KURT COBAIN
by James Crotty
October 30, 1992
GO FOR THE GRUNGE
Seattle, WA
he year
was 1986. A new voice was emerging as the seeds of decline
amidst Reagan's
Decade of Greed began to sprout and bear fruit. By the Crash of
1987 the
world would be changed forever. From the rubble of discarded
spreadsheets
and junk bond junkies, a new weird order of supersonic youth
would emerge,
discarding the aggressive Pollyanna of unbridled yuppiedom, finding
solace
in a stance of casual offhanded irreverence.
While this
unique twenty-something ethos was sprouting up everywhere
across America,
it seemed to crystallize most strongly in that final frontier of
American
pop culture, Seattle. It was a magic moment. For the best bands
you ever
heard were in Seattle. The wackiest minds you ever imagined
were in Seattle.
And the finest beer you ever drank was in Seattle.
Living,
breathing
beneath this creative cauldron was a young man in Inverness, a
small logging
town near the Olympic Mountain Range. His name was Kurt
Cobain. Kurt saw
no romance in his own real life Twin Peaks. Only bigoted,
homophobic lumber
brains, who couldn't see the forest for the trees. In an entirely
unique
way he challenged the incestuous and stuck small town world
made palatable
by the likes of David Lynch.
Kurt left
the logging community of Inverness and journeyed to the
burgeoning cultural
hotbed along the Puget Sound. And, with his friend Chris Novoselic,
learned
to express through music the angst of young people caught in the
vice
of pious PC platitudes on the one hand and narrow-minded
desecration on
the other. Finding in a stance of sullen imperfection and casual
annihilation
a perfect twenty-something rejoinder to a pivotal cultural impasse.
In
true Monk style their barbed and potent reply to the ever-present
samsara
they saw all around was ironically entitled...Nirvana.
Kurt Cobain
In
a quiet room off of Eban Ritchie's Suite at the Hotel Sorrento, Kurt
Cobain
lovingly holds his baby, Frances Bean Cobain. He sits on a couch,
sweat
beading on his face. He looks fragile, sensitive and intense. He
stares
right at us when he talks. It's the Kurt Cobain stare that is
checking
out our authenticity.
Monk: Tell
me about Aberdeen. That's where you grew up,
right?
Kurt: Aberdeen,
it's a coastal town about 100 miles away from Seattle. It's a really
small
place. A very small community with a lot of people who have very
small
minds. Basically if you're not prepared to join the logging industry,
you're going to be beaten up or run out of town.
Monk:
And
that's what happened to you?
Kurt: Yea,
I was run out of town. They chased me up to the castle of
Aberdeen with
torches. Just like the Frankenstein monster. And I got away in a
hot air
balloon. And I came here to Seattle.
Monk: Is
this metaphor or literal reality?
Kurt: It's
a wet dream.
Monk: Was
there an incident that really pushed the button that got you and
the town
at loggerheads, as it were?
Kurt: Well,
what started the witch hunt was I decided to take some acid one
evening
and spraypaint "queer" on the side of four by four
trucks, the
local rednecks' trucks. And so one of them saw me from his
window and
started chasing me and started screaming "there's the queer
vandal!"
I'd been doing it for awhile. But that night I decided to really go for
it and do a lot, a lot of vandalism. So they caught me and chased
me around.
Monk: The
cops caught you or just some of the local toughs?
Kurt:
The
locals. The local toughs, right. (he laughs)
Monk: And
did they know who your were?
Kurt: No.
Just that crazy skinny kid who never went to school. Who was
probably
gay.
Monk: Well,
are you?
Kurt: If
I wasn't attracted to Courtney I'd be a bisexual.
Courtney
(his wife): Faggot!! (Laughter)
Monk: So
they ran you out of town.
Kurt: Yea.
Monk: Did
you ever go back?
Kurt: Well,
um, every time I've gone to Aberdeen lately I've felt a real big
threat.
Actually, Chris was beaten up at a Denny's one night. Some locals
were
giving him the eye and I don't think it was sexual. They started
beating
him up in the men's room saying "some local hero you
are." Next
thing he remembers he was dancing on a table.
Monk: So
you got run out of town because you went up against the logging
interests,
the logging mentality, of your local town.
Kurt: I was
the guy who screamed "save the spotted owl!" Kurt
smiles.
