Kurt Cobain: News, History & Updates

Kurt Cobain Biography by Greg Prato

Excerpts from Greg’s books for Alternative Nation

TRACY MARANDER [Photographer (cover of Nirvana’s Bleach), girlfriend of Kurt Cobain]: I remember Kurt complaining so much about how when they would open up for bands, they would have to play at 9:30 or something. And a lot of people – especially in Seattle – didn’t show up to shows until 10:30 or 11:00. So, they’d already be done playing. Eventually, through word of mouth, people would start to show up a little earlier. And pretty soon, people were actually showing up to see them open up. Later, when he toured quite a bit, he said, “Now I know why people don’t show up early for shows. We’ve got so many bands that open up for us that just suck.”

CRAIG MONTGOMERY [Nirvana’s soundman]: Kurt was pretty much just a head full of hair – that was all you could see. But the first thing we thought was that he had this great voice – he sounded like Creedence Clearwater Revival. [Laughs] A lot of people noticed that.

TRACY MARANDER: Kurt and I used to talk about when they’d make mistakes at shows. He used to get frustrated at Krist a lot, because Krist would make quite a few mistakes playing bass. I’m like, “You know what Kurt? People who are musicians in the audience, they might notice he made mistakes in the songs, but your general audience – who aren’t musicians and just love the songs – they don’t hear those mistakes.”

ROBERT ROTH [Truly singer/guitarist]: My impressions of Kurt [circa Bleach] was he was very focused. Definitely wanted to push the band forward. Genuinely ambitious, but in a sort of focused, meditative way. When we rehearsed [for Robert’s tryout to be Nirvana’s second guitarist, after Jason Everman left], it was like Kurt was on stage – closing his eyes, really getting into it, really laying himself out there. Just watching him was pretty intense.

TRACY MARANDER: He was a Screaming Trees fan, he liked Mudhoney. He didn’t really like Blood Circus. Wasn’t too big of a fan of Mother Love Bone. He was a big Scratch Acid fan, the Melvins, Soundgarden. Later on, he was a big fan of the Vaselines. As they toured, he got to see more bands and hear more bands from other people. It kind of expanded what he listened to musically.

RON HEATHMAN [Supersuckers guitarist]: I was a little bit friendly with Kurt. I knew Dylan [Carlson] fairly well. Later on, when it got a bit crazy, him and Courtney came to one of our shows on New Year’s at RKCNDY, and we hung out for a bit afterwards and talked. Talked about music, guitars, and whatnot. And we talked about the Pixies a lot. In fact, before all the interviews ever came out with Kurt talking about being obsessed with the Pixies, we always assumed that he was. You could totally hear it in the music, and it turns out that he was.

SCOTT VANDERPOOL [DJ, Room Nine/Young Pioneers drummer]: When that happened [Cobain’s body was discovered on April 8, 1994], I was at KXRX. The guy who found Kurt – the alarm installer – before he even called the police, he called the radio station, because he was a fan and I guess that’s where he first heard Nirvana. I was doing the mid-day shift, and one of the guys who had been on the morning show actually took the call, and ended up putting it on the air. That was right before the shift change.

Then I come on the air, and within fifteen or twenty minutes, the receptionist had let this news crew from one of the TV stations in. I was kind of in shock, because this thing with him O.D.’ing [in Rome on March 4, 1994, which he recovered from] had just happened. I was a little worried about the guy, and then we hear that they found somebody dead at his house. I didn’t know that it was him, but I was a little worried. In comes this woman, and she starts asking all these questions. And I think the third question was, “Do you think Nirvana will get a new lead singer?” And that was it. I was like, “You know what? Get the fuck out.”

BLAG DAHLIA [Dwarves singer]: He was the best songwriter of the era, I think. But as often happens once the marketing machine takes over, Nirvana’s importance was vastly overstated. Laughable comparisons to the Beatles aside, they had one style, one sound, one tempo. But hey, it worked.

QUOTE SOURCES (CLICK LINK FOR ORDER INFO):
All quotes are from I Love Grunge: Grunge Is Dead Outtakes