The story of Nirvana

Growing up in Aberdeen

Kurt Cobain was born on the twentieth of February 1967 in Aberdeen, a logging town on the coast of Washington State. His mother Wendy was a waitress and his father Donald a car mechanic. Music ran in the family. An uncle played in a band called the Beachcombers, and his aunt Mari remembered him singing the Beatles' Hey Jude at the age of two. When Kurt was nine his parents divorced, and his mother said his personality changed completely. The happy, excitable boy became defiant and withdrawn. He later admitted he had felt ashamed of his parents and desperately wanted a normal family. He bounced between relatives, and at his mother's house he witnessed a violent boyfriend beat her so badly that her arm was broken.[1]

On his fourteenth birthday an uncle offered Kurt a choice between a bike and a used guitar. He took the guitar, and was soon picking out Louie Louie and AC DC's Back in Black. He played left handed, even though he had been made to write with his right. Through school classes he met Buzz Osborne of the local band the Melvins, who lent him punk records and old copies of Creem magazine. Kurt watched hundreds of Melvins rehearsals and even drove their van. There was a darker side too. He started drinking at around twelve, and in 1986 a dealer in Tacoma gave him his first heroin. Two weeks before graduation he dropped out of Aberdeen High School, and his mother soon packed his belongings into boxes.[1] [2]

Krist Novoselic was born on the sixteenth of May 1965 in Compton, California, to Croatian immigrants, and Croatian was his first language. His family moved to Aberdeen in 1979, and for a year he was sent to live with relatives in Zadar, in what was then Yugoslavia. That is where he discovered the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. Back home the very tall, gentle teenager fell in with the same Melvins crowd as Kurt. Kurt wanted to form a band and handed Krist a demo tape by Fecal Matter, a joke band he had recorded with Melvins drummer Dale Crover. Krist took a very long time to listen to it, but when he finally did, he liked it and suggested they start a group.[1] [2] [3]

Their first try was a Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute band, with Kurt on drums and Krist singing. It did not last. In early 1987 they found a drummer, Aaron Burckhard, and played their first gig at a house party in the small town of Raymond. The band cycled through names like Skid Row, Pen Cap Chew, Bliss and Ted Ed Fred. They first played as Nirvana on the nineteenth of March 1988 in Tacoma. Kurt said he wanted a name that was beautiful, not a mean punk name. Burckhard was gone after he kept skipping practice and got Kurt's car impounded following a drunk driving arrest. Dale Crover drummed on their first demo, then came Dave Foster, and finally Chad Channing, who joined in the spring of 1988.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Sub Pop and Bleach

The Seattle label Sub Pop, run by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, put out Nirvana's first single in November 1988. It was a cover of Love Buzz by the Dutch band Shocking Blue, and it launched the Sub Pop Singles Club, pressed in just one thousand numbered copies. In Britain, the journalist John Robb made it single of the week in Sounds, the band's first mention in the UK press. On Christmas Eve 1988 they started recording their debut album with local producer Jack Endino at Reciprocal Recording. Thirty hours of studio time cost six hundred and six dollars and seventeen cents. The money came from Jason Everman, who joined as a second guitarist and was pictured on the cover, even though he never played a note on the record.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Bleach came out on the fifteenth of June 1989. It was heavy and sludgy, shaped by the Melvins and by Black Sabbath. Kurt said he felt pressure from Sub Pop to play straight rock, so he held back his poppier side. One song slipped through anyway. About a Girl was written after he spent three hours listening to Meet the Beatles, and it was about his girlfriend Tracy Marander. She was supporting them both by working in a Boeing plant cafeteria and wanted him to get a job. She also took the photo on the album cover, and only learned the song was about her years after his death. Bleach became a college radio favorite and sold around forty thousand copies before the big break.[1] [2] [3]

That summer Nirvana made its first national tour, but cut it short and drove home because of friction with Jason Everman. Nobody actually told Everman he was fired, and he later said he had quit. His life then took an extraordinary turn. After a spell with Soundgarden he enlisted in the United States Army in 1994, served as a Ranger and in the Special Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later earned a philosophy degree from Columbia University. Nirvana, meanwhile, toured Europe in late 1989. According to biographer Charles Cross, Kurt broke down in the middle of a show in Rome that November, smashed his guitar, climbed a speaker stack and shouted that he was going to kill himself. He came down, took a day off, and finished the tour.[1] [2] [3]

