Eddie Van Halen was reportedly a fan of Nirvana. However, some controversial developments led to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain blasting Van Halen.
Kurt Cobain mocks Eddie Van Halen
Backstage at their December 30th, 1993 show at the Forum in Inglewood, California, Eddie was drunk and expressed his love for them. However, he did it in the most loathable of ways, and was allegedly racist to the band’s second guitarist, Pat Smear.
Smear’s ethnicity was allegedly mocked by Van Halen. Smear was born and raised in West Los Angeles to a mother of African-American and Native American descent and a German-Jewish immigrant father. Eddie Van Halen had allegedly did so in desperately wanting to get in the act with Nirvana.
Meanwhile, another longstanding rumor then emerged, with the Nirvana frontman rejecting Eddie’s offer to perform with them and in response, he begged, “C’mon, let me play the Mexican’s guitar,” referring to Smear. Later that evening, Cobain would brilliantly mock Van Halen’s playing style with the ‘In Bloom’ solo.
Pat Smear recalls the incident
Smear had previously recalled the incident when speaking to Dimension Seven years later. He had noted that the metal legend “did more harm than good” to budding players during the decade. He said: “Anyway, Eddie Van Halen comes backstage drunk out of his f’ing mind, and he started begging Kurt to let him play with us. It was so disgusting. He was like, ‘I’m all washed up; you are what’s happening now.’ It was horrible! He was a horrible racist pig!”
He used the tale as an example of not being desperate to meet your heroes, as often it can produce bad results. He laughed: “Eddie Van Halen is the perfect example for me of not wanting to meet your heroes ’cause you’ll be disappointed. I hear he’s sober now. I blame that incident totally on the alcohol. I’ve done a lot of bad things when I was drunk, too.”
It came to light that Smear’s immediate reaction was shock and it was purely because he thought Van Halen hated him. That shows both the effects that racial oppression has, and that, for a long time, stars had too much power.
