Grunge Is Dead

by Greg Prato

BLAG DAHLIA: I figured he might OD. But dope makes you depressed, so suicide is always a possibility. I was surprised that he did it by essentially wiping out his identity and removing his own head. But there was a lot of self-hatred there, and a very dysfunctional relationship.

  ADAM KASPER: [Krist] knew things weren’t right, and he was trying to help Kurt get out of whatever. [Kurt] had a suicidal depression — he always talked about it. I guess it wasn’t a total surprise. I mean, Krist literally had gone to his house and basically kidnapped him — “Come on, we’re getting out of here! ” And there’s a lot of other dark shit from Courtney that Krist has had to deal with — and Kurt did as well.

  SCOTT VANDERPOOL: Then there was that fucking memorial thing at the Seattle Center, which I hated. It was just so against all of my punk rock ethics.

  GRANT ALDEN: My girlfriend and I had planned to go through Aberdeen-Hoquiam to a beach for the weekend. So I drove through on Saturday morning or Friday afternoon, and came back on Sunday. The thing that struck me is there wasn’t a single reader board on any church in Aberdeen-Hoquiam acknowledging that he had died, nor consoling his family — who were residents there. That says everything you’ve got to know about Kurt Cobain. No wonder the poor guy felt the way he felt — his hometown didn’t give two shakes of a rat’s tail for him. Dead or alive. I mean, I live in a small town in Eastern Kentucky now — Keith Whitley is from up the road, they have a big statue to Keith Whitley outside his hometown. They have nothing like that in Aberdeen-Hoquiam. They just don’t care.

  TRACY MARANDER: It was a pretty big surprise. I thought if anything, Nirvana would break up and he would go into seclusion, come back, and do something else. Especially because he had his artwork to fall back on — he had another outlet to do creative stuff. Or you figured he might go the way of Pete Doherty — you would think that something like that might happen as opposed to just him committing suicide. Or to some regards, an accidental overdose would have been less surprising than suicide. Having a two-year-old daughter would make you think twice.

  MARK ARM: I intended to see Kurt after this Pearl Jam tour because we were leaving in a day or two. A few days later when we’re out with Pearl Jam in Washington, D.C., we got the call that Kurt was dead. It was a total shock. Except for that horrible tour six months previous, I’d hardly seen Kurt for over a year, so I didn’t know where he was at. I can’t say we were ever close — when we did hang out, we were usually high. He was shy, and quiet enough when he wasn’t stoned.

  JEFF AMENT: It was a dark night. Nobody really said much, and everybody got really drunk. I didn’t know Kurt — I think the main thing I felt was feeling bad for Krist, because he was the guy I knew in the band, and Dave, because we had kinda gone through that. And then thinking just how horrible it was the way he did it. Horrible. Unless you’ve been manic-depressive, I don’t think you can fully comprehend those sorts of actions.

  EDDIE VEDDER: In the end, I’m happy that there were a couple of phone messages, a couple of phone calls, a couple of things that happened in person. I wish we had more time. I wish history could be changed and I could be talking about, “The first couple of years were bumpy, but the last five years were great,” or “When our bands toured together.” I don’t want to say anything to make him roll over in his grave. I was fortunate because I was in D.C. We weren’t going to play the show, and then we did play. I got to sleep at Dischord House — Ian MacKaye took care of me, because it felt like the world had gone seriously wrong.

  KURT DANIELSON: It was in Europe [while Tad was on tour with Soundgarden]. I heard this rumor that Kurt had killed himself. So I called up Van — who’s my brother-in-law, married to my sister. I knew Mark Lanegan was close to Kurt, and I thought Van might know what’s going on. Van said, “There is something going on — call me back in two hours.” And I did, by that time he had the facts. So it was contingent upon me to get the Soundgarden and Tad guys all in one room, and get all the reporters out of the room, so I can have some private time with my friends, and share some bad news. There was no good way to say it. I don’t remember what I said — I just went ahead and announced it after the room was sealed.

  KIM THAYIL: I never saw so many big, hairy, temperamental guys sitting around crying.

  ROSS HALFIN: I went to shoot [Soundgarden] with Tad the day Cobain killed himself — they very much just wanted to keep to themselves. But they did a great show, and Chris finished the show with an acoustic version of “Like Suicide.”

  SUSAN SILVER: It put a pallor over everything. It was so shocking. It’s one thing to lose someone to an accident, and it’s another thing to lose someone to suicide. It scared everybody — and it certainly scared me. At that time — Eddie’s first wife and I were very close — it was terrifying to think of those guys out there. They were both on tour. When the tour manager called to say that they had gotten the news, the Soundgarden guys had just gone wild. They started destroying the dressing room — out of not being able to deal with the profoundness of hearing something like that. I just told him, “Let them go — let them do what they need to do.”

  And then I went into service work at that point — literally, service work, [and helped] get the services together at a private church, and also at the Seattle Center. I went to the service with Eddie’s wife. At the end of it, I had the same sort of overwhelming compassion for Courtney that I felt to a complete stranger — Yoko Ono — when John Lennon was shot. My heart just broke for her. I wanted to do something — I wanted to say something. After the service in the church, I walked up to her to offer support. About ten feet away, she noticed I was coming towards her, and she turned her back on me and walked away.

  CRAIG MONTGOMERY: I flew back to Seattle from the tour I was on, to go to the memorial service and get-together — the private one. A recording was played of Kurt singing the Vaselines song, “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam.” And that was what got me to break down — hearing his voice. Courtney later told me that Kurt was really alone in his last several months — he was so heavy into his drug addiction that he wasn’t seeing any of his friends. And the weird thing was he felt like nobody cared about him. She would say things to me like, “Kurt really valued you as a friend, and he valued your opinion.” But in the last year and a half, two years, I really didn’t feel like it was my place to call him up and say, “Hey, what are you doing?” So at the service, hearing his voice, it really made me feel sad that I hadn’t reached out to him. Even if you’re a famous rock star with lots of money, you still need your friends, and you still need human connection. He could be intimidating in a way — he could say something really acerbic that would make you feel stupid. I felt sad, and it felt like a real loss. I felt like I lost my friend Kurt a long time before that. So when he died, the sadness just hit me again.

  TINUVIEL: I remember a [Melvins] show in New York, right after Kurt had killed himself — it was at the Limelight. It felt like a memorial service — it went on forever and it was really intense, the emotion. The audience [was] absolutely silent and mesmerized. The music took over — it was spiritual.

  KRISHA AUGEROT: Many people were just distraught — having to face that reality of drug addiction, especially heroin, in Seattle is just a huge problem. Similar to Xana and Andy, how Courtney Love was really vilified. She became like … she killed him, or she could have done something. She couldn’t have done anything to change his path.

  CHAD CHANNING: I wish I had at least one more opportunity to talk to him. Never had that opportunity.

  MARK PICKEREL: It affected me on so many different levels, because on one hand, I loved him as a person, and really enjoyed him. And secondly, from a career perspective, I was upset because I thought I was going to play drums on the next Nirvana record. And then also sad to know that we wouldn’t hear anymore from Kurt or Nirvana musically. I thought what they were doing was so important — that would have been like losing John Lennon after Help! or Rubber Soul came out. I felt like Kurt was probably capable of m
aking even better records than the ones he already had.

  NANCY LAYNE McCALLUM: I can’t interpret what Layne said after Kurt died. I can tell you that Layne said, “Kurt was murdered.” I’m not naming names. I think it’s the murderous conditions of the partnership between the drug community and the entertainment industry. Anyone that supports it at any level is a part of every drug death. I think that’s what Layne was talking about. It starts with the guy at the top who’s making how many millions of dollars importing it and getting it into the country. I’d like that guy to have to sit across, knee-to-knee with Layne, and explain to him his rationale. I’m not pointing a finger, and saying there was a murder plot, or there was a murderer. I’m saying that it is a murderous, devilish plot that includes pushers, dealers, runners, suppliers, importers, businesses, and governments.

  MEGAN JASPER: There was such a deep and profound sadness, because you knew this kid, we worked with this kid, who was so bright, and so irreverent, and fun. A good person who kept to himself. And that this is how it all ended. There’s nothing right about it.