In August 1989 Kurt and Krist joined Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees for a side project that recorded songs made famous by the blues singer Lead Belly, including Where Did You Sleep Last Night. Kurt had discovered Lead Belly after reading that William S. Burroughs told young rock musicians to listen to him instead. At the end of that year Nirvana recorded the Blew EP, and Kurt told John Robb the songs were getting poppier as he got happier. He was also smashing so many guitars on stage that Sub Pop had to phone local pawn shops to find replacements. His early instruments were cheap, including a twelve string acoustic that cost him thirty one dollars and twenty one cents, held together with duct tape.[1] [2] [3]

Enter Dave Grohl

In April 1990 Nirvana went to Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, to record a second album for Sub Pop with a producer named Butch Vig. The working title was Sheep. They cut eight songs, including early versions of In Bloom, Lithium, Breed and Polly, before Kurt strained his voice. Tension had been growing with Chad Channing. Kurt and Krist were unhappy with his drumming, and Channing was frustrated at being shut out of the songwriting. He left after the spring tour. Only one recording from those sessions made it onto Nevermind, the quiet song Polly with Channing's cymbal crashes, and he was not credited for it until a deluxe reissue. Years later Dave Grohl would say Channing wrote some of Nirvana's best known drum parts.[1] [2] [3]

Around this time Kurt split with Tracy Marander and began seeing Tobi Vail, drummer of the riot grrrl band Bikini Kill and a respected zine writer. He was so nervous after first meeting her that he threw up, which later became the line in Aneurysm about loving someone so much it makes you sick. One night Vail's bandmate Kathleen Hanna wrote Kurt smells like Teen Spirit on his bedroom wall. It was a joke about a deodorant Vail wore, but Kurt had never heard of the brand and took it as a revolutionary slogan. The relationship faded, and it hurt. His biographer Charles Cross wrote that in the four months after the breakup, Kurt wrote half a dozen of his most memorable songs, all about Tobi Vail.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

In the summer of 1990 Nirvana cut the single Sliver with Mudhoney drummer Dan Peters. It told the story of a little boy stuck at his grandparents' house, begging to go home, and Kurt called it a statement, a pop song to prepare people for what came next. Then Buzz Osborne took Kurt and Krist to see the Washington hardcore band Scream. Their drummer was Dave Grohl, born on the fourteenth of January 1969 in Warren, Ohio, who had lied about his age to join Scream at seventeen and dropped out of high school. When Scream fell apart in the middle of a tour, Grohl phoned Osborne, got Krist's number, and flew to Seattle. Krist later said they knew within two minutes he was the right drummer.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Grohl had his own first impression. He remembered thinking that on their record cover they looked like psycho lumberjacks, and he could hardly believe the little guy and the huge guy in front of him were Nirvana. Dan Peters played just one show before Grohl took over, and he later said his only regret was missing Nevermind. The demos with Butch Vig were now circulating among major labels, and Sub Pop was short of money. Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon kept recommending the band, and Nirvana signed to DGC, part of Geffen Records. Geffen paid Sub Pop seventy two thousand dollars for the contract, plus a share of profits and the Sub Pop logo on future albums. Kurt received a large advance and still kept buying cheap guitars.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Nevermind

To raise gas money for the drive to Los Angeles, Nirvana played Seattle's OK Hotel on the seventeenth of April 1991, and debuted a new song called Smells Like Teen Spirit. Kurt had only a riff and a chorus. Krist called it ridiculous, so Kurt made them play it for an hour and a half, until Krist slowed it down and Grohl found the beat. It became the only song on the album credited to all three. Kurt admitted he was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. In May and June they recorded at Sound City in Van Nuys with Butch Vig, on a budget of about sixty five thousand dollars. Kurt hated doubling his vocals until Vig told him John Lennon did it, and he often finished lyrics minutes before singing them.[1] [2] [3]

The mix went to Andy Wallace, who had worked on Slayer records, and it came out polished and huge. The band loved it at first, but Kurt later sneered that it sounded closer to Mötley Crüe than to punk rock. He dropped the title Sheep for Nevermind, partly because it was grammatically wrong. The cover came to him while watching a television program about water births. It showed a four month old baby called Spencer Elden swimming toward a dollar bill on a fishhook. Geffen worried about the nudity and prepared an alternative, but Kurt refused to back down. At mastering, a hidden noise track called Endless, Nameless was accidentally left off the first twenty thousand or so copies, and Kurt phoned the engineer to demand it be fixed.[1] [2]

