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Garage to Stadiums is one of the Top 5% of podcasts in the world. From the bars to the arenas, learn the fascinating stories of how our biggest rock music legends made the leap. Each episode reveals the stories, songs and little known facts of the journey from obscurity to fame of one of rock music’s biggest stars. Join us on Garage To Stadiums as host Dave Anthony teams up with an author of a rock biography or director of a rock documentary to explore that journey, their early years, the stories behind the scenes, their top songs, and their place in music history.
Learn about the passion, talent, luck and even scandal that often came together to propel these stars from obscurity to household names.
Garage to Stadiums
Episode 16 THE STORY OF NIRVANA
Mon, Mar 03, 2025 12:56PM • 1:01:40
SPEAKERS
Dave Anthony, Michael Azerrad
Dave Anthony 00:00
Content warning. This episode discusses sensitive topics related to suicide and may be triggering for some listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicide thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or visit their website for immediate support. Hi there. I'm Dave Anthony, and this is the garage to stadiums podcast rated as one of the top 5% of podcasts globally. On each episode, we tell you the story of how one of our music legends rose from obscurity to fame and play some of the songs that mark that journey. Welcome to garage, to stadiums. Today's story is the story of Nirvana. Nirvana was a Seattle, Washington based band that grunge scene of the late 80s and early 90s into global province led by the enigmatic Kurt Cobain, a high school dropout who, as you will hear, had a unique vision to blend various genres of music that hit Meyer the result, Nirvana revolutionized rock with their new, raw, innovative sound. Despite releasing only three studio albums from 1989 to 1993 Nirvana sold over 75 million records worldwide, becoming one of the best selling bands of all time, and influencing countless others here to discuss the meteoric rise of Nirvana, from post party band to global stadium success is Michael azerath. Michael is the author of The Amplified um as you are, a story of Nirvana, an extensively illuminated version of his classic 1993 Nirvana biography, as you are, the story of Nirvana, which was named as one of the 50 greatest rock books ever written by the UK's prestigious music magazine cube. Michael was also a former contributing editor for Rolling Stone, and he wrote that famous Rolling Stone cover story on Nirvana from 1992 in which Kurt wears a homemade t shirt that says corporate magazines still suck. We're thrilled to have him here today to discuss the incredible journey of nirvana. Welcome to garage, to stadiums. Mike,
Michael 02:12
thank you, Dave, thanks for having me
Dave Anthony 02:16
today. We're talking about a very seminal band in the history of rock. I wanted to go back a little bit and talk about each of the band members as children, as adolescents, etc, just to get the perspective of who these folks are, where they came from, what their family life was like. Start maybe with Kurt, and how he grew up, and, you know, a bit of a troubled childhood, it sounds like by reading the book,
Michael 02:42
yeah, yeah, a bit. And it's interesting. You know, this is a good place to start with nirvana. You know about where they're from. Not many rock bands really have that much of a foundation in where they came from. You think about, you know the classic rock bands, you know Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd or the Rolling Stones. We know where they came from, but it wasn't really part of their their origin story, their the foundation of their art. But with Nirvana, it starts in a place called Aberdeen, Washington, which is a pretty small town, about two hours south west of Seattle and Washington state. And for a long time, many, many years, it was a logging town, until the logging industry started to collapse. And I guess the 70s, it's a pretty provincial place. Kurt would call a lot of the people who lived there rednecks. Perhaps an objectionable term to some, but it is, you know, it's a fairly provincial place. It's also an incredibly beautiful place. The surroundings are incredible. There's mountains and and grays harbor and in the Pacific Ocean coast and incredibly clean air. But for someone like Kurt, who was a very bright, very creative person who yearned to expand his horizons, Aberdeen, I think, was very constricting. So Kurt was born to Don Cobain, who, at the time, was working as a mechanic in a garage. And Wendy Cobain, who was a homemaker, Wendy actually was not too musical, but her siblings Chuck fraten Berg was a drummer in a local surf rock band, and her sister Mary was a kind of a country artist who sang in bars and taverns around town and did her own recordings and stuff, and I think she was kind of an early idol to Kurt. Kurt was raised in what he described as his upbringing was white trash posing as middle class. His mom was really proud, and she dressed her kids very nicely. And she tried to did the best she could with what she had. And at some point, I don't know, maybe, I guess Kurt was like 989, years old. Maybe his parents got divorced, and it made a profound impression on him. He went from being this kind of cheerful, chipper kid to being very melancholy and withdrawn, and that kind of lasted for the rest of his life. Chris Novoselic moved from Compton in Southern California to Aberdeen when he was about, I think, 14, and Chris was incredibly tall, I think he's like six, seven or eight. And he was incredibly tall when he was 14, too, and he had a very drastic underbite, which was later corrected surgically. So he was very tall, goofy kid. Looked different from the other kids. And he was also from Southern California. He dressed differently, talked differently, was into different music. So he was alienated, like Kurt was, except Chris dealt with it by being funny. He was, you know, just like real cut up in school, and I think sounds like he was fairly widely liked, but not really friendly with anybody. And that's the traditional role of humor, I think, is to charm people and yet keep them at arm's length. He would interrupt school assemblies by singing the national anthem off key and things like that. He was kind of a goofball. So those two come along and eventually meet. They start making music together after Crist initially resisted Kurt's advances, Chris was a much better musician technically than Kurt, and he was also two years older, so Kurt really wanted to play with Crist. Was into punk rock like Kurt, and Kurt, again, was looking to expand his horizons. Look beyond the top 40 in metal that people in Aberdeen seemed to favor, and it is something more adventurous that looked beyond his immediate surroundings. So for a long time, Chris resisted Kurt's musical advances, and they finally did start playing together and went through a succession of drummers.
