LIVE NIRVANA INTERVIEW ARCHIVE October 29, 1989 - Birmingham, UK
Personnel
- Interviewer(s)
- Kevin Ring
- Interviewee(s)
- Kurt Cobain
Sources
| Publisher | Title | Transcript |
|---|---|---|
| Zip Code #4 | Nirvana Nirvana Nirvana | Yes |
Transcript
NIRVANA INTERVIEW - Birmingham 29th October 1989
Post gig is never conducive to a great interview. This was such a situation. Arguments raged as to who broke a cheap old mike, inbetween which we tried to speak to Kurdt Kobain, Nirvana's main man. It's brief and bitty. Here it is anyway.
ZC: So, a long and busy tour.
KK: Yeah. I think we have three days over a month and a half.
ZC: How did you enjoy Friday in London at S.O.A.S.?
KK: That was definitely my favourite show, excellent. Very good crowd, I was amazed at it. They were more energetic than a Seattle crowd.
ZC: You don't miss Jason on stage?
KK: On stage. no. It was very mutual. I don't really wanna elaborate on it. It was just musical differences, we're really glad it worked out the way it did. Everyone's really happy with the turn out.
ZC: I don't know where you'd find any room for him. I don't mean physically, I mean in the sound.
KK: During the time that he was playing with us he wasn't very loud and he really did help keep the band together. It gave me more freedom to jump around into the crowd in the middle of the solo stuff like that. Get a little more wild. Just in time, I'm becoming a lot more comfortable playing by myself, so we really don't need another guitarist. It wouldn't be worth taking a chance. It's very rare to get people as really compatible as we are, the three of us.
ZC: Is it true that the newer stuff you're writing is a lot more mellow?
KK: Yeah, well some of it. We're definitely not completely changing our style. There'll just be maybe three songs about a girl on the next record, instead of just one. We'll always still play really heavy, raunchy.
ZC: You didn't play BEEN A SON tonight.
KK: We were going to but I was too out of tune. I just didn't wanna do it, with those complications. A lot of the new songs are more like that.
ZC: How about Soundgarden signing to a major label. Is that a good move?
KK: I Imagine it might be for them if they're looking for that type of audience. You get up to a certain level and independent labels just can't help you out anymore, it seems. As far as we're concerned we may as well have the musical freedom. I don't see us signing to a major label unless we can have total freedom.
ZC: The Sub Pop label gets plenty of publicity over here, hopefully in Europe as well. They've got a broad selection of artists.
KK: I think so yeah. A lot of people lump all the bands together. I think they're all different, but they do it because the marketing and packaging that Sub Pop uses is fairly similar. We're all recorded in the same studio, that's about it. You know, we all don't play very fast music, we all play mid tempo, rocky, retro, 60s/70s music.
ZC: You recorded the album for $600, was that deliberate, was that all you had?
KK: Yeah, well we probably could have got more. We just wanted a raw rushed record: we're very pleased with the record. Next time we may have different production. I don't know.
ZC: You're not getting Steve Albini to produce your next record?
KK: That's a thought. I like his drum sound, he gets a really good drum sound.
ZC: Does the slogan on the T shirt represent the band?
KK: Not every line, no. We're not representative of every line. That's Chris in a drunken stupor.
ZC: Future recording plans?
KK: We've probably got eight or nine new songs. Hopefully by February we'll have a lot of songs to choose from. We're planning to put a record out in March.
ZC: Mudhoney have done really well.
KK: Really well, they deserve every bit of it.
© Kevin Ring, 1989