Nevermind was released on the twenty fourth of September 1991. Geffen hoped it might sell two hundred and fifty thousand copies. The Teen Spirit video was the first ever for director Samuel Bayer. It was shot in one day in Culver City as a high school pep rally, with cheerleaders wearing anarchy symbols. By the end of the day the extras were sick of sitting through take after take, so when Kurt persuaded Bayer to let them mosh, the chaos on screen was real. MTV premiered it on its late night alternative show, One Twenty Minutes, and soon moved it into daytime rotation. Radio programmers complained they could not understand a word, so MTV aired a version with the lyrics running along the bottom of the screen.[1] [2]

By Christmas 1991 Nevermind was selling around four hundred thousand copies a week in America. In January 1992 it knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous off the top of the Billboard album chart, and Teen Spirit reached number six on the singles chart. Nirvana was credited with ending the era of hair metal almost overnight, and alternative rock suddenly became the mainstream. At Sub Pop, Bruce Pavitt said they went from not being able to pay the phone bill to getting a check for half a million dollars. Fugazi's Guy Picciotto said it made his own band feel like they were playing ukuleles. Nevermind has sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, and in 2004 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry.[1] [2] [3]

Fame, marriage and heroin

Success arrived just as Kurt's heroin use turned into addiction, by the end of 1991. He claimed he was treating a painful stomach condition that doctors never diagnosed. By late 1991 he was with Courtney Love, singer of the band Hole, and the two bonded partly through drugs. On the eleventh of January 1992 Nirvana played Saturday Night Live, the same weekend Nevermind hit number one. During a photo shoot beforehand Kurt kept falling asleep because he had used heroin. The morning after the show he suffered his first near fatal overdose, and Courtney revived him. His bandmates were frightened, but Kurt told biographer Michael Azerrad that nobody was going to tell him to stop, and that to them it was like witchcraft.[1] [2]

Kurt and Courtney married on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii on the twenty fourth of February 1992. She wore a satin and lace dress once owned by the actress Frances Farmer, and he wore pajamas because, he said, he was too lazy to put on a tux. Dave Grohl was there, Krist was not. Their daughter Frances Bean Cobain was born in Los Angeles on the eighteenth of August 1992. That September, Vanity Fair ran a profile by Lynn Hirschberg suggesting Courtney had used heroin while pregnant. She said she was misquoted, though she later admitted using before she knew she was pregnant. Los Angeles child welfare officials took the couple to court, and baby Frances was briefly taken from their care. Courtney later called the article a factor in Kurt's decline.[1] [2] [3]

Money caused a crisis inside the band. Royalties had always been split three ways, but in March 1992 Kurt asked for a bigger share to reflect that he wrote most of the music. Grohl and Novoselic agreed, but when Kurt demanded it be backdated to the release of Nevermind, the fight nearly broke up Nirvana. After a week of tension he got seventy five percent, backdated, and bad feeling lingered. The band skipped a full American tour, and rumors spread that Kurt was seriously ill. So at the Reading Festival on the thirtieth of August 1992, he was wheeled on stage in a hospital gown and wig by journalist Everett True, sang a line of The Rose, collapsed, then got up and led one of the band's greatest shows.[1] [2]

Ten days later came the MTV Video Music Awards. MTV had refused to let them play the unreleased Rape Me, so Kurt strummed its opening bars to panic the producers, then swung into Lithium. Backstage there was trouble with Guns N' Roses. Nirvana had turned down an invitation to tour with them, calling them corporate, and Axl Rose had insulted Kurt and Courtney from the stage. When Courtney jokingly asked Axl to be Frances's godfather, he told Kurt to keep his wife quiet, and Kurt sarcastically turned and told Courtney to shut up. Krist and Duff McKagan exchanged angry words. Nirvana still won Best New Artist and Best Alternative Video, and that same night Kurt slow danced with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder during Eric Clapton's performance.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Kurt used his fame to speak out. Nirvana played a benefit against an Oregon ballot measure, which would have made schools teach that homosexuality was wrong, and joined L7's Rock for Choice campaign, which brought Kurt death threats from a few anti abortion activists. In December 1992 the label released Incesticide, a collection of rarities meant to beat the bootleggers. Its liner notes told anyone who hated gay people, people of color or women to leave the band alone and stop buying their records. Kurt also reached out to one of his literary heroes, William S. Burroughs, and added guitar to Burroughs reading his story The Junky's Christmas. They met at Burroughs's home in Lawrence, Kansas, in October 1993.[1] [2]

