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Formed
1987, Aberdeen, Washington
Kurt
Donald Cobain a.k.a. Kurdt Kobain - born Feb. 20,
1967, Hoquiam, Wash. - died April 5, 1994, Seattle,
Wash. - vocals, guitars.
Krist Anthony Novoselic aka. Chris Novoselic - born May
10, 1965, Compton, Calif. - bassist
Chad Channing - born Jan. 31, 1967, Santa Rosa, Calif. -
drums.
Jason Everman - guitars.
Nirvana
is widely credited with bringing the sound and spirit of
late-Seventies punk rock to a mainstream pop audience. In
1992 the Seattle-based trio took the angry, nihilistic
message of the Sex Pistols "Anarchy in the U.K."
to #1 with its own sarcastic blueprint for frustration,
"Smells Like Teen Spirit." The band’s reign
was tragically cut short two years later, on April 5,1994,
when leader Kurt Cobain took his life following at least
one earlier suicide attempt and severe bouts with drug
addiction, a chronic stomach ailment, and depression. He
was 27.
Kurt
Cobain and Krist Novoselic grew up in Aberdeen,
Washington, a small logging town 100 miles southwest of
Seattle. When Cobain was eight, his secretary mother and
auto mechanic father divorced, leaving him constantly
moving from one set of relatives to another. As a child
beloved the Beatles, but by nine he discovered the heavier
music of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Kiss. Cobain met
the 6-foot-7-inch Novoselic, son of a local hairdresser,
through mutual friend Buzz Osborne of the Aberdeen band
Melvins. Osborne introduced them to the hardcore punk of
Black Flag and Flipper.
In 1987
Cobain and Novoselic, both of whom had long felt alienated
from their working-class peers, formed Nirvana and started
playing parties at the liberal Evergreen State College in
nearby Olympia. The following year, Seattle independent
label Sub Pop signed the band and released its first
single, "Love Buzz" b/w "Big Cheese."
Nirvana’s debut album, Bleach, recorded for $606.17,
came out in 1989 to kudos from the underground rock
community; it sold an initial 35,000 copies, which is
considerable for an indie-label release. The next year
Nirvana put out another Sub Pop single, "Sliver"
b/w "Dive," and recorded six new songs
(including "Smells Like Teen Spirit") with
producer Butch Vig. Although opposed to major labels in
principle, the band claims it shopped the songs to bigger
companies in hopes of getting the message of punk to a
larger audience.
A
major-label bidding war ensued, with DGC ultimately
offering the group a $287,000 advance (rumors had it at
$750,000). With Nevermind, Nirvana succeeded in getting
punk to the populace on a grand scale: After an initial
shipment of 50,000 copies, the record kept selling,
eventually bumping new albums by Michael Jackson, Garth
Brooks, U2, and Hammer from the top of the chart.
Nevermind ultimately sold ten million copies worldwide,
and produced another hit, "Come As You Are"
(#32, 1992).
By early
1992 the group’s success was biting back. As
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" continued climbing up
the charts, Cobain began bemoaning the group’s meteoric
rise, worrying that fans were missing the point of
Nirvana’s antiestablishment message. Simultaneously his
new relationship with Courtney Love, singer of the
underground band Hole [see entry], had become a hot topic
in the gossip columns. The couple married on February 24.
When Love became pregnant with Cobain’s child and was
quoted in a Vanity Fair article as admitting she had used
heroin during the pregnancy, news of the couple’s
alleged drug addiction hit the media fan. Scrutiny of the
Cobain/Love affair reached a level of intensity met in the
pop world only by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, or the
ill-fated punk couple Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. On
August 18, 1992, the Cobains delivered a healthy,
seven-pound baby, Frances Bean. After a battle with
children’s services in Los Angeles, which challenged the
Cobains’ parental fitness based on Love’s comments in
Vanity Fair, the couple was granted custody of the child.
Amid the chaos, Nirvana released Incesticide, a collection
of early singles and outtakes. Beginning in spring of
1993, a series of events occurred that foreshadowed the
demise of Cobain and Nirvana. On May 2, the singer
overdosed on heroin at his Seattle home. The following
month, he was charged with domestic assault after Love
summoned the police during an argument over Cobain’s gun
collection. On July 23, Cobain overdosed again, this time
in the bathroom of a New York hotel room before a Nirvana
show at the Roseland Ballroom.
