I Found My Friends (21 page)

SHAMBIE SINGER:
By 1989, I felt very sure about the major-label future of many of the bands who'd been part of the Sub Pop scene. Or the alternative scene, as I knew it then. I don't recall the label “indie” existing until after all those “indie” bands weren't part of the underground/alternative scene anymore. It seemed like more of a marketing/cultural meme than an accurate description of what I considered to be alternative music. I remember hearing stories about all the major-label reps that were showing up at alternative music venues like the Pyramid Club in NYC to scout out bands. And stories as well about all the money being offered to bands. This was all in 1989 … I wouldn't characterize what was happening as a new “openness” to alternative music per se. To me it just felt like labels were following each other in a mad rush to not miss out on the opportunity to make money. And maybe not for the most rational reasons—i.e., that they could actually make money on alternative bands. The whole scene had a sorta frenzied gold-rush vibe about it. Which perhaps is a bit cynical, but, hey, as I mentioned, I was always more of an SST kinda guy.

Mother Love Bone went to Polygram subsidiary Mercury Records in 1988; 1989 saw the Posies, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains heading to DGC Records, A&M, and Columbia Records respectively; and both Pearl Jam and Screaming Trees went to Epic Records in 1990. Nirvana was merely following the example of others.

MARK PICKEREL:
It was after seeing the success of groups like REM, Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü, and Camper Van Beethoven that got us all wondering if there was any room for a Northwest band at the top. Then after one of our own signed with A&M (Soundgarden), it was a mad dash for all of us to get to the next deal … We were lucky enough to share the same management as Soundgarden, Susan Silver. She could charm the skin right off a snake and that's exactly what she did for many of us—delivering us major-label contracts with her good looks, charm, and her sharp-as-a-knife smarts and know-how!

With the band almost entirely on pause, Cobain embarked on his most prolific twelve months of songwriting. Tracy Marander had ended their relationship and moved out, leaving Cobain dallying with Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill and mostly sitting at Pear Street.

DAMON ROMERO:
Kurt was sort of … not reclusive, but he didn't go out very much—he tended to stay at home. He was a charismatic person; he had people coming to
his
house! He had a lot of social contact because people would come to him. I saw him more at his apartment than I did out on the town. I knew him well enough, I'd go there and we'd watch movies. They had tons of records and he had a lot of pets, too—aquariums, turtles, rabbits or something, a whole bunch of pets—a packed place. He was listening to all kinds of music, he had the punk-rock independent stuff but I remember going one time and he said I should hear this record and he was listening to the Knack
Get the Knack
, and I was like, “Really?!” He said, “Yeah, it's a great record.” I thought commercial products like that were taboo; he thought it was great and told me I should totally listen to it. He listened to a vast spectrum of music.

JASON MORALES:
I was in Music 6000 [a legendary music shop in Olympia] once … I was quite a shy guy. At that point Kurt Cobain was more of a mysterious dude—I didn't know him that well—but sitting in there once Kurt walked up next to me, tapped me on the shoulder, said, “Hey, you're in Helltrout, right? I really like your band.” I just told him thanks … He was a normal dude, slightly shy, but for the most part nothing out of the ordinary. There was a certain air of stardom around him, he was on Sub Pop,
Bleach
was a great album—Sub Pop were local heroes at that point in time. He didn't act that way though, just a nice guy. Honestly, not really the kind of guy you'd see at parties—more of an introvert.

GEORGE SMITH:
I remember when talking to Kurt, spending hours talking about music, that he was sort of an odd little man. Getting into his world, he was in this dark little room littered with posters and stuff. He wanted to play me a record he said was really neat, really meaningful … He played it and it was just some local homespun, non-label-backed recording of some really dumb rock band—butt-rock. Dumb. Really artless. I'm so unclear why he was so taken by it but he was playing it and just looking at me—he was being really reverent toward it. I can understand, I like music like that sometimes too, where it's just so earnest and bad that it's good. But being there, unsure how to respond—I couldn't tell what his angle was; did he see the quality there or was it just so bad it was good? I think it was that it was pure, no put-on, just somebody doing their best to rock with what they had. It was pure. And it was bad. He just had this dark little cave as his hangout in that house.

