Machine Gun Kelly has delved into the enduring legacy and influence of late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.
The rapper recently sat down with Kerrang in an interview that saw him delve into the important, formative influence that Cobain had on him as a teenager.
“Kurt didn’t give a fuck how he sounded, he gave a fuck how he felt,” he mused. “He was like, ‘Dude, my stomach hurts today. I feel like shit. I hate this song that you all love so much. I’m gonna play it terribly. I’m not even gonna sing the right lyrics to this shit. Fuck you!’”
Machine Gun Kelly went on to detail that when it comes to writing music, he will always prioritise feeling over technicality. “Not all of us are born with fingers that move like fucking Ferraris, homie,” he joked.
“Some of us are just fuck-ups who look normal and wear shitty clothes because we can’t afford good ones, and we’re angry and we just wanna take out our angst and shit with a guitar. I’m not inspired by how good you are, it’s almost like the opposite. I wanna feel you.
“Fuck the people who think that your technicalities are what defines you,” he adds. “You know robots can do things really fucking good, right? But a robot can’t make you feel. I bet you a robot can play the most technical guitar solo than anybody on this fucking planet, but it can’t play it better than Kurt at the Reading Festival.”
Check out Nirvana perform ‘Breed’ live at Reading in 1992:
Machine Gun Kelly will release his fifth album, Tickets To My Downfall, on Friday, September 25th. Kelly recently revealed that he had collaborated with Brit-punk Yungblud on three tracks that didn’t end up making the final cut on the album.
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“It’s me, Bert [McCracken] and Yungblud on one of the songs. It’s so hard dude. Yungblud sounds like a new version of Bert. Their voices register on the same pitch and with that same ferocity. They can both do raspy, on pitch scream,” MGK said.
“They are so fire!” he added. “The reason they aren’t on the record is personal reasons. It’s because one had a feature that we’re trying to blend together, I listened to it again for the first time in a long time the other day and almost regretted not putting the energy into figuring it out earlier because I wish this song was on the album.”
Check out ‘Bloody Valentine’ by Machine Gun Kelly:
