10 Unlucky Musicians Who Narrowly Missed Out On Making It Big

The Seattle grunge icons who would go on to create classics such as Smells Like Teen Spirit and Come As You Are, originally formed in 1987 without now-legendary Nirvana and Foo Fighters royalty Dave Grohl on drums.

After many different drummers, Chad Channing was chosen as Nirvana's drummer in mid-1988, and featured on their 1989 debut album Bleach. Then during demo sessions for the band's next album, Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic became unhappy with Chad's drumming, with Chad also being dissatisfied with his lack of involvement in songwriting.

Channing left Nirvana in early=1990, and was replaced by Dave Grohl, before the trio were signed to major label DGC Records that same year. The grunge pioneers then cut what would become Nevermind, an album which a few months after its release in 1991 was selling 400,000 copies a week in the US alone.

Propelled to stardom by Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana were now one of the biggest names in the music world, with Chad Channing sadly left in the dust. However, Channing doesn't regret his departure, and is happy to remain an interesting footnote in Grunge history.