10 Greatest Band Rivalries In Rock History
8. Guns N Roses vs. Nirvana
The latter part of the 80's hard rock scene was dominated by Guns N Roses. While you had bands like Metallica bringing a heavier tone to rock music, there was no escaping the sounds of Slash's leads and the feral shrill of Axl Rose. Once grunge arrived on the scene though, things started to get a lot uglier.
Though Axl Rose was a big supporter of the grunge movement and even wore a Nirvana hat during the band's tour cycle, Kurt Cobain wanted nothing to do with the band's style of rock and roll. When talking about them in interviews, Cobain seemed to get frustrated about GNR getting popular for what he saw as misogynistic lyrics and awful practices from the band members. Given the band's volatile presence, this wasn't something Rose was going to take lightly.
Since the incident, Nirvana turned down dates to open for GNR, which sent Axl into a frenzy. This eventually culminated in the 1992 MTV Awards, where Axl started threatening him in a way Cobain compared to a middle school bully. Once they hit the stage, Nirvana fired right back, with Dave Grohl goofing on the whole thing by sarcastically screaming like a superfan whenever he saw Rose in the crowd. For as much as Rose may have fought back, you couldn't argue that the entire rock landscape was shifting in Cobain's favor.