Former Nirvana drummer, Dave Grohl, and former Nirvana bassist, Krist Novoselic, released a statement last evening denouncing Guitar Hero 5’s inclusion of Kurt Cobain as an unlockable character. “It’s hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists’ music alongside cartoon characters. Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he deserves better.” And by better, they mean anything but a bizarrely-excited puppet version of Kurt Cobain, who dances around, sings Bon Jovi and says things like, “Yeee boiiii.” A look at Grohl and Novoselic’s full statement — along with Courtney Love’s tweet-a-thon — after the jump.
This is a statement regarding Nirvana, Guitar Hero and the likeness of the late Kurt Cobain. We want people to know that we are dismayed and very disappointed in the way a facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game. The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate – we have no control whatsoever in that area. While we were aware of Kurt’s image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn’t know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in “re-locking” Kurt’s character so that this won’t continue in the future. It’s hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists’ music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he deserves better.
The statement follows Love’s Twitter outrage earlier yesterday — 214 tweets over six hours. “this is NECROPHILIC this is VILE please address all calls to my lawyer Kieth Fink Esquire who is FURIOUS And to my Publicist Rogers and Cowan,” she tweeted. Despite her plans to “sue the shit out of Acitivision,” Wired.com reports that, according to an Activision representative, “Guitar Hero secured the necessary licensing rights from the Cobain estate in a written agreement signed by Courtney Love to use Kurt Cobain’s likeness as a fully playable character in Guitar Hero 5.”
Rolling Stone says she picked out what hairstyle he’d have and the Teen Spirit-inspired outfit he wears in the game.
Who to believe…