In Utero and Unplugged

For the third album Nirvana wanted something rawer, and chose Steve Albini, the famously blunt Chicago engineer behind the Pixies' Surfer Rosa. Albini had called Nirvana an unremarkable version of the Seattle sound, but took the job. His letter to the band said that if a record takes more than a week to make, somebody is messing up, and that he wanted to be paid like a plumber. He took a flat fee and refused royalties that could have earned him around half a million dollars. In February 1993 the band went to Pachyderm Studio in snowy Cannon Falls, Minnesota, paying the costs themselves so the label could not interfere. Krist compared the isolation to a prison camp. The sessions were finished in about two weeks.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Then came a storm of press stories claiming the label thought the album was unreleasable. Those reports were untrue, but the band did feel the bass and vocals were too quiet, and R.E.M. producer Scott Litt remixed Heart Shaped Box and All Apologies. Kurt's original title was I Hate Myself and I Want to Die, a phrase he used as a joke answer when people asked how he was. Krist talked him out of it, fearing a lawsuit, and the name In Utero came from a poem by Courtney. The lyrics were full of illness and anatomy. Scentless Apprentice, built on a riff by Grohl, came from the novel Perfume, and Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle drew on a biography of the troubled actress.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

In Utero came out in September 1993 and went straight to number one in both America and Britain. Walmart and Kmart refused to stock it, fearing customers would object to the back cover and the song Rape Me. Nirvana agreed to an edited version in March 1994, with the song renamed Waif Me. Kurt explained that in some towns Kmart was the only place kids could buy records. Anton Corbijn directed the Heart Shaped Box video, with every frame tinted by hand. The director of their earlier videos, Kevin Kerslake, sued, claiming the ideas were his, and the case was settled after Kurt died. For the tour the band added guitarist Pat Smear of the punk band Germs, who at first thought Kurt's phone call was a prank.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Behind the scenes the addiction was getting worse. On the second of May 1993 Kurt overdosed at home in Seattle and was rushed to Harborview Medical Center. In July, before a show in New York, he overdosed again, and Courtney revived him herself with the overdose drug naloxone. He went on stage that night and the audience never knew. Police confiscated his guns twice in the months that followed. Charles Cross wrote that by early 1994, Courtney had seen Kurt close to death from overdoses more than a dozen times. Yet on the road that autumn, on the band's first American tour in two years, many nights were triumphant, and Kurt spoke excitedly about Krist and Dave contributing more songs.[1] [2] [3]

On the eighteenth of November 1993 Nirvana taped MTV Unplugged at Sony Studios in New York. Kurt asked for stargazer lilies, black candles and a crystal chandelier. The producer asked if he meant like a funeral, and Kurt said exactly. He was nervous and in withdrawal, and had refused to play the day before. Instead of the hits, they chose deep cuts and covers, among them David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World, songs by the Vaselines, and three Meat Puppets songs with Cris and Curt Kirkwood on stage. Cellist Lori Goldston joined them. The whole set was filmed in a single take. It closed with Lead Belly's Where Did You Sleep Last Night, and Kurt refused an encore, saying he could not top it.[1] [2]

The last months

At the end of January 1994 Nirvana booked three days at Robert Lang Studios in Seattle. Kurt did not show up for the first two, so Krist and Dave worked on Grohl's songs, some of which became early Foo Fighters tracks. On the third day Kurt arrived, and they recorded a song listed on the tape sheet simply as Kurt's Tune number one. It was You Know You're Right, the last studio recording Nirvana ever made. In February they toured Europe. The final concert was on the first of March 1994 at Terminal Eins in Munich, and the final song they ever played live was Heart Shaped Box. Kurt was then diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis, and flew to Rome to rest.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

On the morning of the fourth of March, in a Rome hotel, Courtney woke to find Kurt unconscious after mixing champagne with the sedative Rohypnol. He was rushed to hospital. Dave Grohl later wrote that he got a call saying Kurt had died, and then another saying he was alive. The management company called it an accident, but Courtney later said it was his first suicide attempt. The rest of the tour was cancelled. Back in Seattle, on the eighteenth of March, Courtney called police saying Kurt had locked himself in a room with a gun, and officers removed several guns. On the twenty fifth of March she organized an intervention with about ten friends and colleagues. Kurt was furious, but agreed to go into detox.[1] [2] [3]

