“We’re doing my first-ever gig with Nirvana on SNL. What I didn’t know was there was a discussion about my guitar like, ‘No, we can’t let him on stage’”: Pat Smear’s first Nirvana appearance almost didn’t happen – because of his guitar

On September 25, 1993, Nirvana appeared as a quartet on Saturday Night Live. As the story goes, the band’s new guitarist, Pat Smear, had received a call from Kurt Cobain inviting him to join the group as a second guitarist for an upcoming tour. The SNL performance served as an opportunity for the public to witness the updated lineup and experience select songs from Nevermind's follow-up, In Utero.

However, before joining Nirvana, Smear had been playing with German singer-songwriter and actress Nina Hagen, and had been coaxed into acquiring a 1982 Charvel for that particular gig.

When it came to playing with Cobain and co, though, the Charvel – which Smear considered to be his “good guitar” – raised a few eyebrows.

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“She had a musical director, and they were snobs, and they hated that there was a fucking punk rocker in their band. They hated it so much,” Smear recalls in a conversation with Dave Grohl and Chris Shiflett for Premier Guitar. “I mean, she didn’t, but the band did, and they’re like, ‘You need to get a good guitar.’ So I end up buying this Charvel.

“It was gorgeous,” he goes on. “I mean, this thing was so pretty. I thought, ‘Okay, now I have a good guitar.’ So we’re doing my first-ever gig with Nirvana [on] Saturday Night Live. And I’m like, ‘Well, better play my good guitar. I’m gonna play my Charvel.’

While he had considered playing his Hagstrom instead, Smear thought his newly acquired Charvel would make more sense for such a highly anticipated appearance with, as he referred to Nirvana, “professional musicians”.

“And what I didn’t know at the time – I don't even know if you [referring to Dave Grohl] were involved – but there was a discussion about me and that guitar like, ‘No, no, no, we can’t let him on stage.’”

“Kurt ended up giving me this rad fucking guitar [referring to the Mosrite Mark V in blue he ended up playing], which is not a Charvel.”

During his (albeit brief) tenure with Nirvana, Smear played several models, primarily Fender Strats purchased for him by Cobain.

According to Nirvana’s longtime guitar tech, Earnest Bailey, three of the main ones were an American Strat in Midnight Blue with a maple fretboard, another American Strat nicknamed ‘Glossy’ – featuring a black DiMarzio pickup and a locked-down Floyd Rose bridge – and ‘Flopsy’, a Mexican Strat in black that Smear further modified throughout the tour by adding nail polish in different colors.

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He also played a Hagstrom III in black, a blue Hagstrom I, and a black Hagstrom XII, plus the colorful Harmony Buck Owens American acoustic, which actually belonged to Krist Novoselic, and that stood out during Nirvana’s iconic MTV Unplugged concert.

However, his relationship with that Charvel guitar didn’t end there. Fast forward to 2023, and a serendipitous, full-circle moment occurred during a Foo Fighters SNL appearance with H.E.R “I noticed she was playing a Charvel,” Smear says. “She goes, ‘Yeah!’ [and I said] ‘I have a perfect guitar for you,’ and I sent her that guitar.”