During a recent Live Nation conversation, Dave Grohl revealed how his late Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain’s death created a mythology of Cobain. He compared it to other famous musicians who died, and said the perception of Cobain post death is not the man he remembered. Alternative Nation transcribed Grohl’s touching tribute to his bandmate 25 years after his death.
“After he died, I didn’t want to play music at all. Everything, the whole world was turned upside down. It was bad.
One of the things that changed for me was understanding that these people, these posters, these one dimensional icons, these music heroes, the Elvis Presleys, the Bob Marleys, the Jim Morrisons of the world, you look at these pictures, and you sometimes forget that they’re people. When I talk about Nirvana, to me it was just three dudes in a van.
So when Kurt died, all of that changed. There was this new sort of perception of the band, and the person. It was really complicated and weird.”
Kurt Cobain died by suicide on April 5, 1994, leading to the dissolution of Nirvana. Dave Grohl received an offer to join Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers months later, but he ultimately decided to focus on his own music, recording Foo Fighters’ debut album by himself before forming the band and releasing the album in 1995.
You can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