  CRAIG MONTGOMERY: Oh, that could be a whole book in itself [when Craig tour managed for Hole]! Courtney’s album [1994’s Live Through This] was ready to come out, but then Kurt died. But we went out and did a U.S. and European tour, also Australia and Japan. It was tough — it was a mess. It was stressful on all of us. Courtney could be a great person — warm, engaging, and a friend — or she could be a nightmare, and make you hate your life. I think I lasted about nine months before I said, “I can’t do that anymore.”

  ROBERT ROTH: Definitely, the music industry changed quite a bit after that. I say that to some people and they think it’s crazy, and other people know exactly what I mean. There was no more conscience watching — speaking out. In that sense, everything changed, and that was the death knell of the Seattle scene.

  SUSIE TENNANT: After that, other people passed away too. It was just one after another.

  CHAPTER 30

  “Where I go, you go”: Kurt Remembered

  Since his death, Kurt Cobain has often been put on a pedestal. Friends and members of fellow bands offer their memories of “Kurt the human being” rather than “Kurt the myth.”

  ROBERT ROTH: Going against the tide, no matter how gracefully, will beat you up after a while — all artists know this. Cliché as it sounds, [Kurt] walked straight into the oncoming artillery from the ’90s so-called culture war. Kurt lobbed the first bombs from our side, and was the first major casualty. He was really full of intense, sacrifice-yourself-for-your-art-at-every-step type fuel that burns up really fast. Where most other great artists may burn long and steady — but not as bright.

  KURT DANIELSON: Kurt was like a magpie — he would find bright objects everywhere he looked, pick them up, and feather his nest with them. He was the most skillful thief I’ve ever seen. And that’s what it takes to be a good poet, or a good writer. It was T.S. Elliot that said, “A bad poet borrows, a good poet steals.”

  LIBBY KNUDSON: He reminded me of one of those Keane paintings — kids with the big eyes, always sad, and holding puppies.

  CRAIG MONTGOMERY: Most of the time, Kurt was a really nice, smart, funny guy. Really sharp wit, very low tolerance for stuff that is stupid. He had a temper, and if things were difficult, he wouldn’t always react well — if we had problems with sound or something, he could get angry. Throw microphones on the ground and break them — break his guitar.

  Kurt Donald Cobain: February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994

  SUSIE TENNANT: He was creative in so many ways — in addition to music. He made these really great sculptures, he liked to read a lot.

  TINUVIEL: We mostly talked about art and religion — we never talked about music.

  ALICE WHEELER: I had studied “the meaning of life” at Evergreen State College. So I was off on a tangent about the meaning of life — I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I think a lot of those ideas rubbed off on Kurt — he was definitely in that mode. Even though he hadn’t gone to college, he hung out with a lot of students. I always found myself gravitating towards people that were into ideas — Kurt, Jesse Bernstein, and Kathleen Hanna.

  TRACY MARANDER: He was a really good artist. He would draw cartoons with funny sayings. I have this huge picture of this homeless guy, and it’s a satirical thing on how homeless people are mentally ill, they’re alcoholics, they had messed up childhoods — but they’re expected to fend for themselves in a box in the snow. This is on the back of a giant Aerosmith or Led Zeppelin poster. Whenever he’d send postcards or letters when he was on tour, they’d usually have a little picture drawn on them. It gets lost sometimes that he was a good artist. It also gets lost that he smiled a lot.

  ROBERT ROTH: I was really amazed with how green he was with music, and how natural and right on his instincts were. I had older brothers turn me onto the Ramones, Elvis Costello, and all that stuff back in the late ’70s. I knew about a lot of bands — Kurt really didn’t. I remember trying to tell him and Krist about Television, and they were like, “Oh, we thought that was some weird new wave band.” One of Kurt’s favorite bands was the Smithereens, which really surprised me. But when you listen to those songs, you can really hear it — especially on Bleach. That driving, catchy pop. It was amazing that Kurt could be so artistically pure and right on, without having the references. He already had it.

  RON HEATHMAN: He loved the Beatles. He was way more informed about the Beatles than I was — I was in the Stones camp. He was telling me that “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” was the greatest song ever. The repetitiveness of it, the lick. At that point, I didn’t really know what he was talking about. I was like, “The greatest song is ‘Sweet Virginia’ by the Stones!” It turns out, after getting into the Beatles more, he was right [laughs].