On the thirtieth of March, before flying to Los Angeles, Kurt asked his friend Dylan Carlson to buy him a shotgun, saying it was for self protection. Carlson bought it legally. Kurt checked into the Exodus Recovery Center, and on the first of April his toddler daughter Frances visited and played with him. It was the last time she saw him. That evening he climbed a six foot wall, left the clinic, and flew home to Seattle. On the plane he sat near Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses, who later said every instinct told him something was wrong. Friends and family did not know where Kurt was. Courtney hired a private investigator, Tom Grant, to find him, and on the sixth of April Nirvana pulled out of Lollapalooza.[1] [2] [3]

On the eighth of April 1994 an electrician arriving to install security lighting at Kurt's home on Lake Washington Boulevard found his body in a room above the garage. Kurt had died of a self inflicted shotgun wound, and the medical examiner estimated he had died on the fifth of April. He was twenty seven. Tests found a high level of heroin and traces of Valium in his blood. Police ruled his death a suicide. A note was found, addressed to Boddah, his imaginary friend from childhood. In it he wrote that he had not felt the excitement of making music for years, spoke of his love for Courtney and Frances, and quoted Neil Young's line that it is better to burn out than to fade away.[1] [2] [3]

On the tenth of April about seven thousand people gathered for a vigil at Seattle Center. A recording of Courtney reading parts of the note was played, and she wept and scolded him as she read. Later she handed out some of his clothes to fans who stayed behind. Record shops sold out of Nirvana albums within hours. Dave Grohl called it probably the worst thing that ever happened to him. Neil Young said reading the note shook him badly. Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Frances's godfather, said he and Kurt had planned to record together, but Kurt cancelled at the last minute. In 1999, as a Buddhist monk chanted, Frances scattered some of her father's ashes into McLane Creek near Olympia.[1] [2] [3]

After Nirvana

A double live album called Verse Chorus Verse was announced, then cancelled, because sorting through the tapes was too painful for Krist and Dave. Instead MTV Unplugged in New York came out on the first of November 1994. It entered the Billboard chart at number one and won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance in 1996, the band's only competitive Grammy. The live album From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah followed in 1996, their third straight release to debut at number one. Grohl retreated to Ireland, where he said seeing a hitchhiker in a Kurt Cobain T shirt told him he could not outrun it. That October he recorded a demo alone, which became the first Foo Fighters album, with Pat Smear joining the band.[1] [2] [3] [4]

In 1997 Courtney Love, Krist and Dave formed Nirvana LLC to run the band's affairs. In 2001 Love sued to dissolve it, blocking a planned box set. She argued that Kurt was Nirvana and the others were sidemen. Grohl and Novoselic countersued, calling her irrational and unpredictable. At the center of the fight was You Know You're Right, which Love wanted on a single disc best of rather than a box set. In September 2002 the song leaked online and radio stations played it anyway. The case settled the day before trial, and the compilation Nirvana came out that November, led by the song. The box set With the Lights Out finally arrived in 2004. In 2006 Love sold a quarter of her catalog stake for an estimated fifty million dollars.[1] [2] [3]

The music kept finding new life. Live at Reading came out in 2009, and big anniversary reissues of Nevermind and In Utero followed. In December 2012 Grohl, Novoselic and Smear joined Paul McCartney at a benefit for victims of Hurricane Sandy, and their song Cut Me Some Slack later won a Grammy. Krist jokingly called the lineup Sirvana. Kurt's story drew darker attention too, from films questioning his death to anger in 2009 when he appeared as a playable character in the game Guitar Hero 5, which Grohl and Novoselic condemned. In 2022 Something in the Way was used in the film The Batman and entered the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time, three decades after it was recorded.[1] [2] [3] [4]

On the tenth of April 2014, in their first year of eligibility, Nirvana entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted by Michael Stipe. The honor covered Kurt, Krist and Dave only. Chad Channing learned by text message that he was not included, but he came, and Grohl thanked him from the stage along with Aaron Burckhard, Dale Crover and Dan Peters. Joan Jett, Kim Gordon, St. Vincent and Lorde sang Kurt's parts. Then came a lawsuit from Spencer Elden, the Nevermind baby, who in 2021 claimed the cover was child sexual exploitation. The case was dismissed, revived on appeal in 2023, and dismissed again in October 2025, when a judge compared the image to a family photo of a bathing baby. Elden appealed once more.[1] [2] [3]

