Ex-GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist BUMBLEFOOT: What I Loved About KURT COBAIN

December 30, 2021

In a recent interview with "I Ask No One With Kevin Re LoVullo", former GUNS N' ROSES guitarist Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal spoke about how he was influenced by the playing and songwriting style of late NIRVANA icon Kurt Cobain. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "His guitar was the way to dig in and dirty it up and just deliver it. And his voice. But what I loved about Cobain was really the writing — the songwriting. I'm assuming it was intuitive. But he did the same kind of shit that [famed composer Johann Sebastian] Bach would do, as far as mathematically correct and accurate and phrasing things to land on the changing foundation beneath it so that it is always in perfect harmony. Whether it was studied or he just knew, he just heard it, but he did that — absolutely. I could spend the next hour just breaking it down and all the music theory [behind it]… If you were gonna take the math behind the music of why things work, his stuff all added up."

Cobain died in 1994 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound not long after he took a massive dose of heroin — which could have proven fatal on its own.

Kurt began using heroin to ease chronic stomach pain he had suffered from his entire life.

NIRVANA was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame on April 10, 2014 — just five days after the 20th anniversary of Cobain's death.

Thal joined GUNS N' ROSES in 2006 and appeared on 2008's "Chinese Democracy", an effort which contained music that had been written before he came into the group. The disc took 13 years to make and was only a modest seller, moving just around half a million copies.

Thal is currently a member of SONS OF APOLLO, which also features drummer Mike Portnoy, keyboardist Derek Sherinian and bassist Billy Sheehan. SONS OF APOLLO released its second studio album, "MMXX" (pronounced: 20/20),in January 2020 via InsideOut Music/Sony.

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