Quote: AIDS & Rape & Activism (1993)

[rocknroll1968]

Interviewer: So, I'm assuming they just approached you and asked you to contribute a song* and you said yeah...

Krist: Here's a song from the AIDies. You wrote that song in the AIDies, Kurt. What period were you in?

Kurt: [pauses, joke hits him] Shut up.

Dave: Third period after lunch...

All three: [snickering]

Interviewer: I'm supposed to ask some general AIDS questions. Do you think contributing to something like this, that music can be used as a way to educate people about AIDS?

Krist: You know, as long as it raises money for treatment and hospices and things, that's what really turned me on, that it helped people who were suffering. As far as information, I get so much information, to speak for myself, I don't even know what the heck's going on.

Kurt: The record isn't going to give you any information. The money will.

Krist: Yeah. There's so many theories out there, is HIV even--

Dave: --having anything to do with AIDS?

Krist: --does it lead to AIDS? It's really hard. So, I guess the best thing you can do is help the people who are suffering from it.

Interviewer: Krist, I guess in some recent interviews you've tried to steer away from political subjects, so as not to be pigeonholed as the political one.

Krist: Heavy-handed. Yeah, there's no reason to dwell on it, because I'm just a bass player in a rock'n'roll band. Just go on and on and on about things. And you can talk all you want, but the main thing is that you should be doing things, and that's not just for me, that's for everybody, you know? Why talk about things in the media and then just go home and drink beer...

Kurt: Yeah, it's much more effective to do a benefit for Bosnian rape victims and come up with--[turns to Krist] How much money did we make for that, you know?--

Krist: Fifty-five grand.

Kurt: Yeah, I mean, that makes way more of an impact than talking about it.

Krist: And we got this organization called Balkan Women's Aid Fund--and [to interviewer] maybe you can flash the address and you can send donations to them--and we're working with women's groups in Croatia and Austria and Hungary and Serbia, and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, so we don't have any nationalist ties whatsoever. A lot of these women are just caught in the middle of it all, women and children, and so I'm just pluggin' away at that, still. I haven't given up and I just take advantage of the media and just mention the address, and if people want information they can write and I'll send them information back. But to just harp away on things, over and over again, people lose interest, you know.

We could be like We Are The World, on stage celebrating famine in Africa. You know [sings] "We are the world!" and there's kids, while they're doing that, totally starving to death. It's gross.

Interviewer: You went over to Bosnia...

Krist: I went to Croatia, I didn't go to Bosnia, no way. I wouldn't do that for Bob Guccione, Jr! [founder of Spin magazine, who assigned Krist to report on the Bosnian war for Spin]

All three: [laugh]

-24 Sept 1993

*to the No Alternative compilation to fund AIDS relief

Quote: Nirvana On Rape (1993)

[rocknroll1968]

Interviewer: Some of the people who responded to the song, "Rape Me", said they were offended by it, in some way, or that they couldn't understand it. Could you explain the meaning of the song to perhaps clear up...

Kurt: Well, we're the cover boys of about ten different magazines this month and in every one of those magazines we explain it pretty good. It's an anti--let me repeat that--ANTI-rape song. I got tired of people trying to put too much meaning into my lyrics, you know, as being too...not making enough sense, so I decided to be really blunt and bold. I just thought, it's a kind of a funny, just reward for a person who rapes--like a guy, like a mean asshole who rapes a woman, violates her, then he goes into jail and get raped, you know. And I think it's a kind of justice, in a way.

Krist: Maybe being offended and not understanding it goes hand-in-hand.

Int: Yeah, well the only reason they were offended is that they obviously took it as a macho, you know--

Krist: They've been programmed by too many beer commercials, or something.

Int: Yeah, I mean, I don't really know how you would misunderstand something like that--

Kurt: I thought we made our stance on rape clear within the last year-and-a-half. Plus, anyone who knows about us would probably know that we are pretty much anti-rape, at this point, you know?

Int: Yeah, you'd think that would be clear, but I guess these were people who didn't know that much about you and were just listening to a record. I mean, you had trouble with Saturday Night Live, right? I mean, trying to get that song played. Why is that if it's this straightforward anti-rape song? Why are they having a problem with it?

Krist: Maybe you shouldn't be talking about it. It's like, taboo, you know? Daddy's bonking the little stepchild, "We don't talk about that here! Nope!".

Int: What's controversial about an anti-rape song? I guess it's the nature of...

Krist: It's a taboo.

Int: Taboo subject.

Krist: Yeah.

-24 Sept 1993