The anniversary is celebrated by Nirvana fans all over the world
Published 2024-04-05 10.49
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It’s been 30 years since the music world woke up to the news that Kurt Cobain was dead.
On the anniversary of the Nirvana singer’s suicide, he is mourned by the only journalist who managed to get close to him:
– Kurt was very keen to portray himself as drug-free, which he was not, says Michael Azerrad to Aftonbladet.
It has been three decades Kurt Cobain ran out of time. When the Nirvana singer put a shotgun in his mouth in Seattle on April 5, 1994, he ended one of the most unlikely success stories in music history. From its roots as a small garage band in Aberdeen, Washington, Nirvana took the world by storm in 1991 with the album “Nevermind” and the smash hit “Smells like teen spirit”. But the heroin addict Cobain did not enjoy being in the spotlight and chose to take his own life a few weeks after his 27th birthday.
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fullscreenMichael Azerrad. Photo: Press photo
Unexpected friendship with Cobain: “He felt comfortable”
The anniversary of his death will be marked by Nirvana fans worldwide. But for those who knew him personally, April 5 is a date that pains them on a much deeper level.
At the beginning of 1992, Michael Azerrad a young freelance journalist from New York when he was assigned to interview Cobain for an article in Rolling Stone magazine. Their meeting became the beginning of an unexpected friendship, eventually leading to Azerrad writing the only Nirvana biography featuring Cobain released during his lifetime: “Come as you are: The story of Nirvana” (1993).
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full screen Kurt Cobain Photo: AP Ho
– The first time I met Kurt was when I went to his and Courtney’s (Love, Cobain’s wife) temporary residence in Los Angeles. I was nervous about meeting him, but the moment he said “hello” I relaxed. I thought to myself: “I know this guy!”, says Michael Azerrad.
– During our interview, Kurt told us that his parents divorced when he was around ten years old, and that he became a melancholic child after that. Of course it was a story that millions of other people shared, but it was exactly my story too which I told him. We also noticed that we had both been stoners in high school, and we had grown up with the same music: Aerosmith, Kiss, the B-52’s, Led Zeppelin, Queen, the Beatles, the Cars and Black Sabbath. It made him feel very comfortable talking to me, he continues.
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full screen Kurt Cobain Photo: Aftonbladet Bild / 9210-00115244 / Ibl
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full screen Kurt Cobain, Frances Bean Cobain and Courtney Love in 1993. Photo: Barry King / Alamy
“They had been temporarily deprived of custody”
However, the fact that it would become a book was not something that was discussed during this first meeting. In August 1992, Kurts and Courtneys daughter Frances Bean, but the couple was by this time plagued by scandalous headlines about their alleged heroin addiction. The authorities started custody proceedings for their daughter and it was in this context that Michael Azerrad was asked if he wanted to write a book about Nirvana:
– They had been temporarily deprived of custody of their baby, largely because of a hostile newspaper article. I can’t even imagine how traumatic that must have been. So Kurt was very keen to present himself as drug-free, which he wasn’t, says Azerrad.
An intense period of interviews followed, with Michael Azerrad spending countless hours with Kurt Cobain and the other members of Nirvana – the bassist Krist Novoselic and the drummer Dave Grohl. When “Come as you are” was released in 1993, it was met with glowing reviews and sold well, but in the years after Cobain’s suicide, it became clear that some of the things he had told in the book were not entirely true.
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full screen Nirvana. Photo: Aftonbladet Bild / 9210-00204320 / Ibl
Corrected untruths
This is partly why Azerrad recently made the decision to write an expanded and updated version of the book. Last autumn came “The Amplified Come as you are”, where he goes back to the original text and supplements it with the insights he gained over time.
– I had long wanted to write down some thoughts about the book, and maybe post them on my blog. When I started reading about it, I realized that there was a lot to say. It was the only book written while the band was still around, and while the phenomenon that was Nirvana was still going on. I discovered several recurring themes in “Come as you are”, themes that I did not notice when I wrote the book. It was partly because I wrote under time pressure, but also because you can be so close to something that you have difficulty seeing it, says Michael Azerrad.
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full screen Arrest photo of Kurt Cobain in 1986 after he was charged with trespassing. Photo: Bill Waterson / Alamy
– Some of the themes I discovered were Kurt’s sense of shame, his need to be accepted by his peers in the indie rock scene, his need to leave his hometown of Aberdeen behind and the way he always blamed others for his own shortcomings and frustrations. So “The amplified Come as you are” is like a “director’s commentary” on a DVD. Beyond Robert Greenfields book about the Rolling Stones, “Ain’t it time we said goodbye” (2014), I don’t think anyone has done anything like it, he continues.
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fullscreen Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain. Photo: Sjöberg Press
“Many people still feel pain”
For Michael Azerrad, it was also an emotional experience to return to the 30-year-old interviews. The new edition includes, among other things, an epilogue about the time after his book was released – and before Kurt Cobain chose to leave earthly life.
– I kept in touch with Kurt after the book was finished and I even traveled with Nirvana during their last US tour. Those chapters were the hardest to write. They contain things that I have wanted to say for thirty years, he says.
– Many people still feel pain over Kurt’s passing, and “The amplified Come as you are” is an attempt to understand what happened. Not only for Nirvana fans, but also for myself. Working on the book was a healing experience.
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full screen Nirvana at the Maritime Museum in 1992. Photo: Pelle KronestedtFAKTA
Cobain’s death – and the conspiracy theories:
* On March 1, 1994, Nirvana played what would be their very last show in Munich. The following day, the rest of the European tour was canceled citing Cobain being ill. But in reality he was depressed and needed to spend time with his wife, Hole singer Courtney Love.
* The heroin addict Cobain checked himself into a rehab clinic in Los Angeles, but escaped from there on April 1. Four days later, he shot himself in a greenhouse on his Seattle property.
* An electrician named Gary Smith found his body on April 8. Next to the body, the police found a farewell letter written to Cobain’s fans and to Courtney Love. The last lines read “I love you! I love you!”
* Cobain’s death has long been surrounded by conspiracy theories. Tom Grant, a private investigator hired by Courtney Love to find her husband in early April 1994, began to float the theory that Love murdered Cobain in order for Love to access his considerable fortune. According to Tom Grant, the couple were to divorce, which would have meant less money for Love.
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full screen Frances Bean Cobain and Courtney Love in 2015. Photo: Chris Pizzello / ApFAKTA
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