LIVE NIRVANA INTERVIEW ARCHIVE July 13, 1989 - Hoboken, NJ, US

Personnel

Interviewer(s)

Ed Sullivan

Interviewee(s)

Kurt Cobain

Krist Novoselic

Chad Channing

Tad Doyle

Kurt Danielson

Gary Thorstensen

Dan Peters

Sources

Medium	Publisher	Date of Issue	Title	Transcript
Print	Ugly American	XX/XX/1989	TAD	Yes

Transcript

I don't care if the only reason you've heard of Tad is because he's a three-hundred pound marketing tool. His band doles out slabs of thick sludge that my simple mind and throbbing prostate can easily assimilate. Evil undertow? Yeah, there's a ton. This is music that makes lesser critics search for the bloodiest of metaphors. As you may have already guessed, Tad Doyle is a soft-spoken, easy-going guy. And this interview might've been a lot more coherent and pointed if it hadn't been conducted in a tiny room in a fruit cellar that contained more Sub Pop artists than you could shake your tits at. But it was, and the tape sounds like it was clicked on in the middle of a small party. If you gain any insight, entertainment, et cetera, from the following, you're a better toad than I am. Conducted July 14 at Maxwell's.

UA: Ed or Rob
Tad Doyle: vocals, geetar
Kurt Danielson: bass
Gary Thorstensen: guitar
Steve Weid: drums, not present
Kurdt Kobain: vocals, guitar (Nirvana)
Chris Novoselic: bass (Nirvana)
Chad Channing: drums (Nirvana)
Dan Peters: drums (Mudhoney)

