LIVE NIRVANA INTERVIEW ARCHIVE August 25, 1990 - Vancouver, BC, CA

Personnel

Interviewer(s)

Tom Milne

Interviewee(s)

Kurt Cobain

Krist Novoselic

Dale Crover

Sources

Medium	Publisher	Date of Issue	Title	Transcript
Print	Discorder #93	10/XX/1990	A Nirvana Press Kit	Yes

Transcript

Some say heavy, distorted, grunge rockers Nirvana are among the better Sub Pop offerings. One of the few bands on the label to mix poppy melodies with heavy riffing, they've managed to stir up quite a bit of interest with their debut album "Bleach." DISCORDER caught them at the New York Theatre on tour with Sonic Youth where they ripped through a powerful set bristling with energy, despite it being the tail end of the tour. Chris on bass and Kurdt on vocals and guitar are founding members of the band but their old drummer seems to have mysteriously disappeared so I started off by talking to their temporary drummer and possibly longtime friend.

DISCORDER: You're from the Melvins?

DALE: Yeah.

Dis: What's your name?

D: My name is Dale and all I can say is…WOW!

Dis: What happened to the other drummer?

D: He got shit-canned!

CHRIS: Long story, don't wanna take up your valuable time. Man, it just didn't connect man, just didn't connect…

D: He's out of the band, that's it.

C: What other drummer?

Dis: Um, the one who played on most of the album.

C: He drowned in a swimming pool.

D: He spontaneously combusted on stage.

C: He choked on vomit and died.

Dis: But what's this I heard about the drummer from Dinosaur Jr. joining the band?

C: Nah, nah.

Dis: Why are there all these wild rumors going around?

C: Yeah, they're WILD rumors. You know, John Bonham is gonna be our drummer.

KURDT: Jason Bonham.

C: Jason Bonham. We were kind of talking to Jay about it but it never materialized…That's how things go, y'know what I mean. That's life for you, you never know what's gonna happen. I mean one day you could be walking down the street and the next day, boom, you drop dead. Who knows?

Dis: So when are you coming out with another release?

C: We've got a single coming out next month.

Dis: What tunes?

C: We've got two new tunes: one song's kind of poppy and one song's kind of heavy, so it's the best of both worlds.

Dis: So what musical direction are you going in then? Or are you just making it up as you go along?

C: More melodic.

K: Speed metal's coming back with a vengeance next year.

Dis: I noticed you had some metal overtones, especially on "Negative Creep."

C: Yeah, but we hate heavy metal. We like to play…heavy music.

D: There's nothing wrong with a little metal influence but who wants to limit themselves? We wanna do everything, and anything.

K: The song got retitled "The Negative Crepe," with strawberries and whip cream.

C: We're not really gonna have any gloomy doomy songs like on the last record.

Dis: It's one thing to have metal influences, and it's another to be a metal band.

C: There's good metal.

D: There's Black Sabbath and then there's bad Danzig stuff…there's nothing wrong with a little bit of metal. Anybody that doesn't like even just a little bit of metal is penis-less.

K: They're penis-less?

C: That means that girls don't like metal…But is a clitoris just a small penis?

D: (Laughing) Yes, it is.

K: What about hermaphrodites?

C: But weren't all men born women and then XYZ chromosome came along and then… (Laughter)

Dis: yeah, something like that.

C: What I'm trying to say…

D: What I'm trying to say…

C: When a person leestens to Heavy Metal music…

D: If you do not like a leetle bit of the Heavy Metal, then you are stupid.

C: You are el stupido. You scum.

Dis: You've probably had this question a million times, but what do you think of the whole Sub Pop phenomenon?

C: Mmm…It's alright. I don't think it was a movement or anything. It was just a bunch of bands on this label and those guys played the media hype: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's right on!"

D: After seeing what it turned the audience in Seattle into, it's the worst thing that could've happened.

Dis: What do you mean by that?

D: Because, they're just…

C: He's not on Sub Pop. (Laughter) The Melvins aren't on Sub Pop.

D: Well, the Melvins aren't but I play on a couple of songs on their (Nirvana's) record so therefore I am on Sub Pop. There's nothing wrong with the bands or anything like that. It's just that all the people up there just take it for granted. They think, "We are so cool."

K: Social politics involved, man. Everybody just all of a sudden said, "Oh we have a scene. It's really cool and new so now let's act really cool and hip." All across the nation we've talked to people who say "I'm moving to Seattle because there's a scene and it would be really great and there's a whole bunch of great bands." But really there are only just as many bands in Seattle as there are in any other town. It isn't like a big explosion of great bands in an awesome unity togetherness type of scene like when punk rock was neato a few years ago.

D: As far as I'm concerned, the media and everything else missed the scene. The scene happened in 1985. And it was really cool about 1985.

Dis: So you think Sub Pop is a bit media-created and there are a lot of posers now? I don't like to use that word, it's kind of meaningless, but…

K: There's really no such thing as a poser, anyway.

D: All I've got to say is…WOW!

C: Next question.

Dis: Yeah, sorry. That was a boring question.

C: We had one interview where everything the guy said I would say, "No! Next question." We gave the guy a really bad time.

D: Everybody asks that question but you haven't asked it before so it's OK. I think everyone gets asked that question anyways, every band: "So what do you think of Sub Pop?"

K: That must prove there's mixed feelings about it.

C: There's cool bands, I mean, Mudhoney's a cool band but anybody who buys a record like "Oh, this is a Sub Pop record so I'll buy it," is kind of screwy.

K: People don't walk around wearing Sub Pop t-shirts, they wear Mudhoney and Tad t-shirts.

D: Yeah, but what's on the back of them? A big Sub Pop.

Dis: Just like a big commercial?

C: Yeah, I don't know.

D: There's some good bands on there and that's why it's popular, because there are some good bands.

Dis: Like you guys?

D: (Sarcastically) Yeah, we're just fuckin' great, goddamn we're the best.

Dis: How did you end up on a tour with Sonic Youth?

C: They called us up and said, "Do you guys wanna go on tour with us, just do some West Coast gigs?" And we said, "Yesiree, Bob." And that was all there was to it, it was really great. I guess they caught a few of our shows, heard our record, they liked it and we liked them and we said "How cool, how totally cool. Let's go on tour."

D: All I got to say is…WOW!

C: That's it, they just called us up and asked if we wanted to do it and after one millisecond of contemplation we answered yes, we will do it. It was great, big shows.

D: There was like 4,500 people at the Palladium in LA.

Dis: How long have you been on tour with them?

C: A week or so. This is the eighth and last show. We had one live show where we played but no Sonic Youth: STP didn't play. We were all the way down in San Diego so we did a total span of the West Coast of the US from San Diego, which is like ten miles from the (Mexican) border up to Vancouver. We played Las Vegas. We were all around.

K: There's swingers in Las Vegas.

C: Fuck yeah.

K: A lot of them. People that just swap partners and they can't decide who they wanna have sex with, it was really interesting to watch.

Dis: You went to some swingers' clubs?

K: No, they were ‘swinging’ while Sonic Youth was playing…Girls would go back and forth between these two muscle guys and kiss them and then they'd touch each other's genitals, they couldn't decide. I thought they were all going to go home together. But then I lost interest and forgot about them.

C: They were smoking and drinking.

K: I couldn't understand what they were doing there at Sonic Youth. But it was kind of neat to watch, y'know. Sonic Youth in the background and these people, like, wanting to breed.

D: WOW!

© Tom Milne/Discorder, 1990