Dave Grohl once gave a scathing response to a journalist when he was asked to give his opinion the Spencer Elden lawsuit against Nirvana.
Without Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic there would be no Weezer, Chester Bennington may never have joined Linkin Park and Denzel Curry definitely wouldn’t have released the 2018 track ‘CLOUT COBAIN’.
After releasing their debut record Bleach in 1989, the band dropped their sophomore release the seminal album Nevermind – a 12-track album featuring a naked baby on its sleeve.
The child on the Nevermind cover is a real person named Spencer Elden, who featured in the snap after allegedly being dunked into a Californian swimming pool by his father.
33-year-old Elden’s father was reportedly paid $200 (£152) for the iconic picture.
Let’s be frank though, it’s not too much considering how many fans credit Nirvana’s Nevermind as one of the greatest albums ever released.
Three decades after the record was released, Elden tried to sue the band for child pornography.
In a lawsuit, he claimed he wasn’t able to consent to the picture being used for the album cover.
He also claimed the artwork led him to experience ‘extreme and permanent emotional distress’ that had ‘interfered with his normal development and educational progress.’
The Nirvana baby’s dad was paid for his child’s image (Universal)
He sought a whopping £130,000 in damages.
The initial filing was dismissed by a judge back in 2022 due to the statute of limitations on the case running out.
In court documents obtained by Billboard, the judge wrote: “Because it is undisputed that plaintiff did not file his complaint within ten years after he discovered a violation that could form the basis for his [child pornography] claim, the court concludes that his claim is untimely.”
But in 2023 things changed when the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling that Elden had waited too long to bring his case against the band.
They found that the man could still sue over more recent replications of the cover, including a re-released version of the album in 2021.
Dave Grohl gave his opinion on the lawsuit (Joseph Okpako/WireImage via Getty)
His lawyer Robert Lewis said his client was ‘very pleased with the decision and looks forward to having his day in court.’
As for what Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl had to say about the whole thing, his response was brutal.
Speaking in an interview with Vulture, the 55-year-old said: “I don’t know that I can speak on it because I haven’t spent too much time thinking about it.
“I feel the same way most people do in that I have to disagree. That’s all I’ll say.”
Fans of Eminem have been left desperate for his new album to be released after discovering a mind-blowing interview from 19 years ago that they claim changes everything.
One of the greatest rappers and musical artists of all time, Eminem is gearing up for the release of his twelfth album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), which is set to be released in just a few days time (12 July).
Real name Marshall Bruce Mathers III, he’s given fans a teaser with the song ‘Houdini’, which samples three of his class songs – ‘Without Me’, ‘My Name Is’, and ‘Just Lose It’.
In what is a clear throwback to his earlier material, fans are hoping it may see the return of Em’s alter ego, Slim Shady.
A character used by Eminem in his earlier albums, Slim brings a darker and more violent edge – with a black comedic twist to a lot of the work.
But it is one resurfaced clip from almost two decades ago that has got fans talking about what we truly might be in store for.
“I’m putting this persona to bed and this is why I’m doing it… it is the death of Slim Shady,” Eminem said when releasing the song ‘When I’m Gone’ back in 2005.
Eminem back in 2005. (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
The song was released alongside Eminem’s first greatest hits album Curtain Call: The Hits, with a lot of uncertainty at the time surrounding what might come next for the musician.
For many – including the big man himself – it marked the end of the Slim Shady alter ego and an indication of where he was moving to on an artistic level.
In an interview with MTV Italy, he said: “It was more about making a song that was true to form of where I’m at right now in my career… I don’t know where I’m at in my career. It takes you through the journey of the guilt trip that almost consumed me on a daily basis of leaving my family for the stage, and basically just the bad feelings and guilt you get from doing that, being on the road and gone so much.
He’s still going strong after all these years. (Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images)
“This song would mark the death of Slim Shady. It’s basically saying, ‘I’m putting this persona to bed and this is why I’m doing it’.
“It was a difficult song to write in the sense of I didn’t know what I wanted to write about. I knew with everything that [I’ve gone] through this year, and coming out of rehab, I knew that I had to make a song that said ‘If I’m gonna put the mic done for a little while, let me explain why’.
“Because the stress, the pressure, the guilt and everything in-between has led me up to this point where I feel like this year I just kinda cracked.”
The interview resurfaced this week, with fans unable to keep their excitement at Em quoting what is now a clear return to when we last truly saw his alter ego – whether that is for a final time or not remains to be seen.
Eminem, 50 Cent, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg during the Hollywood Walk of Fame Star ceremony honouring Dre. (VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images)
The credits of the TV interview, which took place 19 years ago also notes ‘RIP Slim Shady’.
