Kurt Donald Cobain was born in Grays Harbor Community Hospital on February 20th, 1967 in Aberdeen, Washington. His mother Wendy was a cocktail waitress and his father Donald was a gas station mechanic at Chevron in nearby Hoquiam where they lived at 2830 Aberdeen Ave. He had a younger sister named Kimberly who was born on April 24th, 1970. When Kurt was six months old, they moved to Aberdeen, Washinton, (a rural logging community outside Seattle), where they resided at 1210 East 1st Street. At age two, Kurt develops an interest in music. When Kurt was six years old he was diagnosed as hyperactive. He was put on Ritalin, but the drug failed when it maked him more hyper. He was then put on sedatives, which maked him too sleepy. His parents later decided to just cut out sugar and it seemed to work. When he was eight his mother and father seperated and divorced. (Kurt said that his parent's split fueled a lot of the anguish in Nirvana's music.) The divorce made him withdrawn and anti-social. He was shuffeled from one relative's house to the next and was even homeless at one point, living under a bridge. He also slept in abandoned buildings and a long line of couches, in Aberdeen and Olympia, Washington. "His thing was, build your own world," Krist once said of Kurt. "Where ever he lived, he'd have all this stuff on the walls, drawings or music or things he had collected." He eventually moved back in with his mother when she got re-married. At the age of 14, Kurt got his first guitar. A few weeks before he gratuated at the age of 18, he decided to drop out of school. Kurt met Krist Novoselic in highschool while living in Aberdeen in 1985. Novoselic and Cobain formed a band together with Cobain on drums, Novoselic on bass and whoever was around on guitar. In 1985, Kurt left Aberdeen for Olympia. They went through several names for the band and in 1986 they came up with Nirvana. Cobain went to guitar and vocals, and drummer Chad Channing was added. They went through several people before they finally added Ohio-born Dave Grohl. The list includes: guitarist Jason Everman, drummers Aaron Burckhard, Chad Channing, Dale Crover of the Melvins and Mudhoney's Dan Peters. In June of 1989 Nirvana recorded their first album "Bleach" just under $600 under the independent label Sub Pop records. On that album, the song "About a Girl" was invented one night after Kurt spent hours listening nonstop to "Meet the Beatles!" .
Dave, who was from a D.C.-hardcore band Scream, replaced Channing in September, 1990. Nirvana became very popular in Britain and by 1991 they signed a contract with Geffen records. Nevermind was released on September 24, 1991. Nevermind sold ten million copies, went triple platinum, and sold a reported $550 million (US). "Smells Like Teen Spirit" became the anthem for the grunge generation. But Cobain worried that Nirvana had sold out, that it's fan base had started to include mainstream jocks, metalheads, and alternative wannabes; the very people Nirvana was supposed to alienate. Kurt was never comfortable with the fame and said, "If there was a Rock Star 101 course, I would have liked to take it. It might have helped me."
In February, 1992 Kurt married an all ready pregnant Courtney Love in Hawaii. In August, 1992 Frances Bean Cobain was born. (Frances Bean was named after the singer of a scottish band called the Vasolines.) Incesticide was released later that year.
Incesticide was a compilation of B-sides and rarities in late 1992. Spring 1993, they hired Steve Albini, (Pixies, Breeders, Jesus Lizard), to produce In Utero. Nirvana cut the album in two weeks: Kurt sang most of the vocals in a day, in one seven hour stretch. Kurt hated that they rushed through it so fast. Even after the album was released in September, 1993, Kurt openly spoke of his disappointment: "Definitley 'Pennyroyal Tea' - that was not right...I know that's a strong song, a hit single." Scott Litt remixed "Pennyroyal Tea" for a 1994 release, but Kurt's death ended all promotion for the album, and the single was cancelled. After In Utero was released, Nirvana went on a three month North American tour which included "MTV's Unplugged". (MTV's Unplugged took place in New York at the Sony Picture Studios on November 18, 1993. The band consisted of Kurt, Dave, Krist, Pat Smear and cellist Lori Goldston.) Kurt also complained that Nirvana had not done enough with the power of quiet, that he'd waited too long- until "Dumb" and "All Apologies" on In Utero- to show how much he loved and learned from the Beatles and R.E.M.. ("Dumb" was first recorded as an electric trio whisper for the BBC in the fall of 1991.)
On October 23,1993, Nirvana had already performed "You Know You're Right" in concert at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. On Sunday, January 30, 1994, Kurt recorded "You Know You're Right" in the Robert Lang Studios in northern Seattle. It was Kurt's first formal recording date with Nirvana in nearly a year. It would be Kurt's final session with the band. In February 1994, Nirvana's European tour ended from Cobain's drug overdose in Rome. On April 8 of that year, Kurt's body was found in a room above his garage. Kurt was just 27.
Later in 1994, Geffen released the unplugged sessions calling the album "Unplugged in New York". Shortly after this release, another live album was released intitled "From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah".
"It's easy to remember him being sad" Dave said "But the things that I like to think about are his happiness, and how much he loved music, whether it was sitting in a living room and playing an acoustic guitar, or playing at the Off Ramp in Seattle. He really, really loved creating music."
Krist Novoselic went on to start his own band called "Sweet 75". Dave Grohl teamed up with Pat Smear and formed "The Foo Fighters". As for Nirvana, they will always continue to live on in the hearts of all their fans. |
