Kurt Cobain hangs out backstage in Massachusetts, April 1991. Photo: JJ Gonson/Redferns
JENNIFER FINCH (L7 bassist) I was going out with Dave then, so we were around all the time. We started going out when L7 did a tour in England with Nirvana. I was friends with his first band, Scream, because when I was a promoter I did a Scream show in Los Angeles. Dave and I kind of shared the role of being the youngest in both of the bands. Also, we had a very similar past with hardcore that none of the other members had shared. He was very lighthearted and very kind and considerate.
He had this problem with a stalker. I have a good memory of this because I had to keep these letters that this guy wrote me. In one of the letters, he put a newspaper photograph of Dave and I and X’d him out and threatened to kill him and do all this kind of weird stuff. Our management hired a private detective to keep tabs on that person. I think that that person eventually went away. He worked for the postal service.
BUZZ OSBORNE (Melvins singer/guitarist) Everything that Nirvana did that people consider good was clouded by some horrible thing. Everything. The happiest I ever saw them was the time that we stayed with them in L.A., when they were recording Nevermind. They had rented some condo, and I think Krist had just gotten a DUI.
BUTCH VIG One night we went to see L7 play, and I didn’t know this, but Kurt and Krist took mushrooms, and Krist was driving. He had also drank like half a bottle of whiskey by the time we got there. After the show, they disappeared. The next morning I went in at noon, and at 1 or 2, no band. I kept calling, “Where’s the band?” Finally, I got a call from [Nirvana manager John] Silva at 4 or 5, and he said, “Krist was driving the van on one of the canyon roads, drunk and tripping.” And when he got pulled over, there was still like a quarter of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and Krist was like, “I don’t want him to fuckin’ catch me with it,” so he chugged the rest literally in the 30 seconds it takes the cop to walk up to the van. So he was completely out of his mind. Of course, they arrested him and took him to the slammer.
KRIST NOVOSELIC (Nirvana bassist) You open the cell door and boom—the heat hits you from all the people in there. . . . There’s like 50 guys in there with these cigarettes and nobody has a fuckin’ match! It was totally quiet, except when somebody would walk in and [this] little guy would say, “Yougotanymatches?” Finally this guy walked in with matches and they all just lit up like crazy, smoke is filling the room.
BUTCH VIG Kurt, still trippin’ his brains out, got out and walked from wherever they were, back like seven miles, and this is like at 2 in the morning. They had to go bail Krist out, and needless to say, they were pretty fried when they came in.
BUZZ OSBORNE They were in good spirits, laughing, having fun. We went down to the studio with them one or two of the days that they were recording. Really relaxed. And it was just good. We were playing a show in San Diego, and Dave went with us down there, rode along. We had a blast. That was it, that one little window, where I was able to put all my bad feelings aside, and none of that negative stuff came up.
BUTCH VIG The afternoon we tried to track “Lithium,” we had done a few passes, and for whatever reason Dave kept speeding up and it didn’t feel good. Like halfway through the fourth take Kurt says, “Stop! Stop!” He started playing “Endless, Nameless,” and I just kept the tape rolling. Kurt was singing so hard I thought he was gonna kill somebody. The veins in his neck were bulging out, he just was pouring sweat, strangling his vocal chords, and at the end of song, he started smashing his guitar. I was in the control room and didn’t even know what to say. I went out and asked, “Are you okay?” He just got up and walked in the other room, and Krist sort of looked at me like, Whoa! I’ve never seen so much rage in someone in the studio that came out that instantaneously. It was scary to watch him play that song. I’m not kidding.
