27: Kurt Cobain

by Salewicz, Chris

  Two weeks before Christmas 1992, a ‘new’ Nirvana album was in the stores. Incesticide was a collection of fifteen tunes, some previously released. Tracks included ‘Dive’ and ‘Sliver’ from the ‘Sliver’ single; cover tunes like the Vaselines’ ‘Son of a Gun’ and Devo’s ‘Turnaround’ from Hormoaning, a Nirvana EP released only in Australia and Japan in 1992; ‘Downer’ from Bleach; and ‘Mexican Seafood’ from a 1989 Sub Pop compilation. The cover art was a painting by Kurt. Hardly promoted by DGC, whose desire to have more Nirvana ‘product’ on sale was presumably balanced against the intended release the next year of a brand new album by the band, the record almost immediately sold half a million copies in the US, where it made the Top 40.

  In January 1993, Nirvana played a pair of enormous festival dates in Brazil. The first show, in Sao Paulo, had an audience of 110,000. Kurt was drinking and taking pills and could hardly play. Much of the set consisted of cover versions: when playing Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’, Kurt changed the lyrics to ‘We will fuck you.’

  After performing ‘Territorial Pissings’, Kurt dived into the audience, smashed his guitar, and lobbed pieces of it to the crowd. Some forty minutes into the set, a frustrated Krist hurled his bass at Kurt and walked off stage. Contracted to play for ninety minutes to secure their mammoth fee, the crew were obliged to fetch Krist to finish the set. When Krist returned, he picked up his bass from the stage, not bothering to retune it. At which point a guitar tech rolled a cantaloupe melon onstage. Kurt started smashing the fruit on his guitar strings, playing his guitar with it. Then the band switched instruments, with Kurt on drums, Krist on guitar, and Dave on bass. A portion of the audience walked out in disgust.

  ‘The band started to really fail me emotionally,’ Kurt said, in a partial explanation to Jon Savage, ‘because a lot of it had to do with the fact that we were playing a lot of these festivals in the daytime. There’s nothing more boring than doing that. The audiences are massive and none of them care what band is up on stage. I was just getting over my drug addiction, or trying to battle that, and it was just too much. For the rest of the year I kept going back and forth between wanting to quit and wanting to change our name, cos I still really enjoy playing with Chris and Dave and I couldn’t see us splitting up because of the pressures of success. It’s just pathetic, you know: to have to do something like that. I don’t know if there is much of a conscious connection between Chris and Dave and I, when we play live. I don’t usually even notice Chris and Dave: I’m in my own world. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter whether they’re there or not, that I could hire studio musicians or something. I know it wouldn’t be the same.’

  The next Brazil show was in Rio de Janeiro a week later: Kurt opened the performance with a few lines from Electric Light Orchestra’s ‘Telephone Line’. Kurt, who had had a row with Courtney, had been threatening to jump out of a high window of his hotel. Eventually the tour manager found Kurt a hotel with a room on the ground floor, which was a dosshouse compared to the palatial five-star hotel into which he had been booked.

  In their time off between the two Brazilian shows, the three group members were supposed to be working on new songs, sessions already having been booked for recording a new album. After his first night in his down-at-heel hotel, Kurt showed up the next day at the demo studio in Rio, ready to work. He had with him the first version of a new song, ‘Heart-Shaped Box’, which they played at the Rio show on 23 January, along with another newie, ‘Scentless Apprentice’.

  Kurt was insisting that the new album would be entitled I Hate Myself and I Want to Die. Several times in his journals he had written this phrase. ‘When Kurt used to come out with that I Hate Myself and I Want to Die stuff,’ said Jon Savage, ‘people would completely miss his sense of humour. He was being very ironic: I asked him about this when I interviewed him.’

  On Valentine’s Day, 1993, Nirvana journeyed to Pachyderm Studios, in woodland near tiny Cannon Falls in Minnesota, to begin recording their new album. The facility had been selected by Nirvana’s record company for its pastoral isolation – one that would hopefully ensure the absence of negative characters. Steve Albini, former member of Big Black, a major influence on Kurt, was producing: Kurt loved some of his other productions, notably the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa and the Breeders’ Pod.

