Aside from the music, Nirvana were luminous because of their politics and wry humour. While they would lampoon culture in several ways, they also made their name for being fearless when addressing the flaws in other musical heroes. They embodied Generation X’s take on punk, fusing irony with rage and were assertive in their damning critiques.
While Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Guns N’ Roses and even The Charlatans weren’t safe from their righteous blade, Eddie Van Halen secured himself one of their most incisive takedowns. Notably, the Dutch-born metal legend embodied what the group loathed. His bombastic and showboating style, which filled stadia worldwide, symbolised everything their generation had in their crosshairs when they were bubbling underground, devising their insurrection.
Despite being antithetical to Nirvana, reportedly, Van Halen was a fan of the band. Backstage at their December 30th, 1993 show at the Forum in Inglewood, California, he drunkenly professed his love for them. Yet, he did so in the most loathable of ways and was allegedly racist to the band’s second guitarist, Pat Smear, a lauded player famed for his work as one of the progenitors of West Coast punk with The Germs.
Born and raised in West Los Angeles to a mother of African-American and Native American descent and a German-Jewish immigrant father, Smear’s ethnicity was horrifically mocked by the washed-up Van Halen. He did so in desperately wanting to get in the act with the hottest band of the day and assert that he and his era were not now spectres of the past. This was a gross manifestation of 1980s metal, warts and all, clinging on for dear life.
Smear recalled the tale when speaking to Dimension Seven years later. He started his point by noting that the 1980s were a tough time for him artistically due to the rise of players such as Van Halen, whose searing technicality led to him believing he sucked and should stop playing. However, he noted that the metal legend “did more harm than good” to budding players during the decade.
He then told his Van Halen story, turning back the clock to that unforgettable evening at the Forum, which wasn’t remembered for just being a resounding success on stage. At the time, Smear had to pinch himself, as it was where influences such as Queen’s Brian May had iconic shows in the past.
He said: “Anyway, Eddie Van Halen comes backstage drunk out of his fucking 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!”
The rumour about the ‘Jump’ star running a Mennen Speed Stick deodorant all over his face was then brought up, and Smear swore it was true. He recalled: “Yeah [laughs]. Kurt had this deodorant, and he sniffed it or something like that, and it got on his face. It looked like he had cocaine under his nose.”
That’s when things deteriorated, and Van Halen showed his dark side, with Smear on the receiving end. Another longstanding rumour then emerged, with the Nirvana man asked if it was accurate that Van Halen desperately wanted to play his celebrated masturbatory piece, ‘Eruption’ with the group, but frontman Kurt Cobain said no, and in response, he begged, “C’mon, let me play the Mexican’s guitar,” referring to Smear.
Smear revealed that he told Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic that they should let Van Halen play with them. However, he was comically denied because they’d never get him off stage, painting another clear discrepancy between the two epochs and the burning radiation of Van Halen’s ego. When Smear went over to Van Halen, he was talking to Novoselic, but as he approached from behind, the older musician didn’t know who it was. He was then entirely racist.
He continued: “Krist goes, ‘Oh Eddie, you haven’t met Pat. He’s our new guitar player.’ Eddie turns around and sees me, but he doesn’t say hello or anything. He just says, ‘Oh no, not a dark one.’ At first I thought he was kidding. But he kept asking me, ‘What are you? Are you like a Raji or something? Are you Mexican?’ Then he kept saying to Kurt, ‘C’mon let me play the Mexican’s guitar.’ I was horrified!”
Despite the disgusting abuse that he suffered at the hands of one of the most famous musicians in the world, Smear was democratic in his reading of the entire situation.
Was Van Halen the Mussolini of metal? He refused to respond to such a query but 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.”
Perhaps most astoundingly of all, Smear’s immediate reaction was shock, purely because he thought Van Halen hated him. That shows you both the effects that racial oppression has, and that, for a long time, stars had too much power. Thankfully, Nirvana began to reset that standard. Later that evening, Cobain would brilliantly mock Van Halen’s playing style with the ‘In Bloom’ solo. Another red cross on their extensive list of targets terminated.