Dave Anthony 07:23
They seem to have more drummers than Spinal Tap, it seems,
Michael 07:27
yeah, yeah. They well, they were very they were very exacting. But also it was really hard to find a good drummer who was into punk rock. Everybody there was really metal, and they had, you know, drum sets with lots of tom toms, and they wanted to play a real fancy and that was just not what Chris and Kurt were looking for. So they found a couple of really good drummers in town, Aaron Burkhard and then Dave Foster, but they didn't quite fit. I think one telltale sign was that both Aaron Burkhard and Dave Foster had mustaches, which was kind of a signifier of, you know, being a metalhead. I don't know if your listeners know this term, but Hesher, they were maybe Hesher types so But Kurt and Chris wanted to be punk rockers, and so they didn't quite fit the image, and they eventually found new drummer. And
Dave Anthony 08:29
so when Crist and Kurt first met, we're talking what, 8485
Michael 08:33
maybe something like that. Okay, their first gig as Nirvana was at a house party in little town called Raymond, about 30 minute drive south of Aberdeen. I think a lot of their shows were just that, or they rehearsed in. Chris' mother was a hairstylist, and she had a hair salon in town, and there was an empty space above there, and they rehearsed there. And I think they had a few audiences, just people hanging out watching them play, I think, has quite a bit, a lot of their early gigs, frankly. And then they played on April 18, 1987 they played a place called the Community world theater in Tacoma, Washington.
Dave Anthony 09:14
So at this point they've got the, you know, the early drummers, and who would just say, their early musical influences were.
Michael 09:24
The idea that Kurt had was what would happen if there was a band that mixed the Beatles and Black Sabbath you brownie, and that's what he was shooting for. Another big influence was a band from nearby montesino called the Melvins, and they were a huge, huge influence on Nirvana and Kurt and Crist. The Melvins. Were one of the pioneers of something called grunge, which fixed a kind of punk sensibility to a really slowed down super heavy sound that was kind of metal, but not really
MELVINS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN7M6SrbMDc 4 secs to 13 seconds
, and that, in turn, hail held back to later, later era Black Flag, who had started off as really fast hardcore, and then just to mess with people's heads, they started playing really slow, kind of metallic music. And that was actually very influential, not just on the Melvins, but also to the grunge scene. Curt started off really being into the Beatles and The monkeys. You It doesn't get much more pop than that, so he sure got an ear for melody later on. You know, as he became a teen, he got into hard rock and metal and so, yeah, Nirvana is just a hybrid of those two things, like I said, you know, the Beatles meets Black Sabbath. Yeah, that's a great description. Seattle was, at the time, way off the media radar. No one cared about Seattle. It was where they, like, cut down trees and build build airplanes. And it was not, you know, a lot of bands didn't even go through their home tour. It was just way so people could do whatever they wanted. And they built up a very firm community in there.
Dave Anthony 11:32
You're saying that it became kind of a little innovative hub in its own sense, because it was off the radar. That's interesting. Yeah, no
Michael 11:38
one was paying attention. There was, there was no stakes. There were no, you know, precious few ANR scouts heading up to Seattle to check out bands. So people just did whatever they wanted. And local bands, local fans and bands were, you know, very supportive of each other, and it was a cool scene. You know, a pivotal thing was recording a demo at a place called reciprocal studios in Seattle. That was this tiny, triangular studio in the Ballard section of Seattle. And they recorded with this guy, Jack and Dino, who just happened to be the godfather of grunge. And he heard this tape, he recorded, and he loved it so much, he handed it to Jonathan Poneman, who had recently joined his friend Bruce pavid in starting a label called Sub Pop, and he said, You got to hear this band. They're really great. And Jonathan loved the tape and pursued Nirvana and signed them. And that was a really, really pivotal thing that that happened. So that's how Nirvana made it to Sub Pop, and that's one crucial stop on the road to superstardom.
Dave Anthony 12:48
So that would have been 1988 ish, I guess,
Michael 12:51
yeah, that was actually the recording date. It was January 23 1988 their first single was called Love rose. God, yeah, and it was by shocking blue, who was a Dutch band that
Dave Anthony 13:19
leads us to album One bleach. What are your thoughts on that album? Like, what the sound is, pretty heavy man like on that that album, yeah,
Michael 13:27
well, that was, you know, the the heaviness of bleach was brought about by that element of Black Sabbath. You know, that sludgy, churning sound that Black Sabbath had. It also was because, in the meantime, Nirvana had picked up a pretty permanent drummer named Chad Channing, and then he really upped their game musically. And just in terms of just discipline, they worked really, really hard, and they made a really good record in in
Dave Anthony 14:02
bleach. And of course, you know, bleach has that song about a girl, which I guess was hurt writing about one of his girlfriends at the time. Thank
Speaker 1 14:22
you. Yes, that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIx2H-plXdU 26 sec to 39 secs
Michael 14:28
was basically about Tracy Miranda, who was kind of, you know, his Patreon, Kurt, you know, was averse to work, and he and Tracy became an item. She decided to support his artistic life. And I It certainly seems like he goofed off a lot, but he also took full advantage of it. He wrote a lot of songs, made a lot of visual art, paintings and sculpture and video art and things. And he, you know, to his credit and to hers. And. Um, you know, he made the most of it, and Tracy Miranda is a really key part of that story. I read
Dave Anthony 15:06
that she didn't know that that song was about her till she read it in your book.
Michael 15:10
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess she was the last to know. And when I heard bleach, that song really jumped out. I thought there was such an anomaly. And I thought, wow, this guy who's making this other music is also capable of making such a sweet, melodic, you know, pop song, which
Dave Anthony 15:32
ultimately became their differentiator. I mean, that song was a prelude to what was to come, wasn't it?
Michael 15:37
Yes, that was the differentiation. You know, a lot of the other flagship Seattle grunge bands just didn't have that, that pop sensibility, mud honey sounded, you know, they were kind of more in the Stooges vein sound garden, more in the maybe a lead Zeppelin vein with touches of The Beatles, Pearl Jam more like a classic 70s hard rock vibe. Certainly, you know, all those bands were certainly capable the catchy song now and then, but nowhere near like what Kurt was capable of. Yeah,
Dave Anthony 16:13
if you listen folks to that album and you start out with songs like blue i Lloyd, the barber. And then you get to this third song that Michael referenced about a girl you just kind of like are stunned by the by the change, as Michael said, so it's a real precursor to what was to come. The British music press started to highlight Seattle and write about it. Was almost as if the UK discovered Seattle and thought, how cool was it that this, out of the way, town was producing these cool acts? Yes,
Michael 17:04
by the way, mud honey at that point, what they were, the kings of that scene. They were, they got, you know, most of the press and the acclaim, and they were the hot thing in England. And you have to bear in mind at that time that the English music papers, and they were weeklies, and there were three of them, sounds enemy and Melody Maker. They were weekly, and they were always hungry for new stuff. And so they discovered the, see, the Great Pacific Northwest and all these, you know, burly, unshaven, you know, roughneck guys, some of them who actually weren't so, you know, roughneck, like the two of the guys in mud honey, you know, they'd gone to college, you know,
Dave Anthony 17:49
so Michael, Bruce pavid And Jonathan Pullman in founding sub pop records as a small, independent Seattle music label, Were pretty prescient in signing Nirvana and Soundgarden really helping create the grunter sound. The brilliance
Michael 18:04
of Bruce pavid And Jonathan Poneman was to exploit that, that roughneck image, because that flew in the face, not only of those, you know, those kind of prissy English pop bands, but also the the poofy hair metal bands, those, guys like, you know, with the with the gigantic Aqua net hair and the, you know, pink spandex trousers and all that stuff. So the hair metal guys had hair up to here, and the grunge guys didn't wash their hair, so it was really flat and blank, and the hair metal guys wore spandex, and the grunge guys wore jeans with holes in them. So it couldn't be more opposite. And the thing is that that look the hair metal guys looked unreal, and that was entertaining and fun, but the grunge guys looked like their audience, and people were ready for that. People were done with really fake sounding and looking music.
Dave Anthony 19:07
That's a great summary that sort of nails it on the head, that authenticity of this music in comparison to what was out there at the time. The next phase of the band is where they start kicking it into high gear. Michael and they sign to another record company, GGC records, subsidiary of the mammoth Geffen Records, to produce their second album called Never mind, which will go on to change the trajectory of modern music. Yes,
Michael 19:33
Sub Pop was having a lot of financial difficulties, and they weren't able to get their records into enough stores, and Kurt in particular, felt that it might be time to go to a major label. By that point, they had really started to accumulate a lot of buzz in the indie community. They had released a single called sliver. Mom and dad
Speaker 2 19:59
went to. To show it dropped me off the ground, but Jones I kicked and screamed supreme.
Michael 20:16
With the flip side was a song called dive, and that both of those songs were killer, but sliver was yet another kind of pop song that pointed, presumably, in a different direction, a very exciting, more commercial direction for Nirvana, and there was a lot of buzz about them. They knew something was going on when they played at a impromptu venue called the motor sports garage, which is actually a converted garage, and mud honey, the leading band up until then, was headlining, and Nirvana was playing second, and at the last minute, the promoter realized that no Nirvana should be the headliner, and that was huge. And the show was bed limb. There are photographers all over the stage from Nirvana, and it was a really big, big deal. And people knew something was up.
Dave Anthony 21:07
And so they eclipsed the people that they looked up to in some ways that night. Yes,
Michael 21:11
that was huge. And they and yes, and Kurt in particular, really, really looked up to, to mud honey. They were idols. They were, you know, the coolest band in town, and Kerr could only dream of being as cool as they were at that show. Well, the drummer for that show was Dan Peters, who actually was the drummer in mud honey, who were on hiatus, actually at the or started about to go on hiatus at the time. And Dan only wound up playing that one show because Nirvana had already decided to replace him with a drummer who was actually at that show and was about to rehearse with them the next day, I think, and his name was Dave Grohl. Dave Grohl came from Springfield, Virginia. He was the son of, let's see a banking lobbyist and a former assistant to a Republican senator, whose name I forget now, but and also a former former professional, or professional track floutist. And then Dave's mom was a school teacher, and they got divorced, Dave did not become withdrawn and inwardly kind of focused and alienated like Kurt did. In fact, Dave, I think, was, he was the president of a sophomore High School Year class, or something like that. He's very popular and and still was that guy to this day. And he got into hardcore music after being a complete Led Zeppelin fiend and joined a hardcore band from Virginia called scream. They toured all over the US and all over Europe. Played a lot of squats and punk rock dives and stuff like that. Dave speaks with his friend buzz Osborne, who was the singer, guitarist in the Melvins. And Buzz mentioned that his friends Nirvana were looking for a drummer, and one thing led to another, and Dave wound up playing with nirvana. And it's
Dave Anthony 23:21
interesting, our program director Scott Campbell asked me to ask you this. He said, You know, because Never mind, we're about to get into how big that album was. Is there a comparison to be made? And I'll let you think about this one between a Ringo star and a Dave Grohl. Ringo joined the Beatles just as they were on the upswing. And GroEL, is he the Ringo Starr of the modern age, joining a band just as it ascends?
Michael 23:47
Hmm, I would think, well, the similarities between Ringo and Dave are that they were both really coved drummers. Everyone wanted to play with Ringo. He was the hot drummer on the scene in Liverpool in those years, and Dave was the hot drummer on the in this Virginia, Washington, DC scene. So everyone wanted to play with Dave, just like everyone wanted to play with Ringo. But I would argue that it's not that the Beatles and Nirvana were, well, Nirvana, I guess, was on the upswing, but, but Dave really powered Nirvana into the stratosphere. They were, they were taking off with I don't think they would have really hit quite as hard if they didn't have such a brilliant drummer. Dave really was key. You know, there's that saying you're only as good as your drummer. And Dave just played beautiful parts, really hard and, and there was an off, kind of off stage aspect to him too, which was that he was just really no, no nonsense, very professional, you know, he could, you know, screw up, you know. Uh, with the best of him. But when it came to playing and conducting himself as a musician, he was really together, and that was a really great counterbalance to, you know, perhaps uh Nirvana's uh, worst tendency. So Right? And it's just like Ringo. Ringo was also incredibly important offstage as a steadying influence. And it can't be said enough that band members off stage presence and their professionalism or lack thereof, also has a huge bearing on a band's career, not just and even how the music sounds. So, you know, I can't overstate Dave's importance, but also I can overstate even more. Chris, importance. Chris, you know, before they started getting managers and booking agents and things like that, Chris Novoselic did a lot of running the band, and he did a lot of the liaising between the band and, you know, booking agents and clubs and record labels and all kinds of things like that. He was the guy most of the time. People didn't actually talk to Kurt. They they talked to Chris, and Chris would confer with Kurt, and then he'd come back to them. So that was also crucial. I just can't say it enough like it probably would not have happened without Chris novase, Huh? Interesting, by the way. You know, like, I say he, he was a much better musician technically than Kurt. And, like, listen, like, Chris, bass lines are the envy of many a bass player. He's, they're really interesting, well played parts,
Dave Anthony 26:39
right? Yeah, no, that's a great point, and that album powered by all three Kurt songwriting, Chris's baseline, Dave grohl's drumming, as you said, adding to the rhythm Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Speaker 3 27:02
Now. I
Dave Anthony 27:09
mean this, this song goes ballistic on MTV with the videos bring our folks back to 1991 some of them are probably too young to remember this, but just talk about the impact this album had and how it just changed everything.
Michael 27:25
Well, you know, in the early 90s you had a lot of very highly processed music. You had, like, I say, the hair metal bands. It's really glossy, you know, pop metal with a lot of you know, casual misogyny, and it was not my cup of tea. Frankly, there were a lot of boy bands, Backstreet Boys and things like that, in sync truly fake music like Millie Vanilli. A lot of you know, things like Debbie Gibson and Tiffany very you know, kind of candy floss pop music. We were about to get a new president with the Reagan era was over. After 12 years, there was a new generation emerging called Gen X. You are also known as slackers, and they were starting to assert themselves as a as a generation, as a cultural force, and you know, as a consumer force, they were buying music and other things that they wanted to buy, and they weren't going to be dictated to much longer by the powers that be. And bands like Nirvana were an expression of that, that sea change, that rebellion, you know, eventually, you know, Nirvana, and all these other bands kind of got absorbed, you know, into the into the capitalist, consumerist framework. But for a while there it was really exciting. It felt like things were really, really changing. And you heard that song everywhere, oh, my goodness, walking down the street, it'd be blasting out of a grocery store, out of passing cars, maybe someone walking down the street with something called a boom box. You You know, it was everywhere. And that hadn't happened in a very, very long time where a song was that ubiquitous, and it really just seemed to encapsulate some really big not just musical movements, but cultural movements,
Dave Anthony 29:44
yeah. And the video itself that they shot, that was played on rotation on MTV and other places. I mean, continuously, yeah,
Michael 29:53
yeah. It was, it was the pep rally from hell, I think, is what Dave roe called it. And so. So that also really appealed to the to the rebellious spirit that had been kind of bottled up. You know, the video features a bunch of kids eventually just committing like total anarchy at a pep rally in this, you know, high school setting, good
Dave Anthony 30:18
metaphor for what the what happened with music at that time? Right?
Michael 30:22
Exactly, exactly it really, it was just a master stroke. And as you say, there was more where that came from. On, on, never mind, in bloom. Come as you are, another really great song. There was just more where that came from. It was an impeccably produced record. It was just sounded fantastic on the radio with
Dave Anthony 31:16
the ubiquitous hit Smells Like Teen Spirit Nirvana's second album went on to sell over 30 million copies and thrust Kurt Cobain into the spotlight as a generational figure, in particular for the Gen X crab just coming of age. This success of the album and the fame that ensues produced some real ambivalence in Kurt, based on your book, which we'll get to shortly.
Speaker 4 31:39
Do you love Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood, Mac David Bowie and the who listen to more garage to stadiums on all podcast streaming platforms.
Dave Anthony 31:48
I wanted to switch to the personalities of the performers because you spent some time with the band in close quarters, interviewing, etc. Let's start with Kurt. Tell us now looking back on that time, what you think of his personality and sort of his relationships like, what was he really like?
Michael 32:11
Well, you know, he was never raised to believe that he would amount to anything, and he repeatedly would cop to saying that he had low self esteem, although I think you know how much low self esteem could you have and be the leader of, you know, of a rock band, you know the lead singer and guitarist of a rock band. But so there was that conflict in him. And so when you have someone with low self esteem who's never told he would amount to anything was picked on in high school, always feeling like an outcast, a depressive, melancholy person, and suddenly you get massive fame heaped on you. Everyone wants to write about you. They're analyzing your lyrics and your every utterance. And Kurt didn't even graduate from high school, so he was very self conscious about being well spoken. He just didn't think he could communicate well, and he was very reluctant to do interviews, and so he had all this pressure on him, and he just did. He wasn't built to cope with it. A lot of today's indie rock stars actually come from privilege, and they're very well spoken, very well educated, very comfortable with being the center of attention. But not Kurt. And Kurt also had the incredible handicap of being addicted to heroin, and that will put a crimp, serious dent in in anyone's life. So but he, you know, he ran hot and cold. He could be a very sweet, thoughtful person. I think he was. He was truly sensitive, not in terms of being and by that, I don't mean sort of touchy. I mean sensitive in he picked up all the singles in a room, like everyone in the room, he was kind of aware of how they felt just through body language and the tone of their voice or things like that. And that is difficult for some people to comprehend, because maybe they're not so sensitive, but there are people like that, and it's a cacophony of feeling, and they're constantly dealing with it, and a lot of those people resort to drinking alcohol or or heroin or some sort of opiate to just dull down the roar. And so I think that was a lot of what you know Kurt's story was he was incredibly sensitive, and that manifested it in beautiful ways. He could be very thoughtful and sweet, and then he could also just be incredibly irritable and sometimes mean spirited. It was rare. Mostly, he was a very sweet, soft spoken person. Often when I'd speak with Kurt and he'd say. Something about Dave. He would save Dave. He's the most well adjusted boy I know. And Kurt said that, you know, kind of mockingly, but also, I think, you know, admiringly. Dave just had it together. He was just a really together guy. His father was a high achiever. His mom was a high achiever. He was well loved when he was a kid, and he just turned out really well. And he's a very talented musician. He's a great people person, and he was just very together. I think, you know, even that sudden fame even got to him a bit, but I think it got to him the least of the three. And so that was really, really important. He is a well adjusted guy, and he's just, he's a very he's a people person, and you can see he's he can lead his own band. He does so many things, like his documentaries and and benefit shows and all kinds of stuff. Chris is also actually a leader type. He was the head of his local Grange, this kind of local political organization after Nirvana, like people follow him around. He's a leader. And it's not just because he's tall, like he's got a magnetic personality too, and he can be very goofy. He, by his own admission, he drank way too much when he was in Nirvana. But he was also the guy who kept the ship steady. He was the intermediary between Kurt and the rest of the world. So if Kurt was curled up in a ball having a, you know, a fit of depression during recording of nevermind, Chris was the guy who would take Bucha side and say, Don't worry, he'll be good in about 15 minutes. Or maybe Kurt smashes the tomahawk the monitor board at a show in Dallas one time out of frustration with the sound, and the guy who owned the board came up on stage and, well, Kurt actually hit him with the guitar, and he was all bloody. And Chris stopped him from killing Kurt, I think, and also took his shirt off his own back and wiped the blood off him, you know, like Chris is that guy. You would go over to Chris house, and he had this den, his little office, and that was where he took care of a lot of Nirvana business that was Chris just dealing with paperwork, and I don't know, who knows, like insurance or paying
Dave Anthony 37:29
people or whatever. Yeah, the administ, the administration, the
Michael 37:31
admin Exactly, yeah. So Chris did a lot of that is, you know, before they actually got full on management. So he was that guy. And so he's got this goofy side, but he's also got a very steady side that was absolutely crucial for keeping Kurt on track.
Dave Anthony 37:50
Next, we'll talk about the relationships in the band and Kurt's growing personal challenges.
Speaker 4 37:55
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Dave Anthony 38:01
Kurt in 1986 tried heroin out of curiosity about its effect. However, by the early 90s, he began using heroin regularly to cope with depression and chronic stomach pain for which doctors could not seem to identify cause. In 1991 Kurt began dating Courtney Love, lead singer of whole an all women grunge band known for hit songs like doll parts. Courtney and Kirk became regular partners in heroin usage, even to the point where custody of their infant daughter, Francis bean copayne, was taken briefly from them by authorities. Michael, you write that the guides the van were barely talking to Kurt at some points with them going weeks and even months without talking to each other while on tour. Do you think the relationship with Courtney became a factor that perhaps drove a wedge between Kurt and the others in
Michael 39:07
the band? Not so sure it was as big as people make it out to be. You know, bear in mind actually that Dave was good friends with Courtney before Kurt met Courtney. Courtney was a friend of a woman named Jennifer Finch, who Dave had dated for a while. So that was, you know, the small, indie rock, alt rock world at work there. I think really, what, what alienated Dave and Chris from Kurt was just Kurt's drug use. When people do heroin, they become very insular. They are in a different universe from everyone else. Their whole life is centered around scoring or doing drugs, and they try to keep it a secret, because they know Kurt and for instance, knew that Chris and Dave deeply disapproved of his. Roman use, so he had to keep separate to avoid conflict, and that was, you know, to the detriment of the band, for sure, but not, not just to the band, but to Chris and Kurt's long standing friendship. I mean, Crist was Kurt's best friend for many years, not to mention his foremost musical supporter. And that, you know, that fell apart for a while, and that it got better, actually, when they started working on in utero, things patched up quite a bit again, and that was because they were, they were working together, and that's, that's where they were happiest as a band. I think,
Dave Anthony 40:40
mean, these guys were perfectionists. Were they not? Yes
Michael 40:43
and no, you know, Kurt preferred to do, you know, one or two takes. But the the perfectionism was in the rehearsal. They rehearsed a lot, and they rehearsed very assiduously. I visited them when they were rehearsing for the in utero tour. Went to their practice base in South Seattle and watched them play. And they were playing, you know, Nirvana songs, kind of rough, hewn, hard rock and distorted, loud, shambling music. But Kurt would, you know, every once in a while he'd stop the music and he'd tell either Chris or Dave like to do just something subtly different, and it was all these, like, very minor points, and then they played again, and wow, all sudden, it sounded Right. And that was really amazing. That's, you know, I don't know. I don't like to toss around the word genius, but it was kind of genius, because the ordinary ear wouldn't have heard anything wrong. But the the ordinary ear also heard how much better it was after that very subtle tweak that Kurt would suggest. And he was very exacting with that stuff, not just musically, but album art, in choosing opening bands, everything, you know, the stage sets, everything, he exacted a lot of control. He He seemed very offhand, but he was actually in a lot of control, like and as a, you know, their manager, or the man who owned their management company, Danny Goldberg, said, You don't become Nirvana by accident. Uh huh. It was all, you know. It's not like Kurt was planning to be famous, but he was planning to make great music. And sometimes great music becomes really popular,
Dave Anthony 42:37
right? And very interesting. Those are incredible observations and insights. You mentioned the album in utero. It comes out, and it's got some hits on it, but it's a return to sort of a I guess it's, it's, it's Kurt's rebellion against that over studioized. Never mind. But it's got some hits, Heart Shaped Box. All apologies.
43:22
It songs
Dave Anthony 43:25
like rape me, dumb hash, these. These are still sort of in that melodic kind of Kirk kind of way, what, what? What was it? Was it kind of that rebellion that was returning to a harder punish sound. Yeah,
Michael 44:03
well, Kurt was very, you know, he was very much wanted to be accepted by the indie and punk community, and he was kind of embarrassed by how glossy and popular Never mind was. So he went back and made sure that the record was recorded by the coolest and best, I think, recording engineer of that, of that scene, that community, who was Steve Albini, and he made a very straightforward, as he always did, recording unadorned, no fancy mixing tricks or anything like that. It was just raw in your face, rock music. And it does sound super brutal, which is what Kurt wanted. He wanted to, you know, it was like, Kurt's get back album after, you know, maybe, if Never mind, was like Abbey Road, you know, this, this in utero, was like, get back to continue the Beatles. Yeah. Yeah.
Dave Anthony 45:00
That's cool in utero sells 15 million copies, solidifying Nirvana's dominance in the grunge movement. However, Kurt continues to struggle with drug addiction, depression and stomach pain. On April 5, 1994 Kurt Cobain dies by suicide at his home at the age of 27 leaving behind his wife Courtney, love and her 20 month old daughter, Francis. Kurt's death sent the music industry into shock and set off worldwide. Visuals by Nirvana fans looking back on that terrible event, Michael, you spent so much time with Kurt. Any thoughts looking back on that obviously tragic ending,
Michael 45:40
looking back, you know, particularly thinking about Kurtz, and was that I noticed that he was signaling a lot. He would, you know, say things that would, you know, hint at suicide. And, you know, he could be prone to melodrama. And so I discounted it, and I was, I was pretty young at the time, sort of naive. Hadn't really been around the block many times. I didn't really pay any mind, and neither did anyone else. But in retrospect, you could see he was hinting at what he was going to do, and that was very sobering. And I hope there is never a next time that I noticed that pattern, but if there is a next time, I hope that I can intercede somehow and make a difference in that person's life.
Dave Anthony 46:29
Uh huh. Uh huh. Some of the songs sort of hint at that pain he had, the stomach pain. There's a lot of reference to, certainly to guns and things like that. So it was interesting that he was signaling that pain in a lot of what he did. Michael, looking back, do you have any other insights or observations that you'd like to talk about of Kurt's life?
Michael 46:52
Kurt really wanted to leave Aberdeen, not just physically, but psychologically, culturally. So people in Aberdeen were homophobic. He was outspokenly not homophobic. They were sexist. He was totally feminist. They were into metal. He renounced metal, and he wanted to leave all that stuff behind. And that was his whole thing. And so the the irony of being portrayed as a, you know, a lumberjack by Sub Pop, was very galling to him. His whole goal in life was to become more sophisticated, and he continually would, would befriend people who were more sophisticated than he was, starting with Chris Novoselic, who was bilingual. Had studied abroad, was very knowledgeable about current events and things like that. Then buzz Osborne, from the Melvins, who knew about punk rock and politics, and later on, Courtney Love, a very cultured, sophisticated, well read person. He wanted to surround himself with people like that, and that was that's really crucial to understanding Kurt. What
Dave Anthony 48:01
comes to mind when I say describe each of the band members in a few words. Let's start with Kurt, and then we'll go to Dave and Chris.
Michael 48:10
Loud, soft, sweet. Yeah, I would again have for Dave, I would say the most well adjusted boy. I know that's that's more than three words and and Chris, wow, he's, he's complicated because, you know he's, he's lovable, he's a goofball, but he's also a Solid Dude, so I don't know, yeah, solid, lovable goofball.
Dave Anthony 48:37
I want to talk about Nirvana's place in music history, who have they influenced? Where will they be? What will they be remembered for?
Michael 48:47
Well, I like to draw a difference, a contrast between influence and inspiration. So Nirvana influenced a bunch of bands influenced by my definition meaning, shaped how these bands sound. So you get bands at that time like ever clear Silver Chair matchbox, 20 creed Bush, three doors down. Those are, you know, there were a lot of Nirvana clone bands, but then you have people who Nirvana inspired and Nirvana inspired, like a really incredibly inventive band from the 2000s 2000 10s now today, called Dirty projectors, who sound nothing like Nirvana. They inspired a composer named Ty and die Braxton, who does electronic music nothing like Nirvana. They inspired Lana Del Rey. They inspired the Avett Brothers, Radiohead and that, I think, is something that Kurt would be really, really proud of. He was not interested in having bands clone his sound. He wanted to hear people doing their own thing. And if he inspired those people to do it, he would have been very, very proud so that that's the musical influence. But I think, you know, Kurt was a very outspoken feminist and spoke out against homophobia and racism, and he really opened up that whole field for rock stars to speak out about that stuff. And that is, you know, let's take it for granted today, but back then, you know, I guarantee you didn't hear like the singer from warrant, railing against homophobia, that that was mostly Kurt and and and all the rock stars and pop stars after that. Can trace it back to to him, and, you know, the changes in society in general. But he really pioneered that. And so that's a really, really huge influence that they had on on music culture,
Dave Anthony 51:30
and if they kept going, if they were, if Kurt didn't, unfortunately, meet his end, what if, if they had kept going? I mean, they were starting to really, he was really into REM for example, do you think they would have went more in that direction? Michael steit, is that for, you know,
Michael 51:48
that's a, that's a parlor game, who knows? Kurt could have gone in any number of directions. He could have done, you know, a more Baroque, you know, automatic for the people, type of record they were, they had a cello on in utero, and they brought a cellist on tour, and he might have wanted to expand in a more highly arranged, more, perhaps more acoustic direction. He might have stripped it down to acoustic guitar, guitar. He may have, you know, just done a solo album. Who knows? But I know that he was growing weary of the standard Rock Band format. In fact, the working title of in utero was verse, course, verse, which was his, you know, kind of sarcastic commentary on the formulaic nature of the songs he was writing, and he wanted, he definitely wanted to explore new musical avenues.
Dave Anthony 52:46
That's interesting, because when they did the unplugged in New York, the unplugged MTV, they had, you know, Chris was playing accordion at some points, they had a, think, a cellist in there. I
Michael 53:07
lots of acoustic guitars. Acoustic guitars
Dave Anthony 53:09
would have been interesting to see where they evolved. I mean, would he have moved, like the Beatles, into more experimental
Michael 53:15
territory? Well, that's, you know, many a band has done that, you know, talking heads expanded their their musical palette. Radio had expanded their musical palette. The Beatles obviously expanded their musical palette. Like so many great bands, that's, that's what they do. I get the sense. You know, Kurt was so artistically restless. He loved to to tear things down, tear things down that he did. He would tear down his own sculptures, you know, and he kind of tore down his own music, too. And he wanted to keep building and making new things. He was never satisfied. So I, I suspect, yeah, he might have gone some more highly arranged, more ambitious music. I don't know what form that would have taken
Dave Anthony 54:04
if you had to leave the audience with some key songs, thoughts, they should give a listen to Reese. Re re listens. What would you say? There are three songs they should, should give, give a listen to to get a clue for this band. Hmm.
Michael 54:19
Well, actually, one, one song that I think is wildly overlooked, and it's not really by Nirvana, it's by a band called the jury, which Chris and Kurt formed with Mark Lanigan, the singer from Screaming Trees, and Mark pickerel, who was then the drummer for Screaming Trees. And they vowed to record Lead Belly covers. Lead Belly being the amazing folk musician from the 30s and 40s who sang Good night Irene and in the pines, which Nirvana covered during the unplugged show. And one of the songs that they covered was a Lead Belly song called, ain't it a shame? Uh, not the Fats Domino song, but, uh, it's a Lead Belly uh song, and that rocks like a hurricane. So great. And it's the only song to my knowledge that Kurt sings that's in a kind of standard rock and roll chord progression. And he just kills. It's so great. And it's absolutely kick ass. And that's on some one of those rarities boxes you can find it. But man, listen to that. They, they, that is killer, the sliver single that is such an important song in the Nirvana OOF because it really talks about it addresses Kurt's deepest desire, which was to be loved and to have that kind of feeling of of warmth and this maternal, you know, feeling of being loved that he missed he was, he was kind of rejected by his mother, you know, early in his teens, and he just wanted that back. And so it's about the climax of the song is like he comes he's back in his mother's arms after being stowed away at his grandparents for the evening, and that scream that he he admits, you know, at the end of climax of The song is it just says everything about him. Oh, I can. And the third song, also on one of these rarities records, is called Do re mi. It's just a demo that you recorded, I think, on a boom box. It's just Kurt like sitting on his bed with a acoustic guitar. And it's about the pain of of putting your soul into a song, and it's called DO RE MI, and it is beautiful and heartbreaking. Absolutely essential. Kurt, I think maybe the best song he ever wrote, and I would pay very close attention to that song,
Dave Anthony 57:28
Michael, that's those are three really thoughtful picks, and I really have enjoyed having you today. You're a thoughtful individual who can really give insights, and we really appreciate your time today. Oh, thank
Michael 57:42
you for the great questions, Dave, you brought it out of me.
Dave Anthony 57:50
Some closing notes on nirvana. The band settled on the band named Nirvana because said COVID. I wanted a punk name that was kind of beautiful or nice and pretty, instead of a mean, raunchy punk name Nirvana was certainly a step up on previous names the band sported, including Skid Row pen cap, chew TED Ed Fred And the topper of all fecal matter. After formally going forward with Nirvana, they were actually sued by a British band also called Nirvana, but that was set by the court. Nirvana was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 by Michael stuck the bar here, a band that Kirk greatly admired. One of the songs that Nirvana's remaining members, Dave Grohl and Chris novase, performed that night, was their global hit. Smells Like Teen Spirit with Joan Jett on lead vocals. We'll include a clip of that other amazing band clips on our bonus content on the garage to stadios.com website. And speaking of Smells Like Teen Spirit, we discussed the video for the song of this episode, which was played on heavy rotation on music video shows around the globe. Well, the janitor role in that video is a nod to Kurt Cobain's old job in which she worked as a high school janitor to finance early demos by the band and his early artwork. We also discussed nirona's first hit about a girl, which was inspired by Kurt's girlfriend, Tracy Miranda, drummer Chad chanin, who you'll recall was the drummer just before Dave Grohl joined the band, recalled asking Kurt what the song was about, and Kurt simply said, it's about a girl to which Channing suggested, Why don't you just call her Michael's book thumbs. You are also featured a light moment in the history of Nirvana, the record release party thrown by their new label DGC, a subsidiary of Geffen Records, in celebrating their new album, the band proceeded to drink route heavily when a fight broke out. Well, sort of a fight. It was actually a food fight started by Chris the bassist, who threw a tamale at Kurt, and Kurt responded by launching handfuls of guacamole back. Food began to fly everywhere with as our guest, Michael writes quote, no regard for the. Music Industry geeks whose suits were getting splattered, unquote. Thus, Nirvana has a spectral place in rock history as perhaps the only band ever thrown out of their own record release party. And finally, not many rockers have been involved with two successful bands, but Dave Grohl Nirvana's drummer REIT invented him. And finally, not many rockers have involved with two successful bands, but Dave Grohl, Nirvana's drummer, reinvented himself as a guitar playing lead singer of the Foo Fighters, going on to sell 32 million records with that group. Thanks for making garage to stadiums, one of the top 5% of podcasts in the world. We'd love for you to follow our shows on your favorite podcast platform, so you can be alerted when our next episode drops. Follow us for some great music history content posted on our social channels, Instagram, AX, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Our YouTube channel has additional bonus coverage from all our visit us at garage to stadiums for more bonus content on all the bands featured and links to great downloadable playlists on Apple and Spotify special. Thanks to our guest, Michael azrad, author of come as you are, and his newer version the amplified come as you are, the story of nirvana. Thanks to producers Amina faux bear and Connor Sampson, our program director Scott Campbell, video director Nigel Campbell and creative director Chad Raymond,
Dave Anthony 1:01:26
Dave Anthony, see you next time for another garage to stadiums. Story
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Another blast furnace labs production.