  After six days, the group had down the basic tracks. The entire album took half as long as Nevermind to make. Among the songs were ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ and ‘Pennyroyal Tea’, ‘two of Nirvana’s most accomplished works,’ according to Charles R. Cross.[43] Yet Courtney Love’s own, tighter lyrical writing had clearly influenced her husband. Over subsequent weeks, the I Hate Myself and I Want to Die title was changed, first to Verse, Chorus, Verse, and then to In Utero, a line from a poem by Courtney.

  In March 1993 Kurt and Courtney moved into a relatively modest rented house at 11301 Lakeside Avenue NE in Seattle, as the house they had bought was several months from being ready to live in. To get around the city, Kurt bought a grey 1986 Volvo 240DL, stylish and safe.

  A social worker from Los Angeles flew up to Seattle and declared herself satisfied that Frances was being cared for correctly. But the controversy over Kurt and Courtney’s child’s custody had cost almost a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees. Inevitably, there was a problem with nannies. Unable to cope with the ‘bohemian’ lifestyle of the parents, they seemed to arrive and leave the house as though through a revolving door.

  Kurt’s relationship with Don, his own father, remained largely unresolved. That spring of 1993, Kurt wrote a letter to Don which he never sent. It concluded: ‘I’ve never taken sides with you or my mother because while I was growing up, I had equal contempt for you both.’

  The huge success of Nirvana was played out against the background of assorted vicious territorial wars in what was now former Yugoslavia. For Krist Novoselic, with his Croatian blood, this must have been deeply troubling. On 9 April 1993, Nirvana played at a benefit for Bosnian rape victims at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. They showcased eight new songs, all of which would be on In Utero. Also on the bill were L7, the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and the Breeders.

  Meanwhile, waiting in the wings was the release of In Utero. Despite having wanted Steve Albini to produce the record, Kurt now thought the sound was a little too raw. Scott Litt, who had produced four REM albums, including 1992’s massive breakthrough Automatic for the People, was brought in to make ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ and ‘All Apologies’, both obvious singles, more radio-friendly. Acting in archetypal punk situationist manner, Kurt threatened to release the original Albini mix album as I Hate Myself and I Want to Die. A month after this, he said he would release the remixed record, with the title Verse, Chorus, Verse.

  On a more domestic level, on Sunday, 2 May 1993, police and an ambulance were called to Kurt and Courtney’s rented Seattle house, following reports of a drug overdose on the premises. Kurt had come home smacked up, and when challenged by Courtney, he had retreated to a locked bedroom.

  Kurt had taken to disappearing off into Seattle’s druggy hinterlands, specifically Aurora Avenue, with its drug connections, hookers and seedy motels: Kurt loved to check into the Marco Polo Inn, where he would hole up doing heroin. ‘There were many overdoses and near-death situations, as many as a dozen during 1993 alone,’ wrote Charles R. Cross.[44]

  Yet on the part of Courtney, there were serious and strenuous efforts being made in the spring and summer of 1993 to get clean. She was attending Narcotics Anonymous, drinking only fruit juice, and taking advice from a psychic. Later, however, there would be relapses. Yet her husband was increasingly withdrawn, in a state of acute depression. The junkie’s world is one of secrecy and sneakiness, not exactly conducive to positive character development, and one in which addicts are prone to fits of status anxiety and oneupmanship. It was during those months that Kurt declared he was going to get into crack, a drug neither he nor Courtney had previously abu
sed.

  On 1 June 1993, Courtney staged – in the jargon of dependency therapy – an ‘intervention’ at the house, in which friends would express their concern, urge Kurt to sort himself out, and offer assistance to do this. His friend Nils Bernstein was there, as well as his mother Wendy and Krist. ‘You could see in Kurt’s face that he was thinking, “Nothing in your life relates to anything in my life,”’ remembered Nils. In front of them, on the wall with a red marker, Kurt scrawled, ‘None of you will ever know my true intent’.[45]

  A month later, on 1 July, Hole played one of their first shows in months, at the Off Ramp in Seattle. Kurt was there, very evidently off his head on something – he had to be helped to walk. Brian Willis of the NME went back to the house with Courtney. Kurt – who by now seemed to have come down from his drug intake – was at home. However he kept out of the way as Courtney played Willis In Utero – the first time a member of the press had heard the record.