Monk: You
actually did say it one time somewhere?
Kurt: Yea
I did, at school.
Monk: At
school? And the loggers sons and daughters came after you with
chainsaws?
Kurt: No,
chisels. They weren't advanced.
Monk: Okay,
so they ran you out, where'd you go first?
Kurt: I went
to Olympia and became a hippie.
Monk: You
didn't go to Evergreen.
Kurt: No,
I didn't, but I hung out with a lot of friends from
there....
Courtney:
He couldn't afford it.
Kurt: I couldn't
afford it. I was a janitor.
Monk: Where
were you a janitor at?
Kurt: I was
a janitor at Lemons Janitorial Service.
Monk: Wonderful,
wonderful. Looking back at Aberdeen do you have a place that
was the quintessential
Aberdeen place for you?
Kurt: The
bridge of Aberdeen going over to the south side of Aberdeen. I
used to
hang out with the bums and share Thunderbird wine with them
underneath
the bridge.
Monk: Would
they recognize you if you went back today?
Kurt: Oh
absolutely, if they're still alive. There's a little tent bum community
there. They live in tents and just drink wine and roast
marshmallows.
Monk: And
hang out under the bridge.
Kurt: Yea.
Monk: Is
there a Seattle scene or is this all a myth?
Kurt: Yea,
but it's in Portland.
Monk: The
Seattle scene's in Portland?
Kurt: Yea.
(Laughter) It started with Greg Sage and the Wipers in 1977. It's a
real
dirty, grungy place.
Courtney:
Seattle is one of America's cleanest cities.
Kurt: Right,
there's nothing grungy about it at all. But Portland is extremely
grungy.
It's a real industrial, gray, dark town.
Monk: What
do you want to be when you grow up?
Kurt: A
janitor.
Monk: Achieve
nirvana through janitorial services?
Kurt: The
power of Lysol.
Monk: From
a janitorial perspective, what is grunge?
Kurt: It's
a fine mixture of cleaning solvents, not to be used in the toilet. It
doesn't go well with porcelain. When I was a janitor I used to work
with
these guys Rocky and Bullwinkle. They'd clean the toilet bowls with
their
bare hands and then eat their lunch without washing their hands.
They
were very grungy.
Monk: From
a Kurt Cobain musical perspective what is grunge?
Kurt:
A fine
mixture of hygiene paraphernalia - bleach, Lysol, bubble gum
flavored
toothpaste, isopropyl rubbing alcohol 90%, hand and body lotion,
and conditioning
shampoo.
Monk: What's
your favorite food?
Kurt: My
favorite food is water and rice.
Monk: Heard
of this band called Nirvana?
Kurt: Yea,
they're English, they're British. They were a hot group from the
60s and
we recently had to give them about $200,000 for using their name.
And
we recently gave $100,000 to a local Christian band named Nirvana
in Orange
County. We had to go to court over it. Now we have to call
ourselves Nirvana
UK anytime we play in L.A.
Monk: How
would you describe Dave Grohl?
Kurt: Dave
is in really good shape although he smokes two packs of cigarettes
a day.
Monk: Chris
Novoselic?
Kurt: Chris
is the horror of the stars. He has no shame whatsoever in
carousing with
the likes of Wynona Ryder and Johnny Deppe.
Monk:
And
Kurt Cobain?
Kurt: Fuck
him, he complains too much.
Monk: Do
you believe in reincarnation?
Kurt: If
you're really a mean person you're going to come back as a fly
and eat
poop. You'll come back as a fly or Matt Lukin.
Monk: What
would you title your autobiography?
Kurt: I Was
Not Thinking, by Kurt Cobain.
Monk: Final
messages for the youth of America?
Kurt: I'm
bowing down gracefully and taking off my crown and I'm giving it
over
to Eddie Vetter of Pearl Jam. He's now the representative of the
youth
of America.
Monk: Is
there a changing of the guard now?
Kurt:
Yea.
Monk: What
caused this, because you're a family man and you're embracing
family values?
Kurt: Because
he stole my look... And he uses it better than I.
Kris
Novoselic
Outside
the Seattle Coliseum
Monk: What
do you want to be when you grow up?
Chris: A
Toys 'R Us kid. No, an Opinions 'R Us kid.
