Mudhoney

Nirvana remains to be one of the best things to come out of Seattle

Seattle has one of the most legendary music scenes in America so it's only right that we delve into their record collection as Budweiser Made in America festival quickly approaches.

Budweiser Made in America is all for musical diversity, celebrating the different subcultures of sound in all cities be it the country twang of Nashville, the superstar pop of LA or the Motown domination of Detroit. That's why Budweiser have put their heads together to release this series of nationwide music documentaries ahead of the festival, to cement that important ideology of variation and musical freedom.

Continue reading: The Sound Of Seattle: Budweiser Made In America See How Music Has Changed In The Noisy City

Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis has revealed that Kurt Cobain asked him to join Nirvana, on more than one occasion. In an article with Spin magazine, Mascis reveals that the first time he was asked to join the legendary grunge band back in 1989. “Nirvana was playing Maxwell's and after the show I was talking to Kurt and [Sonic Youth's] Thurston Moore… Kurt said, 'you should join my band.'” He added that he thought Kurt was sick of the guitarist at the time, Jason Everman, though he recalls that he “didn’t think much about it.”

The second time that he was asked to join the band, was around the time of the release of ‘Sliver,’ when there was talk of him playing drums for the 1990 single, though he thinks that Mudhoney’s Dan Peters did the honors instead. It wasn’t just Nirvana that tried to poach J Mascis, either. Built To Spill’s Doug Martsch reportedly wanted the formidable guitarist in his own ensemble as well. He told Spin “When we signed to Warner Brothers [in 1995], I didn't have a band," Martsch says. "One idea I had was to play all the instruments myself and just get a drummer. I ended up doing that and scrapping it, but another idea was to have J play drums on the record. He was willing to do it, but then I kinda decided it wouldn't be a good idea.”

It seems as though Mascis’ evident confidence and experience may have been a little too much for Martsch to work with, as he explains “I felt like I needed to work with someone who I could really work with a little more, you know? I didn't know how we could work together, I had no idea and I didn't want to get started on something like that. I didn't want to be telling J Mascis what to play on drums. I wanted to find someone I felt comfortable really expressing myself with. But there was a moment where he was almost the drummer on that record.”