LIVE NIRVANA INTERVIEW ARCHIVE October 13, 1991 - Chicago, IL, US
Personnel
- Interviewer(s)
- Ara Corbett
- Interviewee(s)
- Krist Novoselic
Sources
| Publisher | Title | Transcript |
|---|---|---|
| Creem | Nirvana | Yes |
Transcript
It's Sunday 12:30 p.m. and Nirvana are unconscious in their room at the Chicago Days Inn when the phone rings. A groggy, hungover, gruff “Hello…?” asks bass player Chris Novoselic. It's typical and he knows it. “It's all cliché rock & roll type stuff, you know?” he admits, a bit out of breath and slow of speech, yawning, coughing. Though capturing Seattle's power trio Nirvana so close to the dream state, psychoanalysis takes a back seat to partaking in the Great Rock Myth. “We still have occasional flare-ups,” Novoselic says of trashing about offstage, “like having hemorrhoids.”
Pop's latest overnight superstars Nirvana are on the road backed by their second LP, the thrilling Nevermind (DGC) and the same indifferent Sub Pop indifference that made their '89 debut, Bleach, an indie standard. While singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and drummer Dave Grohl sleep the afternoon away in their dark hotel room, Novoselic is beginning to wake up, offering disjointed replies that range from career goals (“We're gonna have a big inverted pentagram and walk down Hollywood Boulevard”) to a two-word personal review of the new album (“Shit Sandwich”). And though Nirvana make it a point to maintain lightness of being, their smashing 45, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” carries a profound despondency. It's self-consciously flippant, yet angry at being flippant and self-conscious. They express what most groups are afraid of confronting: namely, their own insecurity and possible insignificance, carrying the same thrust that Dinosaur Jr's “Freak Scene” did in '88. Nevermind is, consequently, frolicking yet totally self-absorbed.
“Talking to the guys in Urge Overkill,” Novoselic says as if letting me in on a deep secret, “they said some nights Mr. Rock & Roll's onstage and sometimes he's not, so you have that extra member. Have you ever seen that movie Little Big Man?” An annoying knock on the door gets explained as “The maid wants to kick us out of the room” before yelling back, “Yeah, we'll get outta here!” but no one is listening. “Anyway,” he continues, “this old Indian chief has this scene where he's supposed to die, and he has this big scene, you know, he lays down and he will die. He doesn't die, he just kinda wakes up and goes, “Well, you know, sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't.” The evidence on Nevermind suggests that it works more often than not. It's a massive rock album undercut with the contradiction of forgetting the pressure they put on themselves to change the world and truly rising to the occasion. Novoselic knows it's time for the next Revolution. “I kinda hope something like that happens, if we could open up some kind of Pandora's Box or something,” he says. “That'd be the payoff, you know what I mean? I'd sit there broke, but I'd still be happy.”
© Ara Corbett, 1991