Surprising Drummer Reveals How He Missed Out On Joining Nirvana Twice

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Kurt Cobain’s friend John Purkey discussed almost joining Nirvana twice in a new YouTube video on his Observer channel.

“Having a chance to play in Nirvana twice, I guess you’d say. The first time I turned them down because I was already in another band. Later on, when Chad left the opportunity came up again and I was ready to drop everything. I talked to the guys in Subvert, everybody in Machine knew, I was like, that was it. They needed a drummer, and I’m ready to take the spot. Well, for those guys they had lots of options at that point.

Kurt had told me that he wanted somebody that sounded like John Bonham and he had mentioned Dan Peters’ name. That’s before Dan joined the band. So Kurt wanted Dan Peters in the band. At that point, I guess they felt they could get any drummer they wanted. So that kind of cut my chances out. But, I wouldn’t give up. I was like, ‘Let’s jam together.’ Krist was totally ready to go, Kurt was too. He was like, ‘Yeah, let’s jam, but I don’t have a guitar. My guitar is in the shop.’ His only guitar he had was in the shop.

Now I have like two days before I had to go on tour with Subvert, so we had to figure this out. Left handed guitars, there are no left handed guitars around. So we just decide, Krist just says, ‘Hey, I’ll just come over, and I’ll play bass, and we’ll go through some songs.’ So that’s what we did, we went through In Bloom, Lithium, a couple songs off Bleach, Swap Meat, yeah. It wasn’t bad, it was fun, it went pretty good. But it’s definitely not like Krist called me the next day and said, ‘Dude, don’t go on tour, you’re in!’

So I went on tour with Subvert, that was that. It was a downer, I guess I really got my hopes up too. When I talked to Krist, when they first got back and he told me that Chad was leaving the band, instantly I was like, I wanted in the band for sure. But things worked out how they did, and they couldn’t have gotten a more powerful drummer, killer drummer, Dave Grohl.”

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Brett Buchanan
Brett previously hosted the BWR wrestling and MMA podcast, interviewing pro wrestling and MMA stars like Kurt Angle, Seth Rollins, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Bruce Buffer, AJ Styles, Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy, Edge, and DDP. After ending BWR, Brett opened GrungeReport.net in May 2009. The site changed its name to AlternativeNation.net in June 2013.  Brett ran Scott Weiland's social media accounts for his final 'Master Blaster' tour in fall 2015 and continued to run the accounts after Weiland's death until July 2016. On Alternative Nation, Brett controls all aspects of the website and reports the day to day news.  He has interviewed members of Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Imagine Dragons, Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Stone Temple Pilots, and The Smiths. Brett has been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal and on the Reelz Channel. You can reach Brett at contact @alternativenation.net