  As dawn broke Kurt brought them hot chocolate and muffins.

  This is what Brian Willis wrote: ‘For someone who’s been through so much shit in the past two years, whose name’s being dragged through acrimony once again, who’s about to release a record the whole rock world’s desperate to hear and be faced with astonishing attention and pressure, Kurt Cobain’s a remarkably contented man.’

  In Utero was released on 14 September 1993. If anything, it was an even greater record than Nevermind. The album entered the US album charts at number 1, selling 180,000 copies in the first week – even though the US super chains Wal-Mart and Kmart refused to stock it. This was in response to the song ‘Rape Me’, which was actually an anti-rape, life-affirming song, as much about Kurt’s imagined treatment by the media as sexual brutality. ‘One of the reasons I signed to a major label,’ said Kurt, ‘was so people would be able to buy our records at Kmart. In some towns, that’s the only place kids can buy records.’

  Although Kurt had declared at the beginning of 1993 that he wouldn’t tour to support his new album, his arm appeared to have been twisted. Could the lure of money have played a part in this? Kurt’s income for 1993 was already estimated to be over $2 million, but with touring he could come close to making double that figure.

  On 18 October 1993 a 41-date tour of US arena-size venues – the longest ever Nirvana tour – kicked off at the Arizona State Fair in Phoenix. It was the first time Nirvana had played an arena tour, and they had augmented their sound accordingly. Brought in on guitar was Pat Smear, who in 1976 had started the Germs, releasing ‘Forming/Sexboy’ in 1977, considered the first LA punk record. Mixed race, Pat had great positive energy, and was very funny. Also onstage with the band was cellist Lori Goldston, a classically trained musician from Seattle.

  During the tour there was increasing distance not only between Kurt and the rest of the band, but evidently also between Kurt and the accompanying Courtney. Kurt hated the celebrity world of which she seemed increasingly enamoured. There was also a rift with his management, especially with John Silva, who now referred to Kurt as ‘the junkie’. Two tour buses were used – one for Kurt and Pat Smear – which also meant Courtney, and one for the rest of the group. Kurt was drinking little on this tour. But others noted how isolated he seemed.

  On 21 October, the In Utero tour reached Kansas City. Kurt was driven over to meet his hero and fellow junkie William S. Burroughs, who lived in nearby Lawrence. Afterwards, Burroughs said the subject of drugs never came up once. He spent much of their time together extolling to Kurt the virtues of Leadbelly, the blues legend.

  At Inglewood Forum on 30 December 1993, as Krist started singing the Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’, Kurt left the stage and returned with a drill, which he drove into his guitar before picking it up and spinning it over his head with the drill still attached. Meanwhile, ‘big hair’ rocker Eddie van Halen turned up drunk backstage, wanting to join them in their set on guitar. ‘No, you can’t,’ said Kurt.

  The next day, New Year’s Eve, Nirvana were shown on an MTV special, Live and Loud. Also on the bill were Pearl Jam, the Breeders and Cypress Hill. The show had been pre-recorded on 13 December at Pier 48 in Seattle, a ferry terminal. It was an event riven by tensions, with Kurt seeming out of it – as did many people in the audience and backstage. Meanwhile, in real time on New Year’s Eve, Nirvana were playing the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

  After dates in Vancouver, the In Utero tour wound up on 7 and 8 January at Seattle’s Center Arena. This would be the last time Nirvana played in the United States.

  They would soon be on the road again. The In Utero tour was heading for Europe, with thirty-eight shows in sixteen countries. The Lollapalooza travelling US festival had made an offer to Nirvana of $7 million to headline that summer’s shows. Everyone involved felt they couldn’t refuse, except for Kurt. Despite his objections, Lollapalooza was placed on Nirvana’s schedule for that summer.

  By now work had been completed on the house he and Courtney had bought at 171 Lake Washington Boulevard in the Denny-Blaine district of Seattle (a neighbour was REM’s Peter Buck); although the house was scarcely furnished, they moved in; bewildered by the size of his new five-bedroom home, Kurt created a space for himself in the walk-in wardrobe room off the main bedroom; he also became fond of hanging out in a conservatory over the garage at the rear of the property.

