Kurt Cobain Couldn’t Stand “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” But How Did The Rest Of Nirvana Feel About It?

Nirvana's music may be over three decades old, but their songs feel as moving and relevant today as they ever did. While fans know that they have a lot of other great songs, there's something particularly memorable about "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Lyrics like "With the lights off, it's less dangerous/Here we are now, entertain us" still feel profound and fascinating.

But it turns out that Kurt Cobain didn't like performing "Smells Like Teen Spirit". While he felt negatively about the song that everyone associates with Nirvana, does that mean that his bandmates thought the same? Here's what Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic have said about the tune.

How Does Nirvana Member Dave Grohl Feel About "Smells Like Teen Spirit"?

Many singers and bands love the "Nevermind" album that Nirvana released on September 24th, 1991. The band's fans still praise this group of songs and feel all the emotions all over again when they listen to it. Even if someone wasn't really into grunge music, they have to admit that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a special song.

Although Kurt Cobain didn't love "Smells Like Teen Spirit," his bandmate Dave Grohl seems to have felt more positively about the tune. However, Grohl didn't realize that it was going to become such a massive hit.

In September 2021, Dave Grohl talked about the hit song in an interview with NME.com. He explained, "the groove of the song – it was really powerful. “I think everyone was more focused on songs like ‘In Bloom’ or ‘Lithium’ or ‘Breed’; nobody really paid too much attention to ‘Teen Spirit’ while we were recording it. We just thought it was another cool song for the record."

In 2002, Grohl was interviewed by Kerrang! and said that he loved how the song sounded. Yet, at the same time, he didn't realize that it would become such a huge hit. He said, "I didn't think much, to be honest. It was just another one of the jams we were doing - we had so many jams like that which we recorded onto a boom box tape and then lost the cassette and lost the song forever. But 'Teen Spirit' was one we kept going back to just because the simple guitar lines were so memorable."

Grohl told NME.com about why he liked the sound of the song so much. He said, “I remember writing ‘Teen Spirit’ in our rehearsal space, and I liked the riff that Kurt [Cobain] came up with because it’s percussive. Those muted, stabbing strums inbetween the chords really leant to the pattern of the drum riff.”

It sounds like Nirvana got a kick out of how popular "Smells Like Teen Spirit" became. As Grohl told Kerrang! "The funniest part was seeing the video on MTV. We were touring America at that point, playing 300-capacity clubs. We'd turn on the TV and see the song on there. We'd be laughing about it every night. And then with the video came more people and the clubs got bigger."

While no one would blame Dave Grohl if he was tired of hearing people talk about the beloved Nirvana song, he doesn't seem to have said so.

How Does Nirvana's Krist Novoselic Feel About "Smells Like Teen Spirit"?

Dave Grohl is interviewed about Nirvana a lot more often than his Nirvana bandmate Krist Novoselic. That could be because Grohl has a higher profile since he has been part of The Foo Fighters since in 1994. However, Novoselic still talks about the band that was such a big part of his life, and he sometimes talks about "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

In 2018, the bandmates came together again and shared the stage at the Foo Fighters Cal Jam festival. They played "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Novoselic said, “Personally, it was great to play with those guys again, and to play those songs."

He didn't say anything negative about the hit song at that time. But he did add that he doesn't need to perform those Nirvana tunes all the time. It sounds like he was fine with going back down memory lane for a little while, but he has moved on, which makes sense.

Grohl has been more open about his feelings toward "Smells Like Teen Spirit" than Novoselic has. However, Novoselic seems to appreciate how much people still care about the song. In 2019, Spin reported that it had been viewed 1 billion times on YouTube. Novoselic tweeted his thanks and said, “The One Billionth view will be for Kurt!!!!”

When Novoselic talked about Nirvana in an interview with Spin magazine in 2020, he had nothing but love for the band that he was part of. He said that he appreciates how much people still love the songs.

Novoselic told Spin, “I still get fan mail and when I used to go out in public, people would tell me how Nirvana changed their lives. Something about the music just connects with people, and it’s very personal to this day. It’s not really up to me to define what that connection is because it’s literally on a case-by-case basis. It’s the energy and the honesty. Kurt would say ‘I like cryptic lyrics’ and he’d say that he wasn’t really out for big messages or anything. But that left it open for interpretation and maybe that’s one of the keys to how individuals connect with it.”

It seems fair to say that no matter how much time passes, Nirvana fans will always love "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Kurt Cobain's former bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl seem to be okay with that. They have spent years seeing the positive reaction that fans still have to the song. It's definitely a classic that will never get old.