LIVE NIRVANA INTERVIEW ARCHIVE April 26–27, 1990 - New York, NY & Amherst, MA, US
Personnel
- Interviewer(s)
- Sam King
- Interviewee(s)
- Kurt Cobain
- Krist Novoselic
Sources
| Publisher | Title | Transcript |
|---|---|---|
| Sounds | Down On The Bleach | Yes |
Transcript
Life's a bleach for Nirvana as they continue to plug last year's storming album to an unresponsive America. Sam King joined the Sub Poppers to find them shaving their hair off and wearing dresses. Photos by Steve Double
Jonathan Poneman, Sub Pop's hyperactive business manager, doesn't believe in crisis management.
He doesn't believe in crises either, but now he's got one he's dealing with it quickly and courteously.
"Uh, let me explain my problem to you, Ma'am," he says over the phone to the United Airlines ticket desk. "I run a small independent record label in Seattle and one of my bands on tour in Philadelphia has dire need of a soundman, so I was wondering if it would be possible to fly this person out from Seattle to Philadelphia today. Uh huh… uh huh. And could I pay for this with my American Express card from here? I'm in New York."
Right now, Jonathan's operating out of a small New York apartment trying to hold together tours by the Afghan Whigs and Nirvana, as well as negotiate a major distribution deal with Columbia (CBS) with his partner Bruce Pavitt. Pavitt may be the idealist, the fanzine writer turned supercool record boss, but it's Jonathan who's the businessman, the Rick Rubin of the new American guitar age.
Rockin' out halfway between the flippancy of Mudhoney and the threatening extremity of Tad, Nirvana are reckoned to be the band that will break Sub Pop out of the indies and into the American mainstream. It's partly for their benefit that Bruce and Jonathan are in New York getting their distribution deal that will ensure Sub Pop's continued expansion.
When Nirvana's second album, the follow-up to last year's gut heavy 'Bleach', is released in the autumn with increased distribution, label insiders are hoping it will comfortably outsell even Mudhoney's recent releases. Right now, however, the band are in a spot of bother.
They're halfway through yet another seven week tour across the States. This time it's the Eastern seaboard, from Maine down to Miami. Tour fatigue has hit them bad as they scurry across the States tracing and retracing their route.
In a recent American interview former Nirvana guitarist Jason Everman declared that the best thing about being with his new band Soundgarden was travelling in a big van, having his own room and not having to hump his own gear.
"Seven weeks, f**king seven weeks," recalls guitarist/vocalist Kurdt Kobain in frustration. "And it's just us three in the van, nobody else. We've got to drive, load our stuff up and everything. We didn't bring anybody, we just left. We attempted to get a soundman two weeks before we left, but you've got to worry about the guy's personality. We did want the guy who worked for Mudhoney but we didn't know him, we may be too weird for him.
"But nothing is better than playing live, even though we may say we hate it and have said we may not continue to play live if we have to keep doing these stupid seven week tours. But playing in front of a bunch of people who react well is the best thing in the world."
This is what it's like selling yourself in America. As Galaxie 500 and countless others have stated, it's tough. With the exception of a couple of weeks either side of last year's European tour with labelmates Tad, Nirvana have been on tour promoting 'Bleach' for almost nine months solid. The crucial difference between the Eurotour - which was undertaken in an atmosphere of fun and enthusiasm with all the bands travelling together, and which played to large, highly motivated audiences - and the band's current American tour is that, by and large, the Americans seem unaware of what's lurking on their own doorstep.
"America may be the land of the free," says Kurdt, "but there are definitely more ignorant people here. Most of the population are semi-retarded."
"Most Americans are drunk," explains bassist Chris Novoselic, "drunk on their goodies. It's like some kind of tribal thing, marking out your territory, the guy with the prettiest beads or washing machine is respected in the tribe."
"And it's really easy to play that game too," says Kurdt. "It's easy to be ignorant and not accept anything aside from your own tribe and your own values. It's weird, but it seems Europe is much more open minded, at least towards music and the arts."
Nirvana's American tours have been backbreaking. Sure the hip and trendy may turn up in New York, but the venue's still the size of The Falcon in Camden, small and sleazy.
New York does Nirvana no favours. The sound, delivered by an in-house 'sound expert' is appalling. Kurdt's guitar and vocals are buried beneath a slurry of bass and drums, while onstage none of the band can hear what's going on. But if the performance is dreary to the point of embarrassment then the audience reaction is even more pitiful. There's no applause for 'School', the best song that evening, and precious little response to anything else. Most make up their minds straight away and leave. At least hipsters like Iggy Pop and Sonic Youth stay to the end to see Kurdt trash the band's equipment in an orgy of frustrated violence.