While he may have been quite an insular individual, Cobain was certainly a driven one. In the run-up to recording a video on March 20—with vague intentions to sell tapes on tour—Cobain put in his homework, as well as making clear what the future held.

ALEX KOSTELNIK:
I knew Kurt from around town; he had an old cruiser fat-tire bike he'd ride downtown. He ate at the China Clipper a lot … Kurt had been spending a lot of time indoors during the daytime, at his girlfriend's town house on Pear Street. He taped literally hundreds of television advertisements and anything else gross and funny that TV had to offer. I gave him a quick tutorial on how to edit bits of video together, end-to-end. It was well understood that this was going to be simple and straightforward—play live in front of a green screen with the TV stuff playing in the background … By then they had done the Sub Pop thing, “Lithium” was played for the first time in a recording at this video session. I remember Kurt saying that they wanted to leave Sub-Pop because “they're sexist.” Kurt said he was going to use the videos to try to get a new, different record contract … the Evergreen State College had a
very lenient
loan policy—students could routinely check out, for free, whole PA systems, Nagra portable recorders, Neumann mikes. Later, Mexican black-tar heroin flooded the Northwest and theft came into full swing. No more gear party for the A/V nerds … The film students were a small bunch of kids at the Evergreen State College and Jon Snyder called me up and asked me to run a huge heavy studio camera in the TESC student television studio. It was spring break and all the staff were gone—it was time to do whatever we wanted! I got a cement bicycle parking stand from the loading dock outside and stuffed it in Chad's kick drum because every time he hit the kick pedal the drums would inch forward on the draped green-screen fabric. I put masking tape on Krist's legs so they would show up on the chroma-key. Otherwise he was a floating, legless bassist. We did “Lithium” for a sound check because I wanted to make sure Krist's bass could be heard on a tiny television speaker. Remember, this is 1990. Greg Babior did sound. He was in a band with Slim Moon called Witchypoo. Jon Snyder ran the control room and directed the camera motion. My other best lady friend, Maria, and my buddy Geoff ran a second camera. Geoff had to just be the muscle—the camera rigs weighed three hundred pounds … Krist paid me with a large pizza and $40 in $1 bills. I wasn't complaining. One of the boys came and got a copy of the tape later. They also took dubs that night … Kurt always had everything planned out. He looked like a homeless janitor/weasel; was quiet as hell, shy as hell, but what he did in his “spare time” was nothing short of amazing. He'd thought and rethought the plan probably ten times before coming in. Jon was a great collaborator too, I'm sure he added direction. You know how it goes: highly motivated people with a reason to hustle things …

Cobain's early artistic urges had emerged as all sorts of curious home experiments; one example was “Beans,” which included sped-up vocals, acoustic guitar, and a helium-voiced intro skit.

RYAN AIGNER:
The time I heard “Beans” for the very first time—Kurt came out to my car, I was up at Krist and Shelli's house, and we sat in the front and listened to it on the cassette tape in there and I was really confused as to what that was all about. He was pretty excited about it. It's overlooked that there was a sense of humor, there was a softer side—it wasn't one dimensional, this torrent all the time. Kurt was a charismatic guy and a funny guy and shy at the same time. I remember after the show at Squid Row, Kurt was asking all these questions, “What did the guitar sound like? How was my voice?” People can't imagine him being insecure about his voice—most people are focused on [how] he had this ferocious powerful voice … They can't imagine how insecure …

Cobain's 1990–1991 spell was far more focused on a particular type of song. A majority of the music that would emerge in the final years of his life would all be written at this time.

