"Anybody know about whiteknot.org? You know what that's about? It's I believe in love and I believe in equality and I believe in marriage equality."
-Dave, 6 Feb 2009, MusiCares benefit (he was wearing a white knot)
“I have dreams all the time. I have dreams about once a month. [...] Well, they’re usually all the same, but in all of them it’s prior to his [Kurt's] death. He shows up in my dreams, and I’m like holy shit! You’re not dead, and it’s like it was some big secret or some big joke and then you can’t wait to tell everyone. Then you wake up. Within them there’s the same conversations that always happen. In those dreams, he’s never dead; he’s always alive, so I think it’s kind of cool.
I think there’s a whole lot more to the spirit than people can even comprehend. I think there’s more … it’s even too much bravado and egotistical for human beings to think that we’re the end, or that their minds are capable of understanding the universe. It’s not possible. Fuck you for telling me life can’t exist outside planet Earth. How do you know? There’s romance and mystery or the thrill of the chase, whatever. I’m not willing to make up my mind yet.”
-Dave Grohl, Flaunt Magazine, Nov 2002
"Kurt was just like, really quiet and really edgy and we got to the bar and Kurt just announced, 'I've got to go out.' And just disappeared. So there was Dave and Krist and [Luke] the publicist sitting there. After about 20 minutes Krist is like, 'This is fucking ridiculous. We're supposed to be doing an interview, he walked off, I'm going home.' Krist walked out, so now there's Dave and me and Luke.
So, Dave and I are talking about antique clocks (he's a collector) and all of a sudden Kurt just bounces in, smiling, and goes, 'I'm sorry, I had to go see my chiropractor.' It was about 40 minutes. There was a big change in his attitude. Broadway is not renowned for chiropractors. His mood had completely changed, he was so bouncy and Luke was sitting there looking completely horrified. So, Kurt asks where Krist is, and we tell him he's gone. Kurt just launches into this rant about how much he hates Krist. Every time he sees him when he's out, Krist backs away like, 'Oh god, here comes the junkie' and it's like he can't stand him and he's always walking off."
-Dave Thompson, journalist & author, recalls the growing tension in July 1993 between Kurt and Krist as a result of Kurt's addiction (Nirvana: The Day to Day Illustrated Journals by Carrie Borzillo, pg. 145, 2000)
"They really liked the studio's monitors, because they were so huge-sounding. When Been A Son was done, Kurt and Krist asked, 'Can we dance on the tables?' They jumped on one table and I jumped on another, and as we listened to the song, we rocked."
-Steve Fisk, engineer & producer, remembers a Sept. 1989 recording session (Jan. 2005 Mojo Magazine)
"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
"Kurt was always protective of his little sister. Some eighteen years after this picture [above, left] was taken, Kim came out to Kurt, and he immediately expressed concern for her safety in Aberdeen--a town not known for tolerance towards homosexuals."
-Chris Molanphy, Kurt Cobain: Voice of a Generation (2003), pg. 18 (the author interviewed Kurt's family for this book)
Novoselic: Jazz drug [referring to heroin]. Then you’re inclined for medication. I can see how it was attractive. You know, people medicating themselves …. And then there’s this whole whirlwind.
Hughes: About that stomach ailment that he was cursed with?
Novoselic: It was weird. It was real, I mean it was real. I remember he would throw up so much he couldn’t throw up any more. I took him to doctors, specialists.
Hughes: You would think that some of those specialists could have hit on something.
Novoselic: I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what, that’s a mystery. You’d think they’d find something. I think it was just the crap food. Here’s the deal, like, we don’t have a lot of money, OK. So we go to like AM/PM, in Olympia. Right behind the lottery office there was an AM/PM there. And it was like, OK at least I got a hot dog. We’re hungry, right. He gets a fucking ice-cream cone. And I’m like, “No wonder your stomach hurts. Why are you eating ice cream?” And then he looks at me and gets all pissed off , like I’m telling him what to do. But I’m the dude who drove him to the frickin’ hospital, or hanging out with him while he’s puking his guts, and trying to help him. So it’s just like, you know, “Oh, don’t do heroin.” And I’d get the same look. You know what I mean? So where the heck am I going to go? What am I going to do? What can I say? “You eat this greasy hot dog instead of the ice cream cone.”
