2020.03.28 - Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon - Interview with Alan Niven

Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon presents former Guns N' Roses manager, Alan Niven.
Alan discusses the great new remastered re-release of Great White's Stage live album. We dissect how grunge didn't kill '80s bands - it was something else. Plus, we talk Hooked and other Great White classic albums.
Speaking of the album stage Alan said: "This might be the last quality live record of an '80s band."
On grunge: "I think Nirvana is actually overrated."
"Great White were NOT a f***ing Hair band."

Brief talk about GN'R from around 18:10 to 21:00 minute mark.



Excerpts from Ultimate Guitar:
__________________________

During an appearance on Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon, former Guns N' Roses manager Alan Niven, who managed the group from 1987 to 1991, talked about the late-'80s demise of hair metal and the rise of grunge.

During the conversation, Alan and Mitch touched on Nirvana, Sex Pistols, The Great White, and more. Niven said (transcribed by UG):

"From my perception, it wasn't just Seattle that killed it all. I think that there was an excessive amount of substandard formula applied. There were bands that I think took the intelligence and the cool out of rock 'n' roll, and I think there are one or two people who might agree with me. I think people got sick of pretty pop ballads, which a lot of bands fell into."

I've had these debates on Twitter where people say, 'Nirvana killed hair metal and heavy rock,' and I go, 'No, heavy rock killed heavy rock because they started putting out these ballads'... Rock fans want to rock - Nirvana killed nothing, these rock bands killed themselves.

"Cobain was a really interesting..."

He was a talentless fuck!

"No, I'm gonna disagree with you. I think he was a really interesting singer/songwriter, but I will say that I think Nirvana is actually overrated."

Completely overrated!

"Definitely, they're good, but they're not that good."

The two most overrated bands ever - Nirvana and the Sex Pistols.

"Ehhhh... We could talk about the Sex Pistols for a little bit, but you know, the only thing before we move away, while we're using this terminology, the other thing that comes to mind, especially looking over this older material is that it's also a very clear indication that Great White were, quote-unquote, 'not a fucking hair band.' They were - if you were going to categorize them, they were closer to an early-'70s British blues rock band than anything else. To me, hair bands, I see Warrant, I see Poison, White Lion, and on and on and on."

All terrific bands. Yesterday on Sirius XM, one of the hosts said that David Lee Roth was the best frontman of a hair band, and I was like, 'What are you talking about?! David Lee Roth was not a frontman for a hair band, David Lee Roth was never in a hair band!' And I went to Twitter and they said, 'But he was a precursor to a hair band!'; I was like, 'OK, Bret Michaels' ballad was a precursor to grunge. Does that make him the great grunge frontman? No! What are you talking about?'

"Lumping 'precursor,' does that make Ray and Dave Davies a hair band, and The Kinks? No, it doesn't. It just makes them people who wrote amazing, punchy songs with an incredible distorted guitar sound and using major fifths."

Elsewhere in the interview, Niven discussed GN'R's "Welcome to the Jungle" video. He commented:

"There was no meeting about how the band were going to look; the band were going to look as the band usually look. What I did enjoy was that every time Axl put his hair up, Duff would come in the room and go, 'Nice hair, Ax' - dripping with sarcasm. And eventually that permeated through, and Axl took a look around and looked at the other people putting their hair up and went, 'Yeah... I'm done with that.'

"Even if go back and look at that video now, if I were to do that, my focus would be on his voice, maybe a little bit on his moves, the kind of dynamics - because he is a kinetic person. And, 'Has he got the energy,' and, 'What does that voice sound like?' and most importantly of all, 'What is the motherfucker saying?' Because that song, to me, had a significant [layer] above the superficial. There was a tinge of the political in it, there was a tinge of the social in it, and that turned me on."

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/classic_gnr_manager_agrees_nirvana_was_overrated_reacts_to_remark_that_kurt_cobain_was_talentless_fuck.html