  TAD DOYLE: Really spoke highly of Creedence Clearwater Revival. I got to know him on our first tour together — we toured Europe, co-headlining. My impression of him was he was very specially talented for music — he had a vision, and it was his primary focus in life. He was elegant in everything he did musically.

  SLIM MOON: He once said to me that only three bands were cool — Devo, Flipper, and the Stooges. I think what he meant by cool was genuine. They just are what they are without any pretension. Kurt never considered that Nirvana could be as cool as those bands. He thought they didn’t have that “genuine-ness.” Which is funny, because in terms of pop stars, they’re probably seen as the most genuine pop stars ever. But still in his mind, they could never be Flipper.

  CHARLES PETERSON: I photographed Kurt on New Year’s Day for the Advocate, in 1993. The photo shoot didn’t happen until eleven in the evening. He, Courtney, and Frances were living at the Inn at the Market Hotel — downtown at the time. In their master bedroom, set up some lights and photographed Kurt against the seamless. Talked about traveling and music. I remember him saying that he wanted to, at some point, buy a house in Scotland. And talking about how surreal it was to be a father. Because it had been New Year’s Eve the night before, I think we were both a little hungover. He was of course still in his pajamas.

  ALICE WHEELER: My friend and I had started publishing books, so Kurt and I were talking about self-publishing — he said he wanted to make a book about what really happened to him. He felt like the press wasn’t getting it right.

  BEN SHEPHERD: There was always a rumor through our grapevine that we were going to play music together — me, him, and Buzz.

  SLIM MOON: He had these side projects and little bands with his friends. He did a lot of four-track recordings that were much more sort of minimal. He had a whole musical side that never really got expressed, except for covers of Vaselines songs, or stuff like that.

  CHAD CHANNING: Definitely kept to himself a lot. He was more open with Krist about things, but once in a while I’d be surprised — we’d talk about things that were more of an intimate kind of subject. I always liked [Kurt].

  GARRETT SHAVLIK: He always wanted to be friends w
ith everybody, which was sweet. He was a little brother.

  KIM WARNICK: He would stay at our apartment — I lived with Susie Tennant. I think Kurt was homeless at that point, living in a car. They played a show, it always seemed like they’d end up coming over to our house, and we’d have impromptu parties. One of the best memories I have of Kurt is all of us being so wasted, and me and him dancing to the Partridge Family, “Come On Get Happy.” We fell down and knocked the stereo over.

  DONITA SPARKS: Dee [Plakas] and I dyed Kurt’s hair blue one time in England, because he liked the blue in my hair. But because his hair was naturally blond, it wasn’t porous at all — it turned out this gunmetal grey color. We dyed his beard too — the beard you can actually see in some pictures.

  MARK ARM: Anyone who claims he was a friend of Kurt Cobain’s is probably lying. Dylan Carlson might be the only exception to that rule.

  VAN CONNER: Dylan Carlson and I used to hang out. So sometimes we’d hang out, all three of us. We’d go drink. At a party across from the Moore Theatre one night, Cobain decided to jump on my back. Little guys, for some reason, always like to jump on my back. I remember him jumping on my back, and me running as fast as I could backwards, into a wall. Crushing him like four times. A psycho — he wouldn’t let go. Bashed him into this wall until finally, he let go and hit the ground.

  DERRICK BOSTROM: I remember he recently had a baby. When Courtney showed up, Kurt was like, “Curt [Kirkwood], what do you do when the baby cries? We’re having an argument about it — do you bring the baby into bed with you, or do you just leave it in its own bed even if it keeps crying?” I don’t remember what Curt’s answer was…

  JERRY CANTRELL: I think Layne and him hung out quite a bit — at a particular time. I think Layne was really inspired by him.

  MARK PICKEREL: Probably the only guy that kissed me on the lips that I didn’t smack.

  TRACY MARANDER: He was more of a Gemini than a Capricorn. Not that I believe in astrological stuff, but he was totally weary of people trying to pull one over on him. But at the same time, he could fall for that kind of stuff, because he was a nice guy and wanted to think the best of people.