain’s music, all of it was a lot more sympathetic to those who were cast out by society. Rose could complain all he wanted about being an outsider, but when Cobain talked about real problems that happened out in the world, like ‘Polly’ or when he went inside his own mind on ‘Something in the Way’, you could tell that all he was saying was entirely genuine. There was a lot of posturing in what Rose did, but posturing was never a bad thing in rock and roll.
After all, the greatest frontmen of all time were posturing whenever they played live, and in between the bluesy songs that he grew up with, Rose always had a friend in Freddie Mercury whenever he put Queen records on the turntable. Mercury was a far better singer than any of us could ever hope to be, but when he performed onstage, he always wanted to bring some sort of joy to the world whenever he got thousands of people on their feet.
Rose could usually be cutthroat when it came to any band that he talked about, but he felt that no one could ever touch what Mercury did, saying, “For me, it’s easy – Queen is the greatest band and Freddie is the greatest frontman of all time. The band is the greatest because they embraced so many different styles.” And despite all of their differences, Cobain seemed to share the same sentiment when he heard Queen long before he discovered what punk rock was.
He usually didn’t have time for the sexist lyrics in Led Zeppelin and AC/DC songs, but Cobain still had fond memories of driving around town listening to Mercury’s voice whenever he had the chance, saying, “I used to take a nap in the van and listen to Queen. Over and over again and drain the battery on the van. Then we’d be stuck. That happened a few times. We’d be stuck with a dead battery because I’d listened to Freddie Mercury too much.” And that message would carry on once Dave Grohl formed Foo Fighters.
Even though Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses were still at odds throughout Cobain’s life, it seemed like Queen themselves had more than enough time for both bands. Rose was one of the few vocalists that could have done justice to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ when he performed it with Elton John at the Concert for Freddie, and even when Nirvana were taking the piss throughout their performance at the MTV Awards, the one thing they remembered was Brian May having drinks with Krist Novoselic backstage after he knocked himself out with his bass when he threw it up in the air at the end of their performance.
But that kind of appeal is one of the reasons why Queen is so universally beloved amongst all types of rock and roll musicians. Their mission was to bring people together through song, and if they could find common ground between one of LA’s most vicious frontmen and the voice of the grunge movement, there was no limit to how far their influence could reach.