  During January Courtney was touring overseas with Hole: just as well as Kurt’s drug use – heroin and cocaine now – had created a distance between him and his wife. Ostensibly living on his own at the house, during the month off before the European tour started, Kurt spent much of the time on Aurora Avenue, doing heroin[46].

  But from 28 to 30 January Nirvana returned to the recording studio, for what would be their final time recording together. Kurt did not bother to show up on the first two days, arriving late on the third day. The only completed tune that emerged from the sessions was ‘You Know You’re Right’, with lyrics that were a pointed attack on what he considered to be the misery of his life with Courtney. ‘I have never failed to fail’, the final line, were words that seemed like an acute summation of Kurt Cobain’s low self-esteem. That this was the last line Kurt Cobain would ever put down on tape imbues them with an extraordinary resonance.

  Nirvana flew to Paris on 2 February 1994 for an appearance on a French television show. The tour proper opened in Cascais in the Portugese Algarve on 6 February. The opening act for the first shows were the re-formed Buzzcocks, stalwarts of 1976 Manchester punk rock, a personal choice of Kurt.

  Following a date in Madrid, the tour’s second night, Kurt called Courtney, in tears. She was in Los Angeles, staying at the Chateau Marmont, the epitome of LA decadence. Although friends would assure him that it was not the case, there were rumours that Courtney had resumed her fling with Billy Corgan, and also that she had been seeing Evan Dando of the Lemonheads. An intended stay of two days at the Chateau turned into weeks, and Courtney was three weeks late when she arrived in London, supposedly to join the In Utero tour. On arriving, she was meant to immediately board a flight to Rome, but Courtney decided instead to spend time in the English capital.

  In mid-February, the tour was in Paris. Kurt did a photo session for a French magazine: one of the shots was of Kurt with the barrel of a rifle in his mouth.

  Seven days later, Kurt Cobain turned twenty-seven. He spent the day depressed, as he had been throughout the tour.

  After the second of two nights in Milan, he told Krist that he wanted to cancel the rest of the dates. As the next show was in Ljubljana in Slovenia, and relatives would be travelling there from neighbouring Croatia, Krist demurred. Kurt agreed to carry on.

  On 1 March in Munich before the final show of that leg of the tour – a further pair of German dates would be cancelled – Kurt spoke on the phone to Courtney. The ensuing row drove him to phone his lawyer to say he wanted to initiate divorce proceedings. Deeply pained, Kurt was aware that this would set in
motion for Frances precisely the trauma he had undergone as a child and from which he had never recovered.

  Kurt was also ill, suffering from bronchitis and severe laryngitis. After the Munich gig, he and Pat Smear flew to Rome, Kurt checking in to room 541 at the swish Excelsior Hotel. Courtney, due to arrive with Frances, was late.

  When she finally made it to Rome, Courtney discovered that Kurt had filled their room with red roses. He was making a big effort. Immediately he ordered champagne from room service, telling his wife how much he had missed her. Courtney’s response was to take sleeping tablets and go to bed. Kurt was distressed.

  That night Kurt took an overdose of sixty Rohypnol tablets. When Courtney woke at around 6 a.m. she found her husband lying on the floor, blood seeping from his nose. In his hand, on hotel stationery, was a three-page note to Courtney. He had written that she no longer loved him, and was unable to cope with the pain of ‘another’ divorce. Courtney later burned the note.

  Taken by ambulance to the Umberto 1 Polyclinic Hospital, Kurt had his stomach pumped out, and was put on a life-support machine. But he only fell deeper into unconsciousness.

  CNN mistakenly announced his death. His management company released a statement saying that Kurt had ‘inadvertently overdosed on a mixture of prescription medicine and alcohol, while suffering from severe influenza and fatigue.’ Few were fooled.

  The next day, 5 March, twenty hours after he had fallen unconscious, Kurt awoke, and wrote a note: ‘Get this fucking catheter out.’

  On the flight back to Seattle on 12 March, a day after the second leg of the In Utero European tour should have commenced, Kurt could be overheard by fellow passengers loudly demanding a Rohypnol from Courtney. She said she no longer had them.