The surviving members received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. Steve Albini died of a heart attack in May 2024 at sixty one, and the band shared the letter he had sent them before In Utero. In January 2025 Krist, Dave and Pat reunited at the FireAid benefit in Los Angeles, with Grohl's daughter Violet singing All Apologies, and weeks later played Teen Spirit with Post Malone for Saturday Night Live's fiftieth anniversary. On the twenty seventh of September 2026 they accepted MTV's Video Vanguard Award, the first rock band honored since Duran Duran in 2003. Krist told the crowd the videos all grew out of Kurt's vision. As of 2026, Nirvana has sold more than seventy five million records.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The people around Nirvana

Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic. They met as Melvins fans in Aberdeen and founded Nirvana together, the only two members through every lineup. Krist was the tall, steady partner who took years to listen to Kurt's demo but then committed completely. He helped shape arrangements, slowed down Teen Spirit into the song the world knows, and talked Kurt out of calling In Utero I Hate Myself and I Want to Die. After Kurt's death Krist turned toward politics and has spent decades protecting Kurt's legacy.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl. Grohl arrived in 1990 as the fifth and final drummer and transformed the band's sound. Kurt respected him deeply, and once kissed him after hearing one of his demos. Grohl's own songs were only starting to find a place in the band near the end. He later said he had half expected Kurt to die young, and called his death the worst thing that ever happened to him. Grohl went on to found Foo Fighters, taking some of those songs with him.[1] [2] [3]

Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. The singer of Hole and Kurt became a couple in late 1991, married in Hawaii in February 1992, and had their daughter Frances that August. Their marriage was loving, chaotic and constantly in the press, and heroin was part of it from the start. Courtney revived Kurt from overdoses more than once and organized the intervention in March 1994. After his death she became the guardian of his estate, and a target of conspiracy theories she has always rejected.[1] [2] [3]

Kurt Cobain and Tobi Vail. Vail, drummer of Bikini Kill and a leading voice of Olympia's riot grrrl scene, dated Kurt briefly in 1990. He admired her deeply and saw her as his equal, but wanted a more traditional relationship than she did. The breakup devastated him and fed several songs on Nevermind, including Drain You, Lounge Act and Aneurysm. It was her deodorant, joked about by Kathleen Hanna, that gave Smells Like Teen Spirit its title. They remained friends.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Kurt Cobain and Buzz Osborne. The Melvins' leader was Kurt's first musical mentor, lending him punk records and letting him watch hundreds of rehearsals. Kurt feared Nirvana would be called a Melvins rip off, and later praised them constantly. Osborne also brought Dave Grohl into the story. But he is no romantic about that era. He has called it a horrendous nightmare, and disputes Kurt's claim that heroin began as a cure for his stomach pain.[1] [2] [3]

Nirvana and Butch Vig. Vig first recorded Nirvana at his Smart Studios in Madison in 1990, on Sub Pop's suggestion, and the band insisted on him when major labels offered bigger names. He produced Nevermind and coaxed Kurt into doubling his vocals by telling him John Lennon did it. Kurt later called the album too slick, but also said Vig recorded it perfectly. Vig believed Kurt criticized it partly because admitting to loving a hit record was not cool.[1] [2]

Nirvana and Steve Albini. The outspoken Chicago engineer had called Nirvana unremarkable, yet agreed to record In Utero in two weeks in 1993 on a flat fee, refusing royalties on principle. He kept the label away, and later called the people around the band some of the worst he had met. When the label remixed two singles he was unhappy. After his death in May 2024 the band shared his letter and Grohl dedicated My Hero to him.[1] [2] [3]

Courtney Love and Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic. After Kurt's death the three shared control of Nirvana through Nirvana LLC. In 2001 Love sued to dissolve it, saying Kurt was Nirvana and the others were sidemen. The men countersued, calling her irrational and unpredictable. They settled in 2002, releasing You Know You're Right. Love later sold a quarter of her stake in the catalog, promising to stay true to the spirit of Nirvana.[1] [2] [3]

Kurt Cobain and Axl Rose. Nirvana turned down a tour with Guns N' Roses and mocked them as corporate rock. Rose responded by insulting Kurt and Courtney from the stage. At the 1992 MTV awards it boiled over backstage, when Rose told Kurt to keep Courtney quiet and Krist almost came to blows with Duff McKagan. Yet Duff was the one who sat near Kurt on his final flight home.[1] [2] [3]

Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder. Kurt publicly attacked Pearl Jam in 1992, calling them corporate puppets jumping on the alternative bandwagon. But at the MTV awards that September the two singers slow danced backstage while Eric Clapton played Tears in Heaven. Before he died Kurt said they had talked on the phone and called Vedder a really nice person. Vedder later said they were the same side of the coin but different coins.[1]

Kurt Cobain and Chad Channing. Channing drummed on Bleach and toured hard with Nirvana from 1988 to 1990. Kurt grew unhappy with his playing and Channing wanted a voice in the songs, so he left in 1990. Kurt even said smashing gear started partly out of frustration with Channing's mistakes. Still, his cymbals remain on Polly, and in 2014 Grohl publicly credited him with some of Nirvana's best known drum parts.[1] [2]

Rare facts about Nirvana

• Nirvana's first single, Love Buzz, was pressed in just one thousand hand numbered copies. It was the very first release in the Sub Pop Singles Club, a mail order subscription. Because of the tiny run and Nirvana's later fame, original copies now sell for several thousand dollars.[1] [2]
• Bleach cost six hundred and six dollars and seventeen cents to record, paid by a guitarist who does not play on it. Jason Everman put up the money and joined the band. He was credited and appears on the cover, and Krist said they just wanted to make him feel at home.[1] [2]
• Before they settled on Nirvana, the band played under names including Skid Row, Pen Cap Chew, Bliss and Ted Ed Fred. The flyer Kurt drew for their first show as Nirvana, in Tacoma in March 1988, even listed the old names. He said he wanted a name that sounded beautiful rather than mean.[1]
• Frances Bean Cobain was named after Frances McKee of the Scottish band the Vaselines, not the actress Frances Farmer. Many people assumed the Frances Farmer link. Her middle name came from her sonogram, because Kurt thought she looked like a kidney bean. The sonogram appeared on the Lithium single sleeve.[1]
• Kurt sold his stepfather's guns to buy music gear, after his mother had thrown them in a river. She dumped the collection after discovering her partner's infidelity. Kurt recovered and sold the guns and bought equipment including a Peavey amplifier.[1]
• The cheap twelve string guitar used on Polly and Something in the Way cost Kurt thirty one dollars and twenty one cents. It was a Stella acoustic whose tuning pegs had to be held together with duct tape. Kurt strung it with only five or six strings.[1]
• Early pressings of Nevermind are missing the hidden track Endless, Nameless. Mastering engineer Howie Weinberg said the instruction to add it was only verbal. Roughly the first twenty thousand CDs, albums and tapes went out without it, and Kurt called to demand a fix.[1]
• Nevermind's working title was Sheep. Kurt meant it as an inside joke aimed at the people he expected to buy it. He later preferred Nevermind, partly because it was grammatically incorrect.[1]
• Kurt's first choice for the In Utero title was I Hate Myself and I Want to Die. It was his joke reply when people asked how he was. Krist feared a lawsuit and talked him out of it, and the final title came from a poem by Courtney Love.[1]
• On the edited In Utero sold at Walmart and Kmart, the song Rape Me was renamed Waif Me. Kurt first considered another title but picked Waif Me because it made the artwork change quick. He said some kids could only buy records at Kmart.[1] [2]
• Steve Albini turned down royalties on In Utero that could have earned him around half a million dollars. He took a flat fee instead, believing royalties for engineers were immoral. In his letter to the band he wrote that he wanted to be paid like a plumber.[1] [2]
• Kurt asked for the Unplugged stage to look like a funeral. He wanted stargazer lilies, black candles and a crystal chandelier. When producer Alex Coletti asked if he meant like a funeral, Kurt answered, exactly.[1]
• Kurt's Unplugged guitar sold for about six million dollars in 2020, a world record. The 1959 Martin acoustic was bought at Julien's Auctions by Peter Freedman, founder of Rode Microphones, who planned to exhibit it around the world.[1] [2]
• The Fender Mustang Kurt played in the Teen Spirit video sold for four and a half million dollars in 2022. The buyer was Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts. It had been estimated at around six hundred thousand dollars.[1]
• On Top of the Pops in 1991, Kurt sang Teen Spirit an octave low and changed the words. The band refused to mime properly to the backing track. Kurt said he was trying to sound like Morrissey, and turned the opening line into load up on drugs, kill your friends.[1]
