Did Wyoming’s Garage Band Scene Spark the Birth of Grunge Rock?

The Legend of a Casper Band’s Influence on Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, Cowboy State Daily reports.

When people think of Wyoming’s music scene, country legends like Chris LeDoux and Luke Bell often come to mind. But in the late 1960s and early 1970s, something very different was brewing in the garages of Casper, Wyoming — bluesy, hard-hitting rock and roll.

This era of Wyoming’s music history is tied to an intriguing legend: that a local band from Casper inspired Kurt Cobain, the frontman of Nirvana, to create the grunge movement that would dominate the 1990s music scene.

The story goes that Cobain, as a young teenager, may have attended a show by a Casper-based band known as The Tremors during one of their West Coast tours. Supposedly, this experience planted the seeds for what would later become the grunge rock revolution.

If true, it would mean that one of the most influential rock genres of the modern era traces its roots back to Wyoming.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Wyoming’s young musicians were swept up in the wave of blues and rock and roll that was spreading across the United States. In Casper, many teenagers picked up guitars, learned a few chords, and started forming garage bands.

Cory McDaniel, a Casper native, was one of those musicians. He played with several local bands, starting with The Eddies, a band that, despite its name, had no members named Eddie. After some lineup changes, they rebranded as Butterfat and eventually became The Tremors.

The Tremors embarked on a whirlwind journey, touring up and down the West Coast from 1969 to 1985, playing venues from Alaska to California. Along the way, they shared stages with notable artists like harmonica player Richard “Earthquake” Anderson and even opened for rock legends like The Youngbloods, best known for their 1967 hit “Get Together.”

According to McDaniel, the touring lifestyle was intense.

“It was pretty nuts,” he said. “It was truly sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I’m one of the lucky ones who lived through that. A lot of the other guys I played with didn’t make it. They overdosed, or their liver blew up, or they went to prison.”

The heart of the legend is simple: a young Kurt Cobain attended a Tremors show in the 1980s and was inspired to start Nirvana.

Rod Miller, a Cheyenne resident and former drummer for Rawlins garage bands, says this tale has been passed around for decades.

“That legend has had legs,” Miller said.

McDaniel, however, is skeptical. While he admits it’s possible a teenage Cobain might have seen one of his shows, he doesn’t recall ever meeting the future grunge icon.

“I would just love to know where that story came from,” he said.

Cobain was born in 1967, meaning he would have been a toddler when The Tremors first started touring. However, by the mid-1980s, Cobain was a teenager — and it’s plausible that he could have snuck into a club or bar where The Tremors were playing.

Miller described the story as follows:

“Kurt Cobain heard them when he was just a kid, and he thought, ‘What a great sound.’ Heavy guitars, a lot of distortion, and that inspired him to go found Nirvana.”

While it’s unlikely the Tremors’ bluesy sound was a direct match for grunge, it’s not hard to see how it might have influenced it. Grunge rock is often described as a mix of heavy metal, punk, and classic rock. If Cobain heard The Tremors’ gritty, blues-based sound as a teenager, it’s not a stretch to think it left a mark.

“He could have gone from blues to a little bit harder rock. And then to even harder rock and then to grunge. So, I guess it’s possible,” McDaniel said.

While The Tremors had a blues-rock approach, grunge borrowed from multiple influences, including punk rock (like The Ramones), heavy metal (like Black Sabbath), and alternative rock (like R.E.M.). The raw, unpolished edge of garage rock certainly fits into that progression.

By the 1980s, mainstream rock was dominated by “hair metal” — flashy, big-haired bands like Poison, Motley Crue, and Cinderella. But the rise of grunge — led by bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains — marked a sharp cultural shift.

Propelled by Nirvana’s 1991 hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from the album Nevermind, grunge exploded into mainstream popularity. The music was darker, more introspective, and grounded in themes of alienation, addiction, and mental health. Gone were the spandex and leather jackets of the ’80s; in their place were flannel shirts, ripped jeans, and raw emotional honesty.

Music historians might be quick to dismiss the idea that Kurt Cobain was inspired by a Wyoming garage band. But when asked if the story is plausible, Holly Krutka, executive director of the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources, drew a parallel with the evolution of new ideas.

“It takes a couple of these getting built before they can be profitable, but that’s true of basically any energy technology at all,” she said.

Krutka referred to the process of new ideas taking root and gaining traction. While her comment was about energy projects, the same logic can apply to music.

Grunge wasn’t born in a vacuum. It borrowed from everything that came before — and in that sense, perhaps a band like The Tremors did have a role to play.

Whether or not Kurt Cobain was directly inspired by a Wyoming garage band, one thing is certain: the garage band era of the 1970s was a magical time in Wyoming’s music history.

Rod Miller, who played in Rawlins garage bands, recalls how exciting it was to be a part of it.

“We were small potatoes compared to those Casper bands. Those guys were really good,” Miller said.

While country music is now more synonymous with Wyoming’s identity, local musicians like McDaniel say the spirit of rock is still alive in small venues, bars, and breweries across the state.

McDaniel, now a composer of film scores for Wyoming filmmaker Dennis Rollins, looks back on those days with pride. He’s happy to have been part of the scene — and even more so to have survived it.

“There’s still a lot going on with local music. I think it’s just mostly in the breweries now,” he said.

While McDaniel may never know if Kurt Cobain truly attended a Tremors concert, he likes the idea that something he did could have inspired the legendary frontman.

“We were doing a lot of our own original music,” McDaniel said. “And maybe he saw us one night and thought, ‘If these yahoos can write stuff, maybe I can write music too.”