On
September 21, Nirvana released In Utero, which debuted at
#1 and ultimately produced the modern-rock radio hits
"Heart-Shaped Box" and "All
Apologies." On January 8,1994, Nirvana performed what
would be their last American concert at the Seattle Center
Arena. On February 2, the band departed for a European
tour, but after a series of shows in France, Portugal,
Italy, the former Yugoslavia, and Germany, decided to take
a break, during which Cobain remained in Rome.
At 6:30
a.m. on March 4, Love found Cobain unconscious in the
couple’s room at Rome’s Excelsior Hotel, the result of
an overdose of the tranquilizer Rohypnol. At first it was
deemed an accident, but later reports confirmed the
existence of a suicide note. Cobain remained in a coma for
20 hours. When the Cobains returned to Seattle, things
took a turn for the worse. On March 18, police arrived at
the Cobain home again after the singer locked himself in a
room with a .38-caliber revolver, threatening to kill
himself. On March 30, Cobain checked into the Exodus
Recovery Center in Los Angeles, but fled on April 1, after
telling staff members he was going outside for a smoke. On
April 8, he was found dead in a room above the garage of
the couple’s Seattle home, the result of a
self-inflicted 20-gauge shotgun wound to his head. For
weeks afterward, fans, the news media, MTV, and radio
mourned his death with specials about Nirvana and the
generations they inspired. In November 1994 MTV Unplugged
in New York (#1, 1994), an album of the acoustic show
taped in 1993, was released.
Following
Cobain’s death, Novoselic spent most of his time as an
advocate for various political and social causes. Grohl
started a band, the Foo Fighters, which included guitarist
Pat Smear, who played on Nirvana’s last tour. For the
band’s self-titled album, released in 1995, Grohl sang
lead, played guitar, and wrote all the songs.
KURT
COBAIN
Kurt Cobain was born on the 20th of February 1967 in
Hoquaim, a small town 140 kilometres south-west of
Seattle. His mother was a cocktail waitress and his father
was an auto mechanic. Cobain soon moved to nearby
Aberdeen, a depressed and dying logging town. Cobain was
for most his childhood a sickly bronchiotic child. Matters
were made worse when Cobain's parent's divorced when he
was seven and by his own account Cobain said he never felt
loved or secure again. He became increasingly difficult,
anti-social and withdrawn after his parent's divorce.
Cobain also said that his parent's traumatic split fueled
alot of the anguish in Nirvana's music.
After his parent's divorce Cobain found himself shuttled
back and forth between various relatives and at one stage
homeless living under a bridge. When Cobain was eleven he
heard and was captivated by the Britain's Sex Pistols and
after their self-destruction Cobain and friend Krist
Novoselic continued to listen to the wave of British bands
including Joy Division the nihilistic post-punk band that
some say Nirvana are directly descended from in form of
mood, melody and lyrical quality.
Cobain's artistry and iconoclastic attitude didn't win
many friends in high school and sometimes earned him
beatings from "jocks" Cobain got even by spray
painting "QUEER" on their pick-up trucks. By
1985 Aberdeen was dead and Cobain's next stop was Olympia.
Cobain formed and reformed a series of bands before
Nirvana came to be in 1986. Nirvana was an uneasy alliance
between Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic and eventually
drummer and multi-instrumentalist Dave Grohl
By 1988 Nirvana were doing shows and had demo tapes going
around. In 1989 Nirvana recorded their rough-edged first
album Bleach for local Seatlle independent label Sub-Pop.
In Britain Nirvana received a lot of recognition and in
1991 their contract was bought out by Geffen, they signed
to the mega-label, the first non-mainstream band to do so.
Two and a half years after Nirvana's first C.D. Bleach was
released they released Nevermind, a series of different,
crunching, screaming songs that along with it's first
single Smells Like Teen Spirit would propel Nirvana to
mainstream stardom.
Smells Like Teen Spirit became Nirvana's most highly
acclaimed and instantly recognizable song. Not many people
can decipher it's exact lyrics but Cobain used a seductive
hook line to hook the listener. Nevermind went on to sell
ten million copies and make a reported $550 million (US)
leaving Nirvana overnight millionaires. Cobain was shocked
at the reception of his highly personal and passionate
music repeatedly telling reporters that none of the band
ever, ever expected anything like this. It quickly became
obvious that the obsessively sickly and sensitive 24yr old
was not going to cope well with the rock'n roll lifestyle.
