LIVE NIRVANA INTERVIEW ARCHIVE August 20, 1988 - Olympia, WA, US
Personnel
- Interviewer(s)
- Brad Roberts
- Scott Harbine
- Interviewee(s)
- Kurt Cobain
- Krist Novoselic
- Chad Channing
Sources
| Publisher | Title | Transcript |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing | Nirvana | Yes |
Transcript
This is an interview (by Brad and Scott)
Chad: “A tape recorder! I know one of those when I see one. I'm not dumb!”
Scott: “You're supposed to yell dirty words in there.”
Chad: “Oh, dirty words, no…”
Brad: “We can even print dirty words. It's pretty amazing. Underground press yeah…”
Kurt: “Really? Fuck! Shit! Piss! Cunt!”
Scott: “Cool.”
Chad: “Gosh! Gee! Golly! Darn! Rats!”
Brad: “No, we can't print that - we have limits.”
Chad: “Sorry.”
Scott: “So, what are your guys future plans?”
Chris: “To put out a record in the United States.”
Kurt: “We want to get rid of these false thoughts that people think we're a complete total grunge band. A total heavy grunge Seattle sound band. And we're gonna break away from that real soon. We've been working on about 15 songs worth of mellow type stuff. To balance out the sound of NIRVANA.”
Brad: “Where have you played in Seattle?”
Kurt: “The Central… The Vogue… The Squid Row.”
Chris: “The meat grinder of the Seattle Clubs. Its really boring after a while.”
Brad: “Is it? What do you think is the most fun to play?”
Kurt: “Olympia, swear to God. We've played the funnest shows here.”
Scott: “What gave you the inspiration to start NIRVANA?”
Kurt: “Well, actually Chris and I, we've been trying to start a band for about three years. Some of these songs are about 3 years old. We've gone through 3 drummers. We started in Aberdeen.
Scott: “How long have you played guitar?”
Kurt: “Since about 8th grade probably. About 7 years.”
Brad: “Do people in Seattle like NIRVANA as much as they do here?”
Kurt: “They do… but they don't dance or anything. It's like they’re embarrassed if they get into it or something.”
Chris: “I can describe Seattle. We were talking about high school? (Note: we were talking about high school, but this interview was edited) There you have it.”
Brad: “So Aberdeen, what's that like you know, hey?”
Chris: “Growing up in a redneck community where you have to have a chew and muscles - I couldn't take the pressure.”
Chad: “I'm from the United States.”
Kurt: “Getting beat up? Chased? Complete massive resentment all the time, yeah it's no fun.”
Brad: “Was that kind of an inspiration to start a rock band?”
Kurt: “Yeah… I've just always completely loved music. Instead of socializing, I just played guitar in my room - for many years.”
Brad: “What do you sing about in your lyrics? Like I could understand them.”
Kurt: “Neither can I because half the time I don't even remember 'em.”
Chris: “It doesn't really matter when you're doing this grunge stuff.”
Kurt: “Usually, I'll start to write a song…”
Chad: “We'll sing a lot about School.”
Kurt: “Yeah sometimes… we'll like… about peer pressures and stuff… No. That's not what… We sing about nothing to tell you the truth. I'll start writing a song and I'll be on a subject and halfway through it, I'll think it's dumb and start a different subject. So it just doesn't matter. And a lot of times it's so psychedelic… it's completely stupid.”
Brad: “So do you think your lyrics will become more focused when you get away from the grunge stuff?”
Kurt: “Probably. We may shape it into something to mean something towards people, but right now (in a funny voice) we're really concerned about well kind of like our music and you know we wanna play as many places as possible and as soon as we get more people liking and listening and coming to our shows then we may have something to say. (in a normal voice) Realistically, we know it's not going to change anything, but it's still better than chewing bubblegum and saying rub my body baby.”
Scott: “What's your favorite drink?”
Chad: “Mr. Brown's coffee.”
Chris: “Root beer.”
Kurt: “Yeah.”
Brad: “People are really getting away from alcohol.”
Chris: “Oh yeah, alcohol - fuck that.”
© Brad Roberts, 1989