![\"Why](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Why-does-every-1990s-alternative-rocker-seem-to-be-a-Chicago-Cubs-fan-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy \/ Chicago Cubs \/ Graham Racher)<\/p>\n
Sat 14 March 2026 1:00, UK <\/p>\n
Eddie Vedder helped invent \u2018the Seattle sound\u2019, Tom Morello represented Rage Against the Machine in The Battle of Los Angeles, and Jack White is the spiritual mayor of Detroit<\/a>, Michigan. <\/p>\n For various reasons, though, all three of them are fans of the hard-luck Major League Baseball team from the north side of the \u2018Windy City\u2019, the Chicago Cubs.<\/p>\n They\u2019re not alone either. Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins has been a diehard supporter of the \u2018Cubbies\u2019 his entire life, and the late, great rock producer Steve Albini <\/a>attended many games at the club\u2019s historic stadium, Wrigley Field, in his youth. Then there\u2019s Dave Grohl, who isn\u2019t a professed baseball enthusiast or a Chicagoan, but did attend the first, formative punk rock show of his life across the street from Wrigley at the Cubby Bear Lounge in 1983, and regularly came back to the area to stay with his Chicago-based cousin.<\/p>\n It\u2019s quite within reason, then, to imagine a random day in Chicago\u2019s Wrigleyville neighbourhood in the early 1980s, when a visiting, teenage Grohl easily could have crossed paths with young, pimply-faced versions of Corgan, Vedder, Morello, and Albini, a ridiculous convergence of influential \u201890s rock titans. This doesn\u2019t even leave room for similarly-aged Cub fans John Cusack and Vince Vaughn, or elder statesman Bill Murray, who remained a regular supporter even during the height of his Ghostbusters fame.<\/p>\n So what, specifically, was the magnetic pull of the Cubs on the \u201890s alt-rocker\u2019s mind? <\/p>\n Well, in a lot of cases, it was a simple matter of geography, as Vedder grew up in nearby Evanston<\/a>, Illinois, and despite spending key periods of his life in San Diego and Seattle, never shed his childhood Cubs fandom. Morello, similarly, grew up in the Chicago suburb of Libertyville, while Albini moved to the area to attend Northwestern University in the 1970s, and never left; meanwhile, Jack White was a Detroit Tigers fan in his heart, but started attending games at Wrigley in the 2010s, admiring the atmosphere at the 100-year-old ballpark, also becoming a meme in 2014 after being photographed at a game, wearing a Cubs jersey and looking incredibly unhappy.<\/p>\n Culturally, the Cubs have always had broad appeal outside of Chicago thanks to the draw of Wrigley Field\u2019s unique atmosphere, the team\u2019s inclusion in movies like Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off, and the sob story of their 108-year championship drought, which gave them a reputation as cursed but lovable losers. When the Cubs finally won the World Series in 2016, lifelong fans like the Chicago-born Billy Corgan weren\u2019t all that thrilled about the bandwagon fans that came out of the woodwork, especially the fairweather celebs who showed up to take part in the Wrigley tradition of singing \u2018Take Me Out to the Ballgame\u2019 from the press box during the seventh inning.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t talk to other Cubs celebrities,\u201d Corgan<\/a> told the Chicago Tribune at the time, \u201cIn fact, I\u2019m anti-Cubs celebrities. Although I know a few, other Cubs celebrities tend to show up when the playoffs are on. I don\u2019t necessarily see them in June [the middle of the baseball season]. I might be a little biased being a Chicagoan year-round.\u201d<\/p>\n Steve Albini, before his death in 2024, spoke in greater detail on the subject, including his theories on why baseball has more of a draw with certain artists than other American sports, telling the Jagged Time Lapse <\/a>blog, \u201cThere seems to be more of an association with punk rockers, and people who are in alternative culture of all kinds, and baseball. There\u2019s more of an affinity there than there is with other team sports\u2026I think the detail in baseball, the fact that you can delve deeper and deeper into it, does mirror the music scene; you can find out what bands these guys used to be in and go look for their rare singles, etc\u201d.<\/p>\n He also detailed the glory of watching a ballgame in the \u201980s and \u201990s at Wrigley due to how close one could sit to the field and the happy, glaring lack of \u201cinterior advertising and that sort of stuff\u201d. <\/p>\n![\"Why](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Why-does-every-1990s-alternative-rocker-seem-to-be-a-Chicago-Cubs-fan-Far-Out-Magazine-01-1024x768.j.jpeg\")
<\/a>(Credits: Chicago Cubs)<\/p>\n