TD: It smells like fish down here.
CN: Now that you've given us erections… (No comment -Ed.)
CC: And cigarettes afterwards…
UA: Yeah, this is almost like sex.
TD: (To Rob, ace photographer): Do you get paid well?
UA: He gets paid in blowjobs.
TD: I got my fuckin' whistle here (around his neck). If I get raped…
UA: In Hoboken? You couldn't get raped if you bent over in the middle of the road.
TD: I've tried. People don't understand. I… (Tad offers up his butt) Nobody takes me seriously.
KK: Put a banana up your butt. Maybe that'll get in.
UA: So what about this Sub Pop phenomena? Are you all just a big happy family of longhairs?
KD: Yeah, we are.
CN: We share each other.
KD: Selfless love, unconditional love.
TD: We're all swingers, every last one of us.
CC: We don't have to work, just perform. There's people to do the dishes, tend the crops, there's women, children,
KD: And nobody knows who's fathered each one of the kids…
(Two minutes of maddening yelling, laughter, and confusion, mostly about life on "the Sub Pop compound".)
TD: We lead normal lives.
KD: We shoot amphetamines constantly. It's fucking a thousand times more powerful than LSD.
UA: How about DMT?
KD: Fuckin' A. Anything with initials.
UA: MSG.
KK: PMS.
KD: We have a way of dealing with that out on the compound. If one of the women starts freaking out, you take a shovel and bash her over the head.
UA: Hit her with a hoe.
TD: Knock some sense into her.
KD: Mandatory sex with Tad.
UA: I've heard that everyone who's a Sub Pop artist has had sex with Tad.
TD: The females have.
UA: How many is that?
KD: There's lots of girls on Sub Pop.
KK They're all initials (some strange inside joke).
TD: We share all the women.
CC: You share the same bong.
UA: You only have one hit of acid and everybody gets a little suck on it. Do the record sales establish the hierarchy of who gets the first suck?
KD: Chris Cornell takes the first hit. Anybody that does a total fucking Cornell with the ease that he does deserves the first hit.
UA: Does this man have a lot of women?
TD: He could if he wanted to. He could have a lot of guys.
UA: I believe that.
KK: He wants to be gay.
TD: But we like him. We just got an advance copy of the new record from Ed McGinley, who's the biggest Sub Pop/Soundgarden fan in the world, or North America, at least.
UA: So you're touring the country now?
TD: We have been, for a long time. Nirvana has for four weeks and we've been doing it for five weeks. We're snapping it up wherever we go.
KD: We're snapping it up like a herd of cows.
UA: (To Rob, ace flashbulb man) YOU'RE BLINDING ME, YOU FUCKER. Did you really work in a slaughterhouse?
TD: Yeah, I did. Not a slaughterhouse, but a packing plant. (Everyone begins to make loud animal sounds.)
UA: Did you touch a lot of entrails?
TD: I worked on what's called the offal table. It basically entailed gutting them.
CN: Show him your knife scar.
TD: I got a six-inch boning knife scar right there. That popped a vein.
KK: I got some scars. Wanna see mine? I got one there and there and there and there
UA: Are you a heroin addict or what? Do you all share the same needle down on the communal farm?
KK: Yeah, we keep all our diseases in the family.
UA: Wait til AIDS gets in there. Sub Pop 300'll sound like a Swans album.
(Dan Peters enters. Panic ensues.)
KD: How are things at the Sub Pop compound?
UA: Are you excited about opening up for Sonic Youth at the Ritz tomorrow?
(Long silence.)
DP: No.
UA: (To Tad) Why did you name your album God's Balls?
TD: We were at a bachelor party and there's was a porno flick going on. This guy in priestly robes is sitting back while this lady's giving him head and he's going "GOD'S BALLS! GOD'S BALLS that feels good…"
UA: What was the name of that film?
TD: What was that movie called?
KD: Just for the sake of conversation let's just say it was called…
UA: "Ass Tit Dildo Clit".
KD: "The Exorcist".
UA: "The Sexorcist"?
Some Dude: Is Nirvana here?
KK: Yeah.
SD: It's about showtime. Five minutes.
KK: Five minutes?
SD: Realistically five minutes.
KK: Okay.
UA: Five minutes, Nirvana, five minutes. Do you feel like Frank Sinatra?
KK: I feel like cattle.
UA: Do you have any new songs?
TD: Actually, we're going to play some new material that's going to be on our upcoming EP, tentatively called Salt Lick. If we think of something else, we'll use it.
UA: When's it going to be out?
TD: Before Christmas.
UA: Have it in the stores for Christmas. Get Tad in your stocking. Are you Tad or is the band Tad?
TD: The band is Tad. My initials are Tad. 'S my nickname.
UA: Are you happy with the label?
TD: Fuck, yeah, they've done a lot for us. We're really happy with them. I think they take the limited edition thing too far, though. They could sell a hell of a lot more records if they pressed more. They have a maniacal release schedule. You'd be amazed how much new shit is coming out. They're working on stuff for a year and a half from now. Not to mention EPs for bands that aren't on the label.
UA: Is Bruce Pavitt a workaholic?
TD: He is. He's way into his work. It's practically all he does, all the time. He enjoys it, it's what he's always wanted to do.
UA: After you played the Revival in Philly, you played the Khyber. How'd that go?
TD: It was good. We only played four songs, though.
UA: How come?
TD: We were supposed to be on a lot earlier. But from what we heard from the locals, the place was really small. We associated that with not very much money. Also, we knew we were doin' two shows, but we didn't know they were in two different places. When we found out, it was really late. The guy who booked the show walked up to us and said "Where you guys been? You were supposed to go on thirty minutes ago." And I was like "Oh, we decided not to do the show." And he says "You're turning down 150 bucks?" And I'm like "What?! 150 bucks? We'll be right over." We ran over there, played four songs, we got off, he gave us 150 bucks and said "Thank you very much." He was a really cool guy and I felt like a really big asshole.
UA: Who have you been playing with?
TD: The best band we played with is a toss-up between the Velvet Monkeys in Boston, Gwar, and this band Ameba Man, from Kentucky. They're all really, really young, a three piece and it was one of the most intense shows I've seen. Non-stop. It was like watching puppets, they were fucking everywhere. The bass player broke his E-string, so he tunes the next three and they keep going, then he breaks the next string, he tunes the last two, and he just plays the whole thing. They played "In N Out Of Grace" twice as fast and twice as intense. It was amazing.
UA: Any amusing tour stories?
TD: Yeah, plenty. I can't remember any of them right now.
UA: Any viral infection stories?
TD: We've seen a lot of the skanks that Chemistry Set and Swallow were fucking.
UA: So this is life on the road, women are actually willing to spread their legs, ugly women, women you put a Hefty bag over and rip a hole.
TD: Especially ugly women.
UA: Who is Dick Johnson?
TD: Who is Dick Johnson?
KD: Dick Johnson is the flea-master, he's the king of the Seattle scene.
DP: He's responsible for it all.
UA: Pussy Galore found him such an intriguing personality…
KD: They wrote a song about him and asked him up on stage in Los Angeles when we played with them in October at Raji's. They love Dick Johnson. He's the ultimate politician without ever being involved in politics. Everybody loves him. Everybody seeks him out. It's not like he's out there soliciting his services, people go to Dick Johnson, and when they want a job done right, they go to Dick Johnson.
DP: Dick's buying a mountain bike.
KD: You see, there you have it.
UA: A SCOOP!
DP: He's couriering about messages.
KD: He has many messages, all of love and happiness.
UA: Did Pussy Galore break up?
KD: No, they're on tour right now. Dial M For Motherfucker is an excellent record
UA: I don't like that rock n roll shit.
KD: Well, you're entitled to your opinion.
UA: Hey, I've got my asshole on right, buddy.
DP: That got him in a lot of trouble.
UA: Wait, trouble? Let's hear about this trouble.
KD: No, we don't need that…
UA: Drag it out into the light
KD: He did it?
DP: Scott, yeah.
KD: He actually did it with a one-legged woman?
UA: Wait, wait, you're gonna hide this from the press?! Did he turn her on her side?
DP: He said he always wanted to do it and he did it and it was great.
UA: Are you gonna do the "Fuck U" thing tonight?
TD: I don't think so. Sometimes that really turns people off. It works with kids cuz they're like "Fuck You" anyway, they can take a joke. Older people, they take it personally. I made a real ass out of myself in Boston, I was really harsh on the crowd. I was like "Boston's the asshole of America, all you people suck cock…"
UA: "Mission Of Burma stinks".
TD: Yeah. They really took it hard. Let's go upstairs. I wanna see Nirvana.

There you have it, enlightening to the max. Why don't you people just stop reading this, right now, go get some Camus or something, find out why you're so fucked in the head, find out why you actually paid a whole dollar to read the idiotic musings of a bunch of heathens who are either frustrated musicians or glorified fans. Or do us all a favor and eat the barrel.

© Ed Sullivan, 1989