Kirk Hammett told NME that Kurt Cobain didn’t agree with what Guns N’ Roses stood for. It was during NME’s Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?! series.
Metallica and the Stone Roses approached Nirvana to open their co-headlining tour, but Cobain “just wasn’t having it.”In a narrative about a double-headline tour with Guns N’ Roses in 1992, Hammet disclosed a surprise band who turned down the opening slot: Nirvana.
Kirk revealed, “I had to make the phone call to Kurt [Cobain] to talk to him about the possibility of joining our tour, and he just went on and on about how he just didn’t like what Guns N’ Roses stood for and I said to him: ‘Just go out there and represent Nirvana – just play the show and then that’s it’. I pleaded with him, but he just wasn’t having it.”
He added, “So there you have it. It would have been great if Nirvana was part of that tour – but you know [the actual opening act] Faith No More were great as well.”
Later on, Hammett invited Kurt to Metallica’s Seattle show for The Black Album tour. He remembered, “When he came to the show, he was in the snakepit with Courtney Love and every time he walked by, he tried to get my attention but my head was somewhere else. He was great.”
“I became friends with him right when the first Nirvana album [1989’s ‘Bleach’] came out before people were even calling it grunge, and it’s so sad when I think back to all the guy wanted to do was play guitar and write songs and sing and somehow that all got destroyed for him.”
