Ex-Fear Factory Vocalist Burton C. Bell on How He Ended Up in a Nirvana Music Video
Former Fear Factory frontman Burton C. Bell is apparently on the cover of the Nirvana’s single for the song “Silver”. The photo in question was taken while he was “super high,” according to a story that Bell told on Instagram a few weeks ago. The cover is pretty distorted, so you pretty much have to take Bell’s word that that’s him. But it turns out that’s not the only piece of Nirvana history that Bell touched.
According to a recent post that Bell made on Instagram, he was in the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Personally, if I was in the music video for the most iconic song of the entire 1990s, I would tell everyone at every possible opportunity. But Bell took a little bit longer to reveal the story. Here’s what he had to say on Instagram:
“In late Spring in 1991 I started working in the shipping and receiving department for NaNa, a Doc Marten’s distributor in Santa Monica, where I unloaded trucks full of Doc’s, to be unboxed, inventoried and reboxed to be shipped off to punk rock stores all across the country.
“A friend I worked with, Kirk, worked there. He was married to Dee, the drummer of L7, who worked in the main office.
“In June of 1991 Kirk had an advanced cassette of the newly recorded Nirvana album, that was not released yet. Kirk played cello on the song Something In The Way. We blasted that album daily for 2 straight months and I was loving it.
“August, 15, Nirvana played a show at The Roxy on Sunset Blvd. I was not able to go to the show because I had rehearsal with my new band Fear Factory, but my two roommates did. At the show Nirvana threw out flyers to the audience that was an “invite” to their video shoot in Culver City on the 17th.
“On the day of my two roomies, another friend @smalce and I drove down to Culver City for the video shoot for a song called SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT.
“About 40 people showed up for the video shoot, including my friend and bassist @tonybaumeister . The director had us sit on a riser in the studio, and the band was playing in front of us. The director instructed us to look bored.
“Me and my friends knew the song quite well, but the rest of the crowd did not. Hearing the song over and over became infectious. The director lost control of the crowd and chaos ensued. Most crowd shots were unplanned.
“Everyone who showed up was in the video.
“After the crowd shots “lunch” was served, and everyone matriculated outside with the band while eating finger sandwiches with #kurtcobain and Chris Novoselic.
“I remember talking to the new drummer, Dave Grohl. I told him how I thought it was funny that he had the tag CHAKA on his drum set because CHAKA was a prolific tagger in LA during that time. His tags could be seen from Venice to a Hollywood. He had no idea????
“I can be seen BRIEFLY 4 times in the video. It’s quick, but IT IS ME.
“I have LONG, blonde hair, wearing a white tee shirt.”
It’s a fleeting glimpse of Bell at best, and we pretty much have to take his word for it that it’s him because you can’t really see him that well in the video, but it’s at least a fun story for Bell to tell at dinner parties.
