LIVE NIRVANA INTERVIEW ARCHIVE June 22, 1992 - Belfast, UK

Interviewer(s)
Hetty Los
Interviewee(s)
Krist Novoselic
Dave Grohl
Publisher Title Transcript
MTV Europe MTV News At Night Yes
MTV Europe TBC Yes
MTV Europe XPO Yes

Krist Novoselic: Belfast… notorious city… Northern Ireland… lot of problems, y'know? Seems like a lot of ingredients of, uh… certain social, human attributes, like oppressive governments, nationalism, religion, religious elitism, revenge… I dunno, I don't really have any conclusions on the deal here, but…

Dave Grohl: At the same time, it's hard for us to relate to something like this, just because it's something that we've never really been exposed to.

Dave: It's just a weird vibe, it's something that I've never really felt before.

Krist: [Nodding] Right, right… it's really wild, there's definitely something in the air, some kind of consciousness.

Krist: I'd love to go, like, play the West Bank and, y'know, all kinda crazy places in the world. Kinda be on the edge, y'know. They need rock music there too.

Dave: We're sort of in a weird position, umm, there's so many people that haven't seen us play and we're almost sort of forced to play bigger places…

Krist: Yeah.

Dave: …and, y'know, a lot of the people that saw Nirvana in 1988 or '89 feel sorta gypped.

Krist: We're a result of that whole major label scarfing up independent bands, y'know? I guess, from what I've been told, that we prove that "independent alternative music is a viable commodity."

Dave: Exactly.

© MTV Networks, 1992

Dave Grohl: That's one of the things about our song "Polly," y'know, you've got a pretty acoustic song - it's just an acoustic guitar and a bass - but it's dealing with such a heavy subject. Y'know, music sometimes powers the idea. Y'know, you've got the music to throw the idea at the people. Whether it's a reverse- a soft pretty song sung about a rape victim or, whatever, a heavy fast song about destroying your high school gymnasium, y'know?

Krist Novoselic: And if you want to control what people think, that's like an attribute of a leader, y'know, and I'm not really into leaders at all.

Grohl: We sort of leave everything up to one's own interpretation.

Novoselic: Yeah, it's participation, you know what I mean? People should learn to be responsible. I mean, I always come back to human attributes, and another human attribute is to follow people. It's so easy to just jump on a bandwagon. Like H. Ross Perot or whoever. Demagoguery, I dunno. But, I mean, you should really try harder to improve yourself every day so you can really be responsible. And maybe we wouldn't have to have an army occupying a city and maybe we wouldn't have to have people hurting each other, if people would learn responsibility and take it into their own hands.

© MTV Networks, 1992

Krist Novoselic: I'm reading books.

Dave Grohl: For the most part, really nothing at all.

KN: Nothin', really. Hanging out in Seattle…

DG: That's why we took the three months.

KN: I'm doing a coffeetable book called "Grunge City"…

DG: [chuckles]

KN: …Seattle bands.

© MTV Networks, 1992