Monk: Why
is that?
Chris: An
Opinions 'R Us kid is somebody who is really opinionated, to where
nobody
really wants to know their opinion.
Monk: Does
that summarize your generation? A lot of opinions, no
action.
Chris: I
don't even think there's even a lot of opinions, really.
Monk:
Are
you a Slacker?
Chris: No.
I've always been motivated. Established dialogues.
Voted.
Monk: Prefer
Old or Young Elvis?
Chris: Old
Elvis.
Monk: The
Old Elvis! Why?
Chris: Because
he's like a Ford Mustang. In the 60s the Ford Mustang was slim and
trim
and in the 70s it just got big and bloated... a gas guzzl'n hog, you
know,
but still a Mustang.
Monk: Chris,
intermixed with a sense of futility and boredom there's a strong
anti-apathy
message in your songs. What's the antidote? How can you get
people not
to be apathetic?
Chris: Take
the plate away from in front of their faces.
Monk: Too
well fed in this country?
Chris: Totally.
You get fat and lazy, you know. We all sit and do interviews and
talk
for 45 minutes about rock and roll and there's people who can't
eat in
the world.
Monk: What
do you do on a typical day?
Chris: Try
to wake up and make my day meaningful.
Monk: Do
you exercise?
Chris: Yea.
I do yoga... when I'm not hung over.
Monk: Is
getting hungover, is getting a little bit drunk essential to playing loud
droning grunge?
Chris: Well,
it shouldn't be, but sometimes it sure seems like it.
Monk:
Could
you play it without anything in your system?
Chris: Oh
yea. I've done that before. I went for three months. But a lot of
times
I have a few beers, relax. Kind of block everything out and focus. I
don't
know, beer helps me do it.
Monk: Are
you writing music?
Chris: I
write a little bit, but not for the band. Because I can't
sing.
Monk: What
do you write?
Chris: Guitar
stuff for myself, kind of campfire guitar, pick'n. Got a Buck Owens
American,
a red, white and blue guitar just like on Hee Haw.
Monk:
Do
you believe in reincarnation?
Chris: Well,
God, I just don't know what the hell I believe in. I'd like to believe
in it. I believe there's something out there. But I don't think I'll know
for sure this lifetime. Maybe next lifetime.
Monk: What's
teen spirit to you?
Chris: It's
something the men in corporations spray in rabbit's
eyes.
Monk: I understand
you're a vegetarian.
Chris: Yea.
Monk: So
you must be the most PC member of the band?
Chris:
But
I try not to have an attitude about it.
Monk: Favorite
food?
Chris: Potato
salad.
Monk: If
you weren't doing Nirvana what would you be
doing?
Chris: I'd
be just hopping from job to job.
Monk: Nirvana
saved your life?
Chris: Yea,
it did. I had a steady job for awhile, but I was pretty much at the
end
of my rope. I was an apprentice painter.
Monk: What
do you want to tell the twenty-something generation? Do you
have a message
you wanna get out?
Chris: Oh
man, what do I say without sounding like overkill.
Monk:
Here's
your chance. What's the Chris message?
Chris:
Ahhhhhh...
(laughter).
Monk: That's
a good one.
Chris: Yea,
ahhhhhhh.
Dave Grohl
At
his friend's house in West Seattle, watching videos.
Dave:
I'm Nirvana's fifth drummer. But they've really only had one other
serious
drummer, Chad Channing. He left the band, and they were offered
to do
a tour with Sonic Youth. So they asked Dale Crover to act as a
substitute
for that one tour. Anyway, they were in San Francisco rehearsing,
and
came to see my band play, and thought I was really good. They
told Dale
and Buzz of The Melvins that if I was ever available they'd want
me to
play drums for them. Couple weeks later I called up Buzz just to
say hi
and tell him our band had fallen apart. He said, well you know,
Nirvana
needs a drummer. So I called them up. But they already had
another drummer
named Dan Peters from Mudhoney. And I said, oh, that's cool, I
hope everything
works out. If you need anything give me a call. And they called
back that
night and said, well, maybe you should fly up here and join the
band.