-14 Oct 2008, Interviewed by John Hughes for the Washington State Heritage Center
"[One of] Kurt's earliest aspirations [was] to earn enough money to buy a piece of land that both he and his best friend, Krist, could live on with their girlfriends. Sub Pop's Megan Jasper recalls an early conversation:
"I remember one time they were in my office waiting for Jonathan and Bruce and they were making jokes about why they were making records, they were half-joking, because they never thought it would be possible, but they wanted to buy a chunk of land in the middle of nowhere that was all farm land. And they wanted it to be big enough so Krist and Shelli could have a house built on that land, and Kurt and Tracy wanted a house on the same chunk of property, so they could be neighbors and have these great farmhouses. And they were laughing because they never thought they'd be able to have it. Those two [Kurt and Krist] were inseparable at the time. They were so tight.""
-from Nirvana: The Daily Eyewitness Chronicle by Carrie Borzillo
"Novoselic admitted he had tipped Kurt off [about the drug intervention], feeling the idea would backfire and that Kurt would flee. "I just felt so bad for him," Krist recalled. "He looked so fucked up. I knew he wouldn't listen to it." Krist saw Kurt for the first time since Rome that week at the Marco Polo Motel on Aurora Avenue. "He was camped out there. He was delusional. It was so weird. He was like, 'Krist, where can I buy a motorcycle?' I was like, 'Fuck, what are you talking about? You don't want to buy a motorcycle. You've got to get the fuck out of here.'" Krist invited Kurt to go away on vacation, just the two of them, to talk things out, but Kurt refused. "He was really quiet. He was just estranged from all his relationships. He wasn't connecting with anybody."
Kurt complained of being hungry, so Krist offered to buy him dinner at a fancy restaurant; Kurt insisted he wanted a Jack in the Box hamburger. As Novoselic drove toward Jack in the Box in the nearby U-District, Kurt protested: "Those hamburgers are too greasy. Let's go to the one on Capitol Hill--the food is better there." Only when they arrived on Capitol Hill did Novoselic realize Kurt didn't want hamburgers at all: He was simply using his old friend to get a ride to score drugs. "His dealer was right by there. He just wanted to get fucked up into oblivion. There was no talking to him. He just wanted to escape. He wanted to die, that was what he wanted to do." The two men began screaming at each other and Kurt bolted from the car."
-Heavier Than Heaven, Charles R. Cross, 2001, pg. 332
Interviewer: How would you describe the relationship between Kurt and Krist?
Dave: Krist was Kurt's best friend - always. The two of them had a connection beyond words. I think they were closer to each other than they were to anybody else. Krist is a very lovely, gentle, sweet, and huge man. If he's your friend, he's your friend for life. He protected Kurt in a lot of ways and situations. The perfect example is Krist keeping that huge bouncer from killing Kurt after Kurt smacked him over the head with his guitar in Dallas, Texas. The first person to jump up and protect Kurt was Krist. You have a 400-pound bouncer wanting to kill Kurt, and Krist just got up and said, "Don't even try it."
-13 Sept. 2001, Rolling Stone Magazine
RS: What are the things about [Kurt] that make you laugh now?
Krist: His weird sense of humor, which was kind of grotesque. The comics and drawings he did, because he was a good visual artist. Sometimes he would speak in these high-pitched voices, like a child Satanist. We were always laughing about something, being ridiculous--mostly dumb jokes.
-Krist, Rolling Stone 13 Sept. 2001
Rolling Stone: What was that last year like?
Dave Grohl: "You just never knew. There were times when the room was lit up with energy and happiness, and there were times when the vibe was like the fucking plague. The last year, being in that band was rough. There was a whole lot of dark shit going on. At that point I was living this wonderful, healthy life outside the band, but when I'd enter a band environment, that all changed. It wasn't a lot of fun. But when Pat Smear joined the band, it changed everything. We went from being fucking sulking dirtbags to kids again. It changed our world. He's the sweetest person in the world. He became really close with Kurt. There was laughter."
(2005)
"I can't think of one show that I ever played with that band where we walked offstage and said, 'That was great.' Never one. Only two times did I get any reassurance from Kurt. Once when I joined the band, in 1990, we were drunk at some disco in England, and Kurt came up and said, 'I'm so glad you're in this band. I'm so glad you're down-to-earth.' I was like, 'Wow!' The next time was in late '93 or early '94 when I came home and turned on my message machine and had a message from Kurt that said, 'Y'know, I was just sitting here listening to 'In Utero', and your drumming is so awesome. You did such a great job!' I was like, 'Wow!' Those two things were spread out by about four years [laughs]."
-Dave, Rolling Stone 2005
"We were always serious about recording and rehearsing. We would drive sixty miles to rehearsal. We would rehearse in Seattle, starting at eleven o'clock at night. I lived in Tacoma, Kurt lived in Olympia and Chad Channing lived in Bainbridge Island. We all came together every night--do a lot