21 years ago today, Nirvana’s “Nevermind” was released, changing the face of modern rock music, and brinigng rise to hundreds, if not thousands, of grunge rock bands.
The interview below is from Rolling Stone‘s January 27, 1994 interview with Kurt Cobain, where he reflects on his success, his influences, and (in an eerie exchange) his considerations of suicide, which he claimed to have moved past. Of course, Cobain killed himself little more than three months after that interview’s publication (though numerous theories claim that he was killed by his wife, there’s nothing substantial to prove that’s the case).
From Rolling Stone:
“It was so fast and explosive,” he says in a sleepy, gravelly voice of his first crisis of confidence following the ballistic success of Nevermind. “I didn’t know how to deal with it. If there was a Rock Star 101 course, I would have liked to take it. It might have helped me.”
“I still see stuff, descriptions of rock stars in some magazine — ‘Sting, the environmental guy,’ and ‘Kurt Cobain, the whiny, complaining, neurotic, bitchy guy who hates everything, hates rock stardom, hates his life.’ And I’ve never been happier in my life. Especially within the last week, because the shows have been going so well — except for tonight. I’m a much happier guy than a lot of people think I am.”
. . .
Last year, Cobain also made a clean breast of his long-rumored heroin addiction, claiming he’d used the drug — at least in part — to opiate severe, chronic stomach pain. Or as he puts it in this interview, “to medicate myself.” He’s now off the junk, and thanks to new medication and a better diet, his digestive tract, he says, is on the road to recovery.
It’s a fascinating look at someone who changed the face of popular music, and worth a few minutes of your day.
[Kurt Cobain: The Rolling Stone Interview]
This article appears in Sep 20-26, 2012.
all due respect, why mention “theories” Cobain was killed by his wife if there’s no substantial proof or evidence to suggest it? Wouldn’t a more interesting and related insight (while on the truth behind his suicide topic) be a mention that many in his inner circle have in recent years confirmed that an “accidental overdose” of rohypnol (sp?) and champagne led to stomach pumping and ER OD tactics taken to resurrect a flat lined Cobain occurred while on tour in Rome, Italy? Or that this secret suicide attempt (complete with its own suicide note) was considered potential evidence authorities in L.A. County Sherriff’s Dept. could exploit in attempting to fully revoke custody of Frances Bean? Wouldn’t the possible lessons for others facing suicidal loved ones be better served by revealing this very sad bu instructive incident, instead of a long debunked and vaguely misogynist urban myth involving Courtney Love’s pariah role as Yoko to Cobain’s Nirvana-ending demise?
But even the NY Times does this now. It’s called “journalism.” Sad sad day.