I didn't really have an audition or anything. I flew up here, we had
one
rehearsal, and we pretty much knew that was it. Two weeks later
we toured
England. It just snowballed from there. And we had the greatest
eight
months of rehearsing every fucking day. We would practice every
day for
like four hours. We wrote so many songs we've forgotten. We
wrote a new
one every practice. We were just so stupid and burned out or
whatever
we'd never remember them. So we got a boom box and recorded
them onto
cassette tapes and then we'd lose the tapes, so Nevermind is
pretty much
a collection of songs that we happened to remember.
Monk:
Why did you guys stop practicing?
Dave:
We started touring June of 1991. And didn't stop touring until
December.
So that whole year we did about six months of non-stop touring,
where
we'd have about a week off in between tours. And it just killed us.
It
burned us out big time. None of us was ever cut out to be big rock
people...
Now my big problem is people burn.
Monk:
Too many people around the band?
Dave:
Just too many fucking people in this world. I hate saying no to
people.
Monk:
Hard to keep your space. Because you're now in the
public....
Dave:
Especially in this rock arena situation, where you have people
grabbing
and worshipping you like you're some God. It's
ridiculous!
People
coming on stage and bowing down to Kurt.
Monk:
I felt bad for Chris. What does Chris feel like or you feel
like?
Dave:
Fortunate! Look, my phone isn't ringing off the hook. And I didn't
get
completely slagged in a Vanity Fair article. I just try to keep away
from
all that shit. And even just walking onto a stage and hearing 10,000
people
"ahyahayaha!!!" going nuts, it feels good for maybe the
first
couple seconds. After that you feel like you're under a microscope,
and
everyone's honing in on you. I just hate having anything expected
of me
at all.
Monk:
It's more than you bargained for...
Dave:
Well, no one bargained for it at all.
Monk:
But I tell you something. You guys handle it pretty well. You're
certainly
not trying to be rock posers or rock stupidstars...
Dave:
Well, the thing I like about playing live is... You see, people come to
see Aerosmith to hear Dude Looks Like a Lady exactly as it does
on the
record. And, if it doesn't, they think something's wrong. But we're a
sloppy fucking band. Chris and Kurt are very sloppy musicians. I
just
recently started appreciating the worth of being totally sloppy. I
think
this two week European tour we did we were sloppier than shit.
We couldn't
get it together. But it was pretty fun and pretty great, and we kind
of
rolled with it and laughed. And I don't say that like, hey, we just
ripped
off 5,000 people because we were totally sloppy. I think people are
starting
to realize that we're not out to be a Rush Fusion Rock Experience,
total
perfect tempo, on time, on the beat, no fuck-ups. Next time you
come see
us play watch Kurt because he usually tries to figure out the song
right
before we play it.
Monk:
He did that on MTV.
Dave:
Well, actually, that's a whole different thing. That's a big story. We
were asked to play on the MTV Music Awards. We were
supposed to be the
first band on. They wanted us to play Smells Like Teen Spirit. So
we come
to the rehearsals and we have these two new songs. A song
called Rape
Me and a song that doesn't have a name yet. So we go up and we
rehearse
that. We had a 4 minute and 20 second slot. And all the stage
managers
and everyone said "Oh you're not gonna do Teen Spirit."
"No,
we're going to do these two new songs." "Well, do they
fit in
the four minute, 20 second slot?" "Yea."
"Okay fine."
Next day we get a call from MTV saying "Look, if you don't
play Smells
Like Teen Spirit you're not going to be on our awards
ceremony."
So we said, "fine, fuck you, keep your awards
ceremony." So
then they offered, "look, if you want to be on the show you
can play
Lithium later in the set." So, we thought, "okay, cool, we'll
tell 'em we'll play Lithium, and we'll go up there and we'll do the two
new songs and say 'MTV go to Hell' or
whatever..."
Monk:
That would have bee great!
Dave:
It would have been great until we found out that if we were to do
anything
but Lithium a good friend of ours, who works at MTV, would have
been fired.
Monk:
Why?
Dave:
Because that's the way MTV works. Mafia Television, maaan. Just
so they
had us exactly where they wanted us.
Monk:
I think you guys should have just done it.
Dave:
I think we should have just done it too. But then there was this
pressure
from our label saying "if you guys don't do what you're told to
do
you will have burned pretty much every bridge..." It was
awful.
Monk:
So when you got out there, what happened?
Dave:
So we went out and started into that song Rape Me. Just to get
some little
palpitation going in Mr. Big Cigar.
