It's the year 1990 and Nirvana is becoming a more stronger and stable band.
Chad Channing, their former drummer left the band and now Dave Grohl is their new drummer!
Kurt was frustrated they went through so many drummers. In 1988 he wrote in his journal: 'We have struggled with too many dedicated drummers for the past 3 years.' 'For the last 9 months, we have had the pleasure to take Chad who plays the drums under our wings and develop what we are now and always will be: Nirvana'!!! Not knowing he would change his mind really soon.
Cobain's journals offer a glimpse into the mind of the brilliant artist.
Back in 1988 Nirvana was in need of stability It would be a mutual friend who introduced them to drummer Chad Channing and, after sharing some musical experiences and talking, there was a connection and the three musicians agreed to jam together. That said, he was never formally asked to join the band but played his first show in May 1988. Following the success of their first album Bleach, a terrific, dark, raw Punk album.
Nirvana Interview - January 6th, 1990 - Seattle, Washington (Kurt/Krist/Chad)
This was before Dave Grohl became their drummer.
Kim Cobain: "When he was living with Tracy in Olympia, there was a music scene there, and he met other people. I mean, there was K Records and The Evergreen State College radio station, and there were a lot of people into music there. There’s a lot more access to, you know, other people that were into music and into kind of underground type music, and I think that that was something that just helped him."
Nirvana began seriously working on their sound in April 1990. With a clear determination, Kurt and Krist quickly became unhappy with Channing’s limited drumming capabilities which they thought was hampering the band. Channing was equally frustrated at his band mates for not letting him be involved in the songwriting process and he soon left the band by ‘mutual consent’. Meanwhile, as chance would have it, Dave Grohl’s band Scream had suddenly split up and he called his friend Buzz Osbourne for advice about what to do next. Buzz knew Nirvana needed a drummer so made the call and Grohl was given the opportunity to audition and the rest, as they say, is history. Grohl would become the main drummer of the band, solidifying the group’s presence as one of the greatest Grunge Punk Band's ever!!!
In an interview with Cobain by Studio Brussels (a radio station in Belgium which took place in Ghent during November 1991) Cobain says: “Krist Novoselic and I have been playing together for about four and a half years now with a few different drummers,” Cobain says in the interview. “Dave has been in the band for about a year. This is the first time we’ve felt like a very definite unit."
“The band is finally complete because all the other drummers we had pretty much sucked.”
Nirvana - First Show with Dave Grohl - Olympia in 1990
Dave Grohl remembers the time he joined Nirvana back in 1990 just as they were about to explode with their 1991’s masterpiece “Nevermind,” Grohl explains:
"You know what happened to me when I joined Nirvana? Well..in 1990 Nirvana went on tour, and somewhere around Seattle two friends, Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic, attended a gig. 'He beats the drums like he's beating the shit out of people's heads', Kurt would later write in his journal, soon after inviting Grohl to join his own band. Grohl was torn apart: or he was to stay with Scream, his pals, or join Nirvana, who at the time were "kind of popular in the underground scene, and getting much attention. I called my mother, my rock, one of the wisest people in the world, and asked what to do. She told me there are times in life when you have to do what's best for yourself."
So I joined Nirvana!!!!!!!!!!!!
"It's nice when things are nice, but sometimes you just have to be selfish. I took my mom's advice and I'm glad I did it". This proved to be a great move. Kurt Cobain was developing himself into a genius songwriter and, according to one of the band's early producers, was further enthusiastic by the arrival of their new drummer Dave who 'hits his drums as if mashing heads'. Together the new trio recorded an album that would became one of the best and moste unique grunge albums ever made: Nevermind.
Nirvana October 24, 1990 With Krist, Kurt and Dave.
In his private life, Kurt still lived with Tracy in their house in Olympia. Kurt was always creating something. Then he was playing guitar, painting or he wrote a song. Tracy once said in an interview:
"He had a lot of those Visible Man little figurines that he’d put together with anatomy and stuff, but I don’t really know how much he was interested in it. I just know that he looked at it more like as an art thing. Maybe he was fascinated with the human body. But he would build those Visible Man things and then sometimes he’d get, like, a medical book with, like, really gross pictures in it of diseased parts of your body or something that he found in a thrift store. But I don’t think he—I think that was just part of the art. I don’t think it was a total fascination with it."
His sister Kim Cobain said about Kurt's creativity: "It had to have been probably when he met Tracy that he got more into, like, nostalgia-type stuff. He really liked the toys of the 70's, and I think that the anatomy thing was just fascinating to him, you know? How did the body work? I think his fascination with human anatomy and what we can do and what women can do, like, producing babies— that was just something in him."
Krist: "Kurt had an outlet. His creativity. And if you look at it, it’s dark, and then there’s always some, like, mutilated body, some kind of organ, some kind of anatomy going on. In a lot of ways, it’s very beautiful. I mean, it’s well done. But something’s not right. It’s all off."
Tracy: "He had a big collage on the wall with pictures of diseased vaginas and then, like, people or just random things that he made. I was just, like, “Oh, great,” you know?"
Kurt's collage of Meat Artwork with Chim-Chim in Front. A lot of his art was pretty dark, and maybe, that’s just the things he thought of.
Krist: He had a lot of feelings. He could be sweet, but he could be vicious, too. I guess there was a dichotomy there: He could be really bland and unamused, or he could be very intense. Kurt was an artist. He always had to express himself—he never had, like, idle hands, you know? He wasn’t lazy. He’d never not get out of bed, but he’d never clean his kitchen or clean his house. He just wasn’t interested in that. He’d always be drawing or making sculptures or making music. He was always compelled to express himself somehow.
Painting Kurt made of a baby. Kurt was obsessed with them. In the corner is a dollar bill visible, just like the album cover of Nevermind.
In an in interview on April 18th, in 1990 in Cambrigde, UK, Kurt said:
Interviewer: So, what's your objective as a band?
Kurt Cobain: To write really good music, to write the best music we possibly can. That comes before anything else, it comes before philosophy, image or playing live. It's always been the main point. Just songs. As a unit we've come a whole lot closer to getting where we wanna be as a band.
(more coming soon!!)
Comments