Dave Grohl is addressing a lawsuit that has been filed against him, the estate of Kurt Cobain, and several others involved with Nirvana regarding the album cover of the band's iconic 1991 album "Nevermind."
Earlier this year, Spencer Elden, who was the baby that appeared on the album cover, filed the lawsuit claiming that former members of Nirvana, as well as the executor of Cobain’s estate, record companies, art directors, and others, violated federal criminal child pornography laws after "trafficking" his image worldwide.
Speaking with The Sunday Times, Grohl shrugged off the lawsuit.
"I think that there's much more to look forward to and much more to life than getting bogged down in those kinds of things. And, fortunately, I don't have to do the paperwork," he said.
In the lawsuit, Elden said that his "identity and legal name are forever tied to the commercial sexual exploitation he experienced as a minor which has been distributed and sold worldwide from the time he was a baby to the present day," according to the complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, which was cited by CBSLA.
The suit further states that the defendants "knowingly produced, possessed, and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer, and they knowingly received value in exchange for doing so. … Despite this knowledge, defendants failed to take reasonable steps to protect Spencer and prevent his widespread sexual exploitation and image trafficking."
With the 30th-anniversary re-release coming up, Grohl said they planned on tweaking the album cover.
"I have many ideas of how we should alter that cover but we'll see what happens. We'll let you know. I'm sure we'll come up with something good," he said.
Grohl has been speaking to various outlets following the release of his memoir, "The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music," which highlights his musical career as well as his time spent as Nirvana's drummer, and during an interview with CNN on Wednesday, the musician opened up about how he coped with the death of Cobain, who died by suicide on April 8, 1994.
Grohl explained that his instinct was to give up music after learning about Cobain's death. Music was "always about life and joy and celebrating that" but when his bandmate died, it came to represent the opposite.
"It broke my heart," Grohl said. "I couldn't listen to the radio. I put the instruments away. I didn’t know if I would play again."
Grohl said he decided to go on a "soul searching" trip to "figure things out." One day, while driving along a country road, he saw a hitchhiker wearing a shirt with Cobain's image on it. It was then that he realized he needed to go back home and pick up his instruments and make music again because "that is what is going to save my life now."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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