Monk:
You should have gone a little bit longer.
Dave:
We should have fucking done the whole thing.
Monk:
So this whole episode left a really bad taste in you?
Dave:
For me personal, I fucking hate MTV. I hate it. I really hate it so
much
because it's, you know. "Video Killed the Radio Star." It's
true. It's so true. Like last night we're smashing up equipment cause
all these people see our Lithium video, which is pretty much a
compilation
of all these shows in the past where we have destroyed our
equipment or
jumped around and dove into drum sets or whatever. People
expect us to
destroy everything at the end of the show. Last night was like
"give
them what they want and destroy the
equipment."
Monk:
So I sense a real cynicism about this. You're not into supplying
them
with what they want.
Dave:
As selfish as it may sound, I just want to do what I want to
do.
Monk:
What would you have done instead last night?
Dave:
Told about 8,000 people to go home and played in front of 1000
people
in a tiny place where you could at least sweat.
Monk:
So, honestly, how long do you think this Nirvana thing is going to
last?
Dave:
I give it a couple more years.
Monk:
You're not going to be the Beatles. You're not going to be around
for
15 years?
Dave:
Last thing in the world I want to do is be like Mick Jagger jumping
around
in yellow tights when I'm 45 years old.
Monk:
Do you prefer the young or the old Elvis?
Dave:
I hate Elvis Presley.
Monk:
Do you have a rock dream team?
Dave:
Wow. Well, I guess it would pretty much just be The
Melvins.
Monk:
The Melvins are the dream team! I like that.
Dave:
To me there's no better drummer. And there's no cooler guitar
player.
This band seriously changed my understanding of
music.
Monk:
What is it about 'em?
Dave:
From a drummer's standpoint Dale Crover turns all conventional
drumming
on its side. And plays against the beat. They're very slow, they're
very
heavy, and they're extremely tight. Pretty much the first band
you've
ever heard where there's sort of a stuttered pause and then
BOOOOOM!!
It's the biggest Boom of any band. It's an experience. You don't
really
go around humming Melvins songs.
Monk:
Alright, grunge, define it.
Dave:
Grunge is not flannel. Grunge is not long hair. Grunge is not Alice In
Chains and whatever. I think Grunge is just a bunch of friends
drinking
a lot of Henry's and trying to play music when you really
can't
Monk:
Is Nirvana bigger than Christ?
Dave:
Not yet. Not until we sell 100 million records.
Monk:
How much do you guys make off a show like last
night?
Dave:
I know for a show like the Redding Festival, which is forty thousand
people,
the band made about $250,000, of which each of us comes home
with about
$30,000 for one performance.
Monk:
Tell me one thing. How would you describe Kurt
Cobain?
Dave:
Kurt is... I don't know if I'd want to call him a genius. He's a great
songwriter. He's a great guy. He's a quiet person. A lot of the times
you can take his quietness as unnerving. Sometimes it seems as if
he's
really pissed off, but he's really not. He's sort of hard to understand.
Kurt, I've never met anyone else like him. I suppose if you took
enough
acid you might come close to understanding Kurt Cobain. I'm not
sure.
Monk:
When you first met was it great living with him for eight
months?
Dave:
Oh yea, it was wonderful. When I first moved in there, Kurt and I
didn't
know each other. We'd sit in this apartment, no t.v., no radio,
nothing,
no noise, for hours on end, sitting there completely silent. That's just
sort of the way it was.
Monk:
You have an enormous amount of respect for him.
Dave:
Oh yea. He has this way of writing songs, really simple, almost
childlike
songs that stick in your head. Kurt can write songs that are so
simple
that you will never get them out of your head.
Monk:
And that's really an art.
Dave:
Sure. A lot of bands think that they have to prove their
musicianship
by twiddling a million notes per second, but with Kurt it's a less is
more thing.
Monk:
What's you purpose in life? Give me the Dave Grohl mission
statement?
Dave:
I think I'm here to balance out everyone's insanity.
Monk:
What do you have to say to your generation?
Dave:
I don't know whether to tell kids to go to college. Don't know what
good
that would do. Just mind expansion. Get beyond the 9-5 grind.
Throw away
your materialistic needs, just save your fucking soul. And keep
away from
fucking MTV.