• Nirvana's final studio recording was listed on the studio sheets simply as Kurt's Tune number one. That song became You Know You're Right, recorded on the thirtieth of January 1994 at Robert Lang Studios in Seattle. The studio owner said he was speechless hearing it.[1]
• In 2002 Dave Grohl replaced himself at number one on the modern rock chart. Nirvana's You Know You're Right was knocked off the top by Foo Fighters' All My Life. Over the following months Grohl held the top spot seventeen weeks out of eighteen with three different bands.[1]
• The Pennyroyal Tea single was cancelled after Kurt's death, making surviving copies prized collectibles. It was due in April 1994 with a remix by Scott Litt. A planned music video was also scrapped.[1]
• Chad Channing's cymbal crashes are on Nevermind, even though he left the band a year earlier. Polly was the only recording kept from the 1990 Smart Studios sessions. Channing was only credited for it on a later deluxe reissue.[1] [2]
• Pat Smear's first ever show with Nirvana was on Saturday Night Live. That was the twenty fifth of September 1993. When Kurt first called asking him to join, Smear thought a friend was pranking him.[1]
• Before Nirvana, Pat Smear worked as an extra in films including Blade Runner. He also appeared in Prince's Raspberry Beret video, and said Prince hand picked him. He met Courtney Love on the set of the film Breakin'.[1]
• Melvins drummer Dale Crover once played Neil Young in Neil Young's own Harvest Moon video. He got the part largely because he looked like a young Neil Young. Crover drummed on Nirvana's first demo, and three of those songs ended up on Bleach.[1]
• The Melvins album Prick was originally going to be called Kurdt Cobain. The idea was dropped after Kurt's death. The Melvins had opened Nirvana's final show in Munich and recorded the album with money from cancelled Nirvana dates.[1]
• Krist Novoselic's surname comes from a clerk's spelling mistake. The family name was originally Novaselić, but it was changed when his father applied for a passport to go to America.[1]
• Krist Novoselic is a licensed pilot and earned a university degree in his fifties. He passed his flight test in 2002 and added a multi engine certificate in 2018. In 2016 he earned a social sciences degree from Washington State University.[1]
• In 2024 Krist Novoselic briefly ran for president to get a new political party on the ballot. He founded the Cascade Party of Washington and needed one thousand signatures. Once he had them in August 2024, he dropped out.[1]
• Kurt added guitar to a spoken word record by William S. Burroughs. Burroughs sent a recording of his story The Junky's Christmas, and Kurt added guitar based on Silent Night. The result was released as The Priest They Called Him.[1]
• Something in the Way first charted in 2022, thanks to a Batman movie. Director Matt Reeves used it in The Batman, and the song entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number forty six, three decades after it was recorded.[1] [2]
• The Teen Spirit video features Burton C. Bell, who later fronted the metal band Fear Factory. The extras were real kids forced to sit through take after take. Kurt persuaded the director to let them mosh, and their destruction of the set was genuine.[1]
• Guinness World Records once named Teen Spirit the most played video on MTV Europe. The recognition came in 2000. The video also won Best New Artist and Best Alternative Group at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.[1]
• Geffen bought Nirvana's contract from Sub Pop for seventy two thousand dollars plus a cut of future sales. The deal also put the Sub Pop logo on future Nirvana studio albums. Nevermind's success rescued the struggling label.[1]
• Aberdeen put up a road sign reading Welcome to Aberdeen, Come As You Are, in 2005. It was paid for by a Kurt Cobain memorial committee. The nearby city of Hoquiam later declared the tenth of April Nirvana Day.[1]
• Kurt believed his ancestors came from County Cork, but they were actually from County Tyrone. Researchers traced the family to Carrickmore, near Omagh, where the name was spelled Cobane. They emigrated in 1875 and first settled in Canada.[1]
• Nirvana's 2026 Video Vanguard Award made them the first rock band to win it since Duran Duran in 2003. They received it on the twenty seventh of September 2026, introduced by Chuck D of Public Enemy. Pat Smear lit a cigarette on stage while Krist gave the speech.[1]
• Frances Bean Cobain married Riley Hawk, son of skateboarder Tony Hawk, in 2023. Her godfather Michael Stipe officiated the Los Angeles wedding. Their son was born in September 2024.[1]

Disputed stories

These stories are told often but the accounts don't agree. Here are the versions and who says what.