Earlier this week, Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan controversially summed up the success of Nirvana by saying, "It was just timing." Now, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic has responded — and surprisingly, he pretty much agrees with Keenan.
Keenan originally claimed that the early '90s "just happened to be a perfect time for Nirvana to emerge 'cause people were tired of hair bands," adding, "I don't know. It might have had nothing to do with Nirvana."
Novoselic doesn't dispute the fact that Nirvana lucked out.
"Maynard James Keenan is right that music was set to change in the early '90s and part of Nirvana's success was due to timing," he told Alternative Nation. "I have always said that bands like Faith No More and Jane's Addiction broke ground for us with the mainstream."
He also offered some commentary on how much the industry has changed since Nirvana got their big break, calling his band "the last of the pre-Internet bands."
"The whole hair band movement was exhausted and musical cycles used to give us new interpretations of rock," Novoselic said. "I think we are in a post-rock era rooted in the information age. The old paradigm was the 'push' media where if you got on rotation with MTV, you could seep in the minds of the public. Today, the game is 'pull' media and this, by nature, is decentralized."
Keenan originally claimed that the early '90s "just happened to be a perfect time for Nirvana to emerge 'cause people were tired of hair bands," adding, "I don't know. It might have had nothing to do with Nirvana."
Novoselic doesn't dispute the fact that Nirvana lucked out.
"Maynard James Keenan is right that music was set to change in the early '90s and part of Nirvana's success was due to timing," he told Alternative Nation. "I have always said that bands like Faith No More and Jane's Addiction broke ground for us with the mainstream."
He also offered some commentary on how much the industry has changed since Nirvana got their big break, calling his band "the last of the pre-Internet bands."
"The whole hair band movement was exhausted and musical cycles used to give us new interpretations of rock," Novoselic said. "I think we are in a post-rock era rooted in the information age. The old paradigm was the 'push' media where if you got on rotation with MTV, you could seep in the minds of the public. Today, the game is 'pull' media and this, by nature, is decentralized."
