The Story Behind the ‘Surprise Guests’ on Nirvana’s Classic MTV

“You could tell [MTV] were a little bit like, ‘What’s this?'”

Although the Meat Puppets had been steadily issuing music and touring since the early ’80s, it was not until two-thirds of the band appeared on Nirvana’s now-classic “Unplugged” appearance in late 1993 that many mainstream rock fans first became aware of the veteran punk band from Phoenix, Arizona. And their popularity would soar even higher the following year – due the popularity of their hit single/video “Backwater”, plus the release of Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged in New York” album in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s tragic suicide in April 1994.

In the 2012 book, “Too High to Die: Meet the Meat Puppets,” all three original Puppets – singer/guitarist Curt Kirkwood, bassist Cris Kirkwood, and drummer Derrick Bostrom – recalled how both Kirkwood bros wound up performing three tunes from their 1984 album, “Meat Puppets II”, and also, why Bostrom was not involved.

“We were lucky to be on [tour with Nirvana] the week directly before ‘Unplugged,’ and we had heard that he wanted to perform ‘Oh, Me’, on the show,” recalled Bostrom. “Obviously, [Cobain] had this agenda for being on MTV that involved an eclectic mix of bands he liked. Not just what MTV wanted. So he wanted to learn our song, [but] there was never time. We said, ‘Screw it, we’ll just go on there with you and play it.’ And he went for it! His neck was stuck way, way out, and he was feeling extremely exposed and vulnerable, and he was glad to have a posse with him, to confront MTV. So it worked out well for him, and it worked out fucking fantastic for us.”

However, Curt recalls sensing a weird vibe from the television network. “You could tell [MTV] were a little bit like, ‘What’s this?.’ There were people there that didn’t really even like us, that didn’t get it. We were not entirely welcomed, and I never felt entirely welcomed at MTV. There was always somebody there who was a fuckhead who didn’t know what the fuck was going on, who was willing to stand in the way. We felt we had got the ball going along concurrent with them, and they started adopting our scene. They didn’t tend to it that way, they were definitely tending to their own tastes.”

Cris theorizes that the odd vibe from MTV was due to a misconception over who the “special guests” that Nirvana had invited were going to be. “When Cobain went to [MTV] and said, ‘I have some special guests I want to bring on the show,’ you can see MTV’s eyes light up. ‘Oh… Eddie Vedder!’ Or ‘Oh… Chris Cornell!’ Somebody that they had already deemed ‘appropriate’ for their relationships with their corporate sponsors or whatever the fuck that made me the miserable, left-out, never-was. But when he told them it was the Meat Puppets, MTV wasn’t down with it. They were like, ‘Oh no, you can’t do that.’ And he was like, ‘Fuck you. It’s too late.'”

And why exactly did Bostrom not participate? “They didn’t need me, and I was so sick of touring by that time,” admits the drummer. “We damn near killed ourselves getting back to Phoenix in order to catch a flight to get to New York. Because we were in Colorado, and it was blizzarding, and we said, ‘We have to high tail it back to Phoenix immediately.’ They wanted us to go to Telluride in the middle of a snowstorm [to perform a concert]. We had huge fights with our manager, huge fights with the promoter, and we were like, ‘We’re not going, sorry!’ Just got caught in the blizzard, and it could’ve gone either way.”

Three Meat Puppets tunes would be performed at the taping at Sony Music in NYC on November 18, 1993 – “Plateau”, “Oh Me”, and “Lake of Fire” – with Cobain supplying vocals, Curt Kirkwood and Krist Novoselic strumming six-strings, Cris Kirkwood thumping the bass, and Dave Grohl gently tapping the drums.

When issued a year later as an album, “MTV Unplugged in New York” topped the Billboard 200 in the US. And at last count in 2020, was closing in on cherished “diamond” certification – with eight million copies sold in the US alone.

Looking back on the recording today, Bostrom remains appreciative about the opportunity Nirvana gave the Meat Puppets – who are still in business to this day, with their last album arriving in 2019, “Dusty Notes.”

“If it wasn’t for Nirvana, you could say we never made any money. We only make money off of Nirvana’s album, really – more money than just ‘month to month’ shit.”