Nirvana’s SNL Debut Nearly a ‘Titanic-Level Disaster,’ Grohl Reveals

NEW YORK — Nirvana‘s debut on ‘Saturday Night Live‘ in 1992 almost turned into a ‘Titanic-level disaster,’ according to Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. The rocker shared the harrowing details in the new documentary ‘Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music,’ now streaming on Peacock.

‘I was absolutely f—ing terrified,’ Grohl admitted, recalling the band’s Jan. 11, 1992 performance. ‘The room gets dead silent. Your heart is racing, and you’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna faint. I’m gonna puke on live television. I’m gonna die.”

Grohl’s nerves led to a near-catastrophe during the live performance of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ ‘Typically what happens if I get nervous, I beat the s— out of the drums, twice as hard,’ he explained. ‘I was hitting the drums 10 times harder than I’ve ever hit them before in my life. By the first verse, I had snapped my snare stick in half. Which is not good.’

The drummer managed to recover quickly, grabbing another stick during a brief break in the song. ‘It was so close to being like Titanic-level disaster,’ Grohl said. Despite the mishap, the performance helped catapult Nirvana to superstardom.

SNL creator Lorne Michaels initially hadn’t heard of the band until producer David Geffen called him. ‘He said, ‘I don’t know what’s happening, but last week they sold 60,000 records, and this week they sold 140,000. So something is happening,” Michaels recalled.

Adam Sandler, then in his second season on SNL, remembered the buzz surrounding Nirvana’s appearance. ‘People were talking about it, getting more calls than you ever got before from friends in my hometown, just like, ‘What’s he like? What’s Kurt like?” Sandler said.

Nirvana returned to SNL on Sept. 25, 1993, just seven months before frontman Kurt Cobain‘s death. Grohl went on to become the most frequent SNL musical guest in the show’s history, performing with Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Them Crooked Vultures, and even filling in as a drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

The documentary ‘Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music,’ co-directed by Bao Nguyen and Ken Ayers, offers a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most iconic musical performances in the show’s history, including Nirvana’s unforgettable debut.