Posting a clip of the interview on X (formerly Twitter), one fan wrote: “EMINEM HAS BEEN PLANNING THIS ALBUM FOR NEARLY 20 YEARS. CLASSIC INCOMING.”
Responding, another said: “I’ve it to me already, album of the year is locked for the GOAT [greatest of all time].
And a third commented: “I bet Eminem five years ago didn’t believe he’d be able to make this album, that he would have to, or that he would get the chance to.
“I love his determination at being the greatest, it’s so commendable… he’s giving us the return to the form that we all love and enjoying it too.”
Given his historic standing in the rap game, we wouldn’t be too shocked if Marshall Mathers had indeed been planning something in the background to revisit later on in life.
Fans are clearly convinced he had put the alter ego in to hibernation ready for when he was feeling the time was right once more.
James May has finally responded after friend and former Top Gear colleague, Jeremy Clarkson, barred him from his new £1 million pub.
Clarkson opened The Farmer’s Dog in late August, spending just under £1m to secure the premises in the heart of the Cotswolds.
Situated around 20 minutes from Diddly Squat Farm, which serves as the base for hit Amazon Prime Video documentary series Clarkson’s Farm, the pub is expected to feature heavily in the fourth season of the show when it is released in 2025.
People queued around the block for the pub’s grand opening, with some arriving before 8am to secure an early pint of Hawkstone.
Inside the pub, punters can find a tractor hanging from the ceiling, almost unnervingly so. The pub is historic, with original beams and natural stone features spotted throughout the building.
One quirky addition that has left many chuckling is the barred list that Clarkson has created.
With three people on it currently, fans of Clarkson have been shocked to see that former The Grand Tour colleague May has made the list.
Clarkson, May, and Hammond have said goodbye to their working relationship (Ian West/PA Wire)
He is listed alongside the current Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, as well as the daughter of one of his close friends.
This week, May finally addressed the barring order against him at an event in London.
Speaking to journalists at the event, he issued a blunt response to Clarkson’s banning order.
As reported by MyLondon, May – while grinning – said: “Apparently, yes [I’ve been barred]. Dunno, but I wasn’t going there anyway. I’ve got my own pub.”
May took over the The Royal Oak pub in Swallowcliffe, Salisbury, in 2020. Unlike Clarkson, May owns half of his pub, which dates back to the 18th century.
And like Clarkson, he also has his own tipple. But instead of going in to the beer trade, May has created his own gin product, simply called James Gin.
May runs his own pub (Ian West/PA Wire)
On why Starmer is also banned from the pub, Clarkson branded the Labour Party as London-centric and a ‘hopeless bunch’.
“He hasn’t done much to endear himself to me yet,” Clarkson revealed. “We’ll have a look at farming. It might turn around, you never know.”
May’s comments about being banned from the pub come in the aftermath of the very final episode of The Grand Tour, moment in television that will go down in history as the last time Clarkson, May, and Richard Hammond officially work together.
The trio ran a company together, called W. Chump and Sons, but it dissolved earlier this year after all professional jobs had come to an end.
May said of the dissolution: “We are getting on a bit and everything does have to end. To be honest, we wanted to end it on our own terms. As we always used to say, we want to land it safely, not fly it into a cliff.”
If you’re a fan of the Foo Fighters, it seems like you owe this fella a pint – as it turns out he could be responsible for the formation of the iconic rock band, and without him, it might have never happened.
So if you see a bloke called Lorcan Dunne walking about on the streets of Ireland, make sure you give him a pat on the back for inadvertently sticking a rocket up Dave Grohl’s backside when he needed it the most.
Music fans have been left stunned after a bloke took to Twitter, now known as X, to explain that his cousin had come to the realisation that he was ‘kind of an important’ cog in the wheel of the creation of the Foo Fighters in 1994.
Eoin Tighe explained that his relative Lorcan had stumbled across a video of Grohl discussing what prompted him to pick up his drum sticks again following the death of his bandmate Kurt Cobain and the subsequent dissolution of Nirvana.
Dave Grohl with Nirvana bandmates Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic. (Kevin Mazur Archive/WireImage)
And when he was listening to the musician explain how a ‘soul-searching’ trip to The Ring of Kerry in Ireland prompted him to get back in the studio, the Irishman realised that he played a huge part in it.
In an interview, Grohl told how he decided to ‘disappear’ and go to the ‘most remote place on Earth’ as he battled with his grief following Cobain’s passing in April 1994 at the age of 27.
The rocker said: “I’ve been before. It’s so beautiful there. You really feel like your at the end of the Earth.
“I was driving around in my rental car on a country road and I saw this hitchhiker kid. And I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll pick him up’. And as I got closer to him, I saw that he had a Kurt Cobain t-shirt on.
“It was Kurt’s face looking back at me… in the middle of nowhere!”
In a video shared by Eoin on social media, Lorcan then explained his version of events on that fateful night in the 90s.
Lorcan Dunne’s choice of t-shirt may have led to the formation of the Foo Fighters. (X/@eointighe)
He recalled: “We were down on the Beara Peninsula on a holiday and we hitched up to this place to go swimming.”
“I was running and I saw a car there, so I thought I’d run up and hitch,” Lorcan said. “When I was hitching, I looked into who was sitting in the passenger seat – but it was David Grohl.
“I didn’t recognise him firstly, but I saw this look of shock on the guy’s face… and I had a Nirvana t-shirt on with Kurt Cobain on it.
“It was black tie dye, the one with Kurt where he has the mascara on his face.
“I saw the look of shock and the next thing, the car just tore off, away. And I turned round like, ‘That was David Grohl lad!’
“Nobody believed me!”
Lorcan’s pal pointed out that it was pretty wild to think that the Ohio-born star was mooching around ‘in the middle of nowhere’ and revealed that he had actually said at the time: “I hope he didn’t see that t-shirt.”
Grohl credits the encounter in Ireland with giving him the push to make music again. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Foo Fighters)
But apparently the bloke’s fashion choice unwittingly triggered a chain of events which led to the conception of a legendary rock band, the Foo Fighters.
Lorcan went onto explain that he had spotted the video of Grohl’s interview a couple of weeks ago when it clicked.
He added: “I was like, ‘There you go, that was me’.”
But how did this all lead to the formation of the Foo Fighters, I hear you cry?
Well, even though he left Lorcan and his pals in his dust and tore off into the night, Grohl seemingly took the encounter as a sign that his beloved bandmate would have wanted him to continue their shared passion.
Explaining the impact seeing Cobain’s face on the t-shirt had on him, the musician continued: “I realised like, ‘Oh. I can’t outrun this’. So I need to go home and f**king get back to work. And so I did.”
Class – and social media users seem to think so to.
One praised it as ‘utterly brilliant’, while another added: “It had to be Ireland, and nowhere else. Such an epic story.”
A third wrote: “That is so cool that he ended up learning later about how much it affected him.”
A fourth joked: “Sometimes heroes wear capes. And sometimes, a great rock T-shirt.”
And a fifth chimed in: “What a great story! I love that you found out. One of the coolest bands ever, the Foo Fighters.”
Nice one, Lorcan!
Lily Allen had an entirely different name when she was a baby before her parents decided to make a major change.
Yep, while her name is synonymous with bangers like ‘Not Fair’ and ‘The Fear’ for us Brits, it was nearly the same as another star of the music world.
The 39-year-old is the daughter of actor Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen.
She shared the little name fact while speaking to best mate Miquita Oliver on their BBC podcast, Miss Me?, where Allen previously admitted to ‘sabotaging’ her by purposely sleeping with her celebrity crush.
And yesterday’s (10 June) episode featured an appearance from Billie Eilish, inspiring to the ‘Trigger Bang’ singer’s admission.
Lily Allen very almost wasn’t Lily Allen. (Sean Zanni/WireImage)
Because the two stars could have had the same name.
“My name was Billie for the first few days of my life,” Allen shared.
But it didn’t stick around for long as her two famous parents ended up changing their minds and opted for the rhyming flower name.
The star continued: “I was called Billie and then my mum was like ‘nah she doesn’t really look like a Billie, she’s a Lily’.”
I mean, Billie Allen sounds like quite the rockstar name to be honest, but Lily Allen just seems right, doesn’t it?
Her bestie, Oliver, added that she’d ‘only found out’ herself that same day as she shared a rather odd coincidence.
The TV presenter actually has the middle name Billie, named after the famed ‘Strange Fruit’ singer, Billie Holiday.
Whereas Eilish said she was named after a ‘grandfather I never met’.
The singers nearly had the same name. (BBC)
Allen previously made a confession on Kathy Burke’s Where There’s a Will, There’s a Wake podcast where she shared something she didn’t want being found after she died – her phone.
That’s because, like most of us, the singer has some pretty private things on there and she’d rather not have it rooted through.
“Probably my phone. My Google search history. My porn search history – Saturday night when the kids are at their dad’s, that porn trajectory. It always starts quite… unassuming… maybe a bit of shoplifting and security guard. That kind of thing,” she said.
“And then it gets kind of dark. We’ll leave it at that because I really don’t want anyone to know! Put it in my fancy coffin. All of my Apple devices as well, my body’s not even in there, it’s just full of devices!”
Well, fair enough, Lily/Billie Allen.
