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When was the last time you watched Nirvana‘s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” music video? Like, really watched it and honed in on all the people in the crowd. Because if you look very, very closely, you’ll actually catch a few glimpses of former Fear Factory vocalist Burton C. Bell in the crowd!
Bell took to Instagram to reveal his presence in the video, as well as a few helpful clips so you’re not sitting there trying to figure out where he is. It’s a pretty cool, very obscure piece of rock history!
“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,” wrote Bell. “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 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.”