"If there was a rock star 101 course, I'd really have
like to take it," Cobain once observed. Cobain fell
into heroin in the early 90's, he said he used it as a
shield against the rigorous demands of touring and to stop
the pain of stomach ulcers or an irritated bowel. Through
the touring and pressure Cobain continued to write his
very personal acutely focused lyrics.
Cobain was distressed to find out that what he wrote and
how it was interpreted could quite often be miles apart.
He was appalled when he found out that Polly a heavily
ironic anti-rape song had been used as background music in
a real gang-rape. He later appealed to fans on the
Incesticide liner notes "If any of you don't like
gays or women or blacks, please leave us the f***
alone." It was to no avail, Cobain found that as an
overnight millionaire musician control was something he
had very little of. Cobain also worried that his band had
sold-out, that it was attracting the wrong kind of fans.
In February 1992 Cobain skipped off to Hawaii to marry the
already pregnant Courtney Love. Later in the year Nirvana
released Incesticide and in August Cobain had hospital
treatment for heroin abuse. Shortly after Frances Bean
Cobain was born. In early 1993 In Utero was released into
the top spot on the music charts. In Utero was widely
acclaimed by the music press and it contains some of
Cobain's most passionate work. In Utero was a lot more
open than Nirvana's previous albums. Songs like All
Apologies and Heart Shaped Box detailed aspects of
Cobain's sometimes shaky marriage, other songs like
Scentless Apprentice detailed the agonies and struggles of
Cobain's experiences.
Nirvana embarked on a support tour and recorded and filmed
an "unplugged" (acoustic) performance for MTV in
November of 1993. Nirvana's choice to honor bands and
people that had influenced them and Cobain's passionate
and intense vocals especially on "Where Did You Sleep
Last Night?" silenced many of their who had labeled
Cobain talentless. Rumors circulated that the MTV
Unplugged compilation would be Nirvana's last album and
the band were splitting up.
Cobain was a gun fanatic and always had several in his
possession or in various forms of confiscation. In the
northern winter of 1993-94 Nirvana embarked on an
extensive European tour. Twenty concerts into the tour
Cobain developed throat problems and their schedule was
interrupted while he recovered. While recovering Cobain
flew to Rome to join his wife who was also preparing to
tour with her own band.
On March the 4th Cobain was rushed to hospital in a coma
after an unsuccessful suicide bid in which he washed down
about fifty prescription painkillers with champagne. The
suicide bid was officially called an accident and was not
even made known to close friends and associates. Several
days later he returned to Seattle. Cobain's wife, friends
and managers convinced Cobain, who was still in deep
distress to enter a detox program in L.A. According to a
missing person's report filed by his mother Cobain fled
after only a few days of the program.
Cobain was cited in the Seattle area with a shotgun. Days
later on the 5th of April he barricaded himself into the
granny flat behind his mansion, put a shotgun in his mouth
and pulled the trigger. On Thursday April the 7th ~ two
days after a medical examiner says Cobain shot himself and
the day before his body was found police say Courtney Love
herself was taken to hospital in L.A. for a drug overdose.
Released on bail, Love checked herself into a rehab center
but left soon after a friend called her the next day with
news of Cobain's death.
Cobain's body was found when an electrician visiting the
house to install a security system went round the back of
the house when no one answered the front door and peered
through windows. He thought he saw a mannequin sprawled on
the floor until he noticed a splotch of blood by Cobain's
ear. When police broke down the door they found Cobain
dead on the floor, a shotgun still pointed at his chin and
on a nearby counter a suicide note written in red ink
addressed to Love and the couples then 19 month old
daughter Frances Bean.
The suicide note ended with the words "I love you, I
love you." Two days after Kurt Cobain's body was
found about 5,000 people gathered in Seattle for a
candlelight vigil. the distraught crowd filled the air
with profane chants, burnt their flannel shirts and fought
with police. They also listened to a tape made by Cobain's
wife in which she read from his suicide note. Several
distressed teenagers in the U.S. and Australia killed
themselves. The mainstream media was lambasted for it's
lack of respect and understanding of youth culture.
THE ALBUMS
1989
-- Bleach (Sub Pop) (- Everman); Blew EP (Tupelo)
1990 -- ( - Channing; + Dave Grohl [b. Jan. 14, 1969,
Warren, Ohio], drums)
1991 -- Nevermind (DGC)
1992 -- Incesticide
1993 -- In Utero
1994 -- MTV Unplugged in New York
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