Last week, someone posted on Facebook about the ridiculousness of this latest version of Guitar Hero, which features Kurt Cobain's likeness. I watched it and agreed, although to some extent, at this point, I have to admit my cynicism leaves me fairly blase about this stuff. Courtney Love is a trash clown, right? I'm not shocked that she's auctioned off her husband's bits one by one; I'm shocked that she hasn't gone all the way and started a clothing line of ratty $4,000 cardigans that come with complimentary Jag-Stangs and spiral-bound notebooks.
But today I received a statement from Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, who've managed to stay respectable, and have now been motivated to publicly explain that they knew his image was being used for two Nirvana songs in the game, but not that you could "unlock" the character and thus, as the video above shows, have Kurt Cobain singing songs such as Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name"—a total disgrace to grunge's fallen hero, says them. The reason? Courtney Love is denying having anything to do with his avatar being a playable character. Weird, since she controls his estate and therefore his likeness, something Grohl and Novoselic have no power over. And game-maker Activision says it's on the up and up as well:
"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," said an Activision representative.
Love says she's going to "sue the shit" out of them anyway. Read the Grohl/Novoselic statement after the jump.
