Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shifflett compared the reaction to Taylor Hawkins’ death to the Kurt Cobain tragedy in a new The Plug with Justin Jay interview.

“Most people that I’ve encountered have been respectful about it or try to avoid it. It probably will be [more of a thing] when we ever get around to putting out another Foo Fighters record and go back into the promo boogie-woogie.”

“I remember that when I joined Foo Fighters, it was 1999 so it was a while after Kurt Cobain had died but I would watch interviewers twist themselves in knots trying to ask Dave about it but not ask. I would think it would turn into that kinda thing.”

Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis recently spoke about Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Kiedis and John Frusciante during their recent appearance at The Howard Stern Show talked about the 1991 tour that featured the RHCP, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam. Kiedis then talked about having a chance to have a chat with Cobain.

Anthony Kiedis talks about the experience of interacting with Kurt Cobain

He was asked whether he had the chance to spend some time with Cobain and have a frontman-to-frontman chat with him during that tour and Kiedis replied that he indeed had the opportunity. He further revealed how Cobain was in real life:

“I mean, I was usually pretty nervous whenever I was hanging around with him just because I was in awe, and he wasn’t the type who wanted to discuss being a frontman, he was just kind of shy and in his energetic state, but Flea and I had some nice moments with him at a some MTV show, where we snuck away and went backstage and just sat with him while he was getting ready to play. And that was a nice experience.”

He added:

“He was loose and warm and inviting and relaxed, and it wasn’t like he had been on tour for a long time and was all emotionally chaotic. He was quite within himself…He was a beautiful dude, and he left us with a ton of unbelievable music and energy.”

Kiedis then went on to explain how similar the two bands were at their core, despite all the creative and stylistic differences in their music:

“I feel like some of this is a natural thing. John has a very clear understanding of dynamics. And then for me, that feeling that John is so beautifully described, it was just natural. The first time that we ever played, it was just natural to have energy, to have a passion, and have a live-or-die aesthetic to everything that we did. But I feel like Nirvana had that naturally as well. Like, they were certainly good at their instruments and songwriting and chemistry and all that, but then they also just had a combustibility that came with birth, or came from God, or came from the planets or something.”