I'll admit that I've devoured fanboy amounts of
Nirvana literature over the years, yet in all that time I've never heard the band's original drummer Chad Channing speak. Or sing.
The skinsman was famously hoiked into the annals of Rock Trivia when then bandmates Kurt Cobain and bassist Kris Novaselic stumbled upon some other drummer. Called Dave Grohl. Channing did play on the band's
Bleach and
Insecticide LPs, as well as early demos for
Nevermind, (though apparently played "the cymbal crash" on
Nevermind track 'Polly') but ultimately was relegated to semi-obscurity by his hard hitting replacement. A Pete Best tale for the '90s. Here he is on an early Sub Pop vid for
future Nevermind track, 'In Bloom'. Oh and some rehearsal footage from 1987 playing
Bleach cut 'Love Buzz'.
Nirvana - 'Love Buzz' (rehearsal footage)
Post-Nirvana Channing went on to play in bands Fire Ants, The Methodists and now his newest venture Before Cars. This newest venture is based around Channing's "own stuff". Which is due to be released on June 12th and, according to
Rollingstone.com, contains material once slated to be included in Nirvana. Intrigue!
“In terms of songwriting, there may be similarities people might see with Nirvana — there is almost bound to be,” Channing says. “Maybe that’s why Kurt thought some of my songs might fit in the first place. But that never transpired,” he adds, referring to his split with the band in 1990, which he says stemmed from a disagreement over songwriting. Channing says, “After Bleach, Kurt told me he wouldn’t mind having some help with the songwriting. I said, ‘Yay!’ That’s just what I wanted to do. Then I slowly realized that was not going to happen. It sort of killed my aspirations.”
He goes on to explain the relatively prescient details - because, well we know how his bandmate ended up - behind the title track on the album.
“I wrote that ['Walk Back'] in 1987 or ‘88 when we weren’t famous at all,” Channing explains. “We were just scrapping around, goofing off, having fun. One of the last lines in the song is ‘What’s the use of fame if you can’t walk to the store?’ It’s good to be comfortable with who you are and what you do. You should never worry too much about achieving your goals, because in the long run you might not find yourself too happy when you get there.”
Sound advice from a dude who looks EXACTLY the same as he did 20 years ago.