Eric Clapton’s opinion on Kurt Cobain

Having been in the music business since the 1960s, Eric Clapton has witnessed several generations of musicians. Some enjoyed long and successful careers, while others were shooting stars with tragic ends. Over the decades, Clapton has shared his thoughts on many of those artists, including the late Nirvana vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Kurt Cobain.

What is Eric Clapton’s opinion on Kurt Cobain

Eric Clapton actually admired Kurt Cobain and called him a very talented and lovely man. “He (Cobain) was quoted as saying things that I totally identified with. Like being backstage and hearing the crowd out there and thinking, “I’m not worth it. I’m a piece of shit. And they’re mad—they’re fools—if they like me. This is a sick situation. If they knew what the truth was about me, they wouldn’t like me. I’ve identified with that a million times. I just don’t know why that couldn’t have been stopped.”

“I don’t know why no one couldn’t have gotten through to him. It was a powerful self-destructive situation that… I heard he tried treatment. I don’t know what happened there. It’s just a fucking shame, because he was very, very talented and a lovely man. I mean, to my eye. I did this MTV show. And for the most part, it was hype and Hollywood packaging and bullshit. And then Nirvana came on, and they blew my mind. I thought he was beautiful. You know, it broke my heart,” Eric Clapton said in an interview in Neil Strauss’ book “Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead”.

By the time Nirvana released their debut album “Bleach” in 1989, Clapton had already been one of the most influential musicians in the world for decades. That same year, he released his successful eleventh solo album, “Journeyman”.

Kurt Cobain was a fan of Eric Clapton

Although Cobain criticized many famous bands and artists that a lot of people liked, Clapton wasn’t one of them. He actually had a deep respect for him, although he didn’t agree with some of the choices Clapton made during his career. For example, when Nirvana performed on MTV Unplugged, Kurt said he didn’t want to change his songs to suit the band’s age, something he believed Eric had done.

“It’s impossible for me to look into the future and say I’m going to be able to play Nirvana songs in 10 years. There’s no way. I don’t want to have to resort to doing the Eric Clapton thing. Not to put him down whatsoever; I have immense respect for him. But I don’t want to have to change the songs to fit my age (laughs),” he told Rolling Stone magazine in 1994.

Curiously, as revealed by Pearl Jam’s vocalist Eddie Vedder, he slow danced with Kurt Cobain during an Eric Clapton performance at MTV Music Awards. The moment was revealed in the documentary “Pearl Jam Twenty” in 2011. “(In the clip) “You see Kurt looking over and go like this (puts finger to lips) and it’s not saying, ‘Don’t tell anybody’ or ‘Keep the lid on this little private moment.’”

He continued:

“It was actually because on the stage above us, Eric Clapton was playing ‘Tears In Heaven.’ The first time I saw that footage, it was incredibly emotional, just ’cause he’s smiling and you think, ‘You just gotta pull through.’ And that’s the thing about today, maybe it’s a good thing that this movie just happened now. We’ve been in grateful mode and appreciation mode for each other for quite some time. It’s a galvanizing moment,” he said.

Kurt himself had talked about that in an interview with MTV in 1992, saying: “Hey, I bonded with Eddie from Pearl Jam. We broke our little feud and we kissed and made up and danced during Eric Clapton’s… (We slow danced to ‘Tears In Heaven’, Dave said) Yeah, ‘Tears In Heaven,'” Kurt Cobain said in the interview.

Their bands also performed that night, with Nirvana playing “Lithium” and Pearl Jam performing “Jeremy”. At the ceremony, Clapton won the award for “Best Male Video” with “Tears in Heaven”. Nirvana won the awards for “Best New Artist in a Video” and “Best Alternative Video” for “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.