Pete Wentz thinks Jaden Smith could be the next Nirvana.
The Fall Out Boy bassist thinks rock music is dying and that hip-hop is leading the way among the younger generation, however, he thinks the 18-year-old star – the son of actors Will and Jada Pinkett Smith – has the potential to be the next genre-killer act like the grunge pioneers fronted by the late Kurt Cobain.
On how rock music is dying, he said: "I think it is on the back-burner. Over here in the US, hip-hop is super exciting for kids. I’ll be looking at my Snapchat on Coachella and that is rock ‘n’ roll right now – it’s hip-hop. I think that if rock music wants to be culturally relevant on a mass level you have to be open to updating it and changing it and making it a little weird. If you don’t it becomes quaint. That’s not what we’ve ever really been into."
And on who he thinks will be the next big thing, he told NME magazine: "The interesting thing is that when I talk to like my rock friends, they’re like, ‘The next Nirvana is coming, the next Nirvana is coming’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, but the next Nirvana probably is coming, but not in the form of Nirvana. It might be like Jaden Smith or, I dunno. The reason Nirvana was a genre-killer is that it was a wave that came from nowhere. Looking for something that sounds like that is not gonna work."
Jaden – who collaborated with Justin Bieber on 2011’s ‘Never Say Never’ – recently formed a rock band with is younger sister Willow Smith, 16, and his girlfriend Odessa Adlon, 18.
He recently shared a 45-second clip of a preview of one of their songs on social media.
He captioned the post: "This Is A Clip From A Rock Band I’m Starting (sic)"
Followed by a tweet, which read: "Yes Odessa Is In The Band So Is Willow. (sic)"
Pete Wentz: Jaden Smith could be next Nirvana