"I don't blame them," says Chris, "if I had lived in New York for most of my life I'd be the same. They're all burnt out, they see shit all the time, anything that could have been done probably already has and they were probably there at the time. If we had blown ourselves up onstage they wouldn't have blinked an eye."
"I wasn't frustrated by the audience at all," explains Kurdt. "That has nothing to do with why l was mad. I just felt we were playing really badly and I wanted to kill the other members of the band and myself. Afterwards I went into the van, lit a cigarette and said for the 30th time, I'm quitting."
The scale of Nirvana's tour becomes clear the following morning. They've decided, after an angry night, to continue, but Chris has also felt it necessary to shave all his hair off (bar a small Confederate beard) in penance.
It's a six hour drive to Hampshire college in Amherst, and there's just the three of them, all their gear and a tourbus that looks deceptively like a smaller VW campervan with a flowery sofa wedged into the back. It's 92º in the shade, a hell I of a lot more on the freeway and no way we can use the air conditioner without running down the battery. The only consolations are a, loud tape machine that blares out the new Public Enemy album and an Action Man-sized Freddy Krueger doll which Chris confides has four tabs of top quality American acid shoved down its underpants.
Thankfully we reach Amherst without having to resort to it. Inside the College there's comprehensive chaos. Eight bands on two stages in just under three hours, minimal PAs and a pork-bellied security guard who refused to let anyone in until all the alcohol in the dressing room has been 'removed'. Only students would be masochistic enough to arrange it all, only students would. want to.
Eventually, after an hour of negotiation and hurried beer consumption, Nirvana get into their groove, only tonight it's a little special. Chris' head looks red enough to bleed, while Kurdt has taken it on himself to don an audience member's dress. In return he gives them one of the band's hugely desirable tour T-shirts, which depict a naked John Lennon and Yoko with Sub Pop's Jonathan and Bruce's heads grafted on instead.
Tonight Nirvana's sound is far more forward than in New York, allowing all their subtlety to flood to the surface. It's this, along with their unashamed pop sensibility that separates Nirvana from the rest of the Sub Pop stable. Qualities that come as a surprise to those who see the band as little more than a dubious, uni-directional gang of greebos, yet which the band have always sought to achieve.
'We weren't making the music we wanted to a couple of years ago," admits Kurdt, "we were afraid to play pop music because we felt that people wouldn't accept it. Now we don't care if they like it or not, who knows, we may lose our entire audience after the next record. But at least we're happy now."
New songs, like 'In Bloom', 'Polly' and 'Sappy', show a pop sensibility that was only vaguely evident on 'Bleach' and the single 'Blew'. Kurdt is quick to agree.
"I think of them as pop songs. They're arranged with the standard pop song format, I think: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, bad solo. There aren't songs as wild and heavy as 'Paper Cuts' or 'Sifting' on the new record. That's just too boring, I'd rather have a good hook."
Songs like 'School' show Nirvana at their best, their wilfully regressive, playground lyrics hiding a seriousness that many would deny existed.
"Displaying ideas in a really simple manner is something I intended," explains Kurdt, "but it has a lot more meaning than just that. It's about having to deal with social cliques."
Kurdt is well suited to the role of upcoming popstar. He combines a disturbing presence, half Charlie Manson's unblinking intensity, half childish innocence, With limitless enthusiasm and an intense sense of purpose.
"We're just babbling idiots, wise dickers, opinionated white trash," he mumbles almost in apology. "I burnt myself out when I was 13. I was really weird then. I decided when I was seven that all my surroundings sucked, there was no sign of anyone who would be into art or music.
"I had always wanted to play guitar, I listened to Beatles records every night religiously. That's all I did as a kid. After I reached my teens I decided I didn't want to hang out with anyone. I couldn't handle the stupidity."
In contrast Chris was kind of dumb as a kid, "I didn't really get along with other kids because I was too trusting and they took advantage of me. Our dad used to kick our ass all the time." Drummer Chad Channing, meanwhile, boasts he's moved house over 100 times, has never settled anywhere and is almost a gypsy.
The next day in Hoboken, New Jersey, a tube ride away from New York's Pyramid Club, Nirvana are astonishing. Here in front of a noticeably less 'hip' audience than in NYC, their sound is almost perfect, while their performance is shockingly inspired. In little more than 45 minutes they remind you that when they're on form they're one of the most visceral, intense and beautiful bands on the face of the planet. When they're on form you can understand why Jonathan is spending such a long time on the phone on their behalf.
Two days later, when Jonathan finally puts down the phone, a soundman flies out to Philadelphia.
© Sam King, 1990