NIRVANA SLASH ARCHIVE

"When the song finished I kissed Kurdt's hand then gave him a big hug it was very emotional [...] Went for a walk into town with Kurdt and Go-Go. Kurdt is unfathomable. He's friendly but introverted and I find it difficult to talk to him because I admire his group so much and I don't like talking about music with him"

-Eugene Kelly writing about singing one of his own songs with Kurt during Nirvana's Reading Festival set (from Eugene's diary of the 1991 UK tour on which Captain America opened for Nirvana, Uncut Magazine Aug 2021)

Interviewer: So, how did you guys meet? Come together?

Krist: Well, Kurt and I originally lived in this small community in Washington, and we just kind of found each other, because, uh...

Kurt: There's not too many people in that small community that like punk rock.

Krist: Yeah, yeah.

Kurt: It isn't too hard.

Krist: Yeah, yeah, it's like, you meet somebody and: "Oh, this is just another one of those fuckin' geeks." [makes chronic geek face] Then we fell in love. Yeah. It's been great. We're married.

Kurt: [sarcastic] Then we fell in love with each other's father's. [shakes head]

Krist: Yeah, it's like, father and son--fathers' and sons' relationships are really heavy. We like, swap fathers and stuff.

Kurt: We were part of the man-love-boy association.

Krist: We met through our fathers. Our fathers were kind of notorious in our town.

Kurt: [grins]

-18 Apr 1990

"I was sitting on a small couch and Tad was sitting in a chair across from me and we were talking. Just then Kurt walks in and jumps on Tad's lap and hangs on him with his arms around Tad's neck. Tad says, "Merry Christmas, little boy! What would you like for Christmas this year?"
Kurt then says, "I'm not so happy with you, Santa Tad..."
Tad: "Oh, really? And why is that?"
Kurt: "Because last year I asked you for a rubber fist shaped like this" [gestures with his hand in a tight fist] "but instead you gave me a rubber fist shaped like this!" [makes a gesture with his hand with all his fingers pressed together and straight forward] We all laughed."

-Tim Soylan, member of opening band who toured with Tad, recalling a 1990 tour story (2015, I Found My Friends by Nick Soulsby)

"Scream broke up in LA, and Buzz Osborne told Dave that he should join Nirvana. So Dave called us and the first question I could think to ask was who his favorite bands were (I thought I should ask!)"...Kurt's in the background going, 'Shut up! Why are you asking that shit? Tell him to get up here!' It all sort of snowballed from there."

-Krist, 2005, Sliver: The Best of The Box booklet

"Chris and Dave have had to pick up a lot of Kurt's slack. Chris and Dave were close before, but now they're inseparable."

-Nils Bernstein, Nirvana's fanmail organizer, 16 Apr 1992, Rolling Stone magazine

"Novoselic and Cobain come from rural Aberdeen, Washington. [...] One of the more popular bars in town is actually called the Pourhouse, which is where two young men about Cobain's age, Joe and James, sit down for a pitcher of beer--each. [...]

"Yeah, I know the Cobain kid," says James, "Faggot."
He's a faggot?" asks Joe, taken aback. Recovering quickly, he declares, "We deal with faggots here. We run 'em out of town."

This is where Cobain and Novoselic grew up. That's why they kissed each other full on the lips as the Saturday Night Live credits rolled. They knew it would piss off the folks back home--and everybody like them.

"I definitely have a problem with the average macho man--the strong-oxen, working-class type," Cobain says wearily, "because they have always been a threat to me. I've had to deal with them most of my life--being taunted and beaten up by them in school, just having to be around them and be expected to be that kind of person when you grow up.

"I definitely feel closer to the feminine side of the human being than I do the male--or the American idea of what a male is supposed to be," Cobain continues. "Just watch a beer commercial and you'll see what I mean."

Of course, Cobain was miserable in high school. [...] [He] was a sensitive sort, small for his age, and uninterested in sports. "He was terrified of jocks and moron dudes," recalls Cobain's old friend, Mudhoney bassist Matt Lukin.

"As I got older," says Cobain, a fan of Beckett, Burroughs, and Bukowski, "I felt more and more alienated--I couldn't find friends whom I felt compatible with at all. Everyone was going to become a logger, and I knew I wanted to do something different. I wanted to be some kind of artist.""

-16 Apr 1992, Rolling Stone magazine article by Michael Azerrad

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

"He's [Krist's] fantastic. I mean, he's highly underrated, or at least overshadowed as a musician, but he's such a huge part of Nirvana. I think Dave once said, "I've played in so many shows, you know how many Krist played in? All of 'em." And that's really true.

And I know from stories that Krist told me, you know, like, even in the early days, Krist was doing a lot of the load-ins. Krist was very protective of Kurt. It was very much a Sam and Frodo kind of a thing. Krist really fostered Kurt's ability to do what he did. And I think that you really need these two elements."

-Earnie Bailey, Nirvana's guitar tech, 13 Jun 2020, Daniel Sarkissian interview

Interviewer: "Are you going back [to Seattle] to vote in the elections?"

Kurt: "Yeah, I'll vote for Clinton."

Int: "Do you think he's the true change that he says he is?"

Kurt: "No, he's a Democrat, and the Democrats are not close either morally or philosophically to what I think. The Democrats are very conservative, but at least they're not as conservative as the Republicans. Republicans are the incarnation of Satan. I hate them. For me, the word 'Republican' is a bad word; when someone says 'Republican' they are saying, "cheat". It's the most offensive term you can say to someone. But in America there's nothing beyond these options."

Int: "Ross Perot?"

Kurt: "Nah, the guy sucks. He's rich; I don't trust him as president. In the end, though, I would risk it with someone who is not a professional politician, someone who does not follow the guidelines for being a certified politician. I'd prefer to vote for Perot, but he's not going to win; he is well behind. I don't want to waste my vote, and I prefer to make sure Bush doesn't continue. Obviously, the way the guy is doing things doesn't work." *

-31 Oct 1992, Argentina

"In retrospect, my lack of skills led to lateral topics, such as ant farms and his [Kurt's] reverence for Mel Gibson, a.k.a. the Road Warrior, whom he termed "a hunk.""

-Robyn Doreian, about her second interview with Kurt dated 7 Dec 1991 (from Nick Soulsby's Cobain on Cobain)