DANIEL RIDDLE:
Krist and Kurt were roadies for their friends in a band called Earth, who opened for my band, Hitting Birth, one night. We all hung out in their Ryder rental box truck, smoking pot and talking about music. Kurt did not say much until my band mates mentioned that I had been listening to the new Pixies album nonstop, driving them all crazy. Kurt perked right up, exclaiming, “If you like the new Pixies album, you're gonna love our new record. I rip the Pixies off on every tune!” Like a lot of people in that loose musical community of the time, he was funny and knew when to reveal his feelings.

The brevity of Nirvana's career often hides lengthy losses of momentum; mid-May to late October was only a blip before the anointed ruler of the Nirvana drum stool made his grand entrance; Nirvana genuinely didn't know who would drum for them.

GEORGE SMITH:
There was this weird thing where Kurt asked me to audition to play drums, but it didn't feel like an audition, it felt like “We
want
you to play drums” and we'll go up to Seattle and see how it goes. But I didn't realize he kinda handed out his business card to every drummer—I've gotten that sense since then! It ties into his response to me that he was waiting for me to call him but we'd left it that he was going to call me. He told me something like “I wanted you to love it and be so into it that you'd come back and beat my door down demanding to be in the band!” If he was flirting with a lot of musicians I can see him waiting for the one demanding to be in, the one interested enough. I was also somewhat reticent because by that point I'd heard that he was somewhat of a taskmaster … He had a distinct impression of what he wanted each composition to sound like and was not shy of telling each musician what they were going to play very precisely. I'd not been in a band like that—it wasn't the way I liked to do things.

JOSEPH HAYDEN,
I Own the Sky:
Kurt was frustrated and knew I was a pretty good drummer … Kurt expressed some concerns about Chad and the future of the band so I told him I was interested if a time came when, and if, they needed someone to fill that vacancy. I was given a cassette tape of some newer songs they had a demo recording of … I agreed to fly up to Seattle and see if things clicked … we ran through some tunes at their rehearsal studio. I remember we just played the songs through without Kurt singing any lyrics along. I also remember what a crappy-sounding drum kit was there and regretting not bringing at least my own snare and cymbals with me. It seemed to go pretty good and they assured me my playing was good. They were scheduled to play some shows with Dan Peters around that time up there. We talked about me moving up there.

Nirvana's musical friendships were good for throwing up candidates; the band considered J Mascis, who declined but passed the invitation to a friend.

MATT HUNTER:
My good friend George Berz was asked to fill that slot on J Mascis's recommendation. He said no, obviously, largely to stay with his band Gobblehoof …

LISA SMITH:
We ran into him somewhere then went bar hopping. There were some great dive bars there that were not overrun with hipsters at that time. We ended up at this bar that serves clear Screwdrivers … mostly American Indians hanging there. We all got shitty drunk and Kurt leant over and threw up in the corner then ordered another! We were cracking up. Later that night Kerry [Green] was driving and our second bass player, Jennie Trower, and Kurt were in the back making out … Let me clarify: that was after his long-term girlfriend but before Courtney started stalking him. We like to give Jennie shit about kissing Kurt
after
he had barfed!… He also looked at me and said, “Hey, we're looking for a drummer.” Think he was just being nice, but on a more serious note he asked about my friend Rey Washam in Austin because he was a big fan of his. Rey was one of my biggest influences out of the drummers that are still alive.

They'd thought about another female drummer, Patty Schemel, and their old friend John Purkey auditioned with them too.

JOHN PURKEY:
Kurt talked about wanting to find someone like John Bonham; it made sense. That's what he told me: “I want to find a drummer like John Bonham.” He was basically turning me down nicely.

Part of the trouble was that Nirvana was centered on Cobain's vision; not just anyone could play the rhythms in his head. When asked whether he actively plotted out drum parts, Tracy Marander recalls, “I didn't see him doing it when we lived together, plus he had no drums in the house. I am sure, though, that that might be one of the reasons they went through so many drummers.”

AARON BURCKHARD:
“Floyd the Barber,” that bit at the end where we're all playing the main riff—all of us together, then it's just the drums on their own? That was my idea … Drummers don't get much respect … Kurt would just show me what he wanted, then I could do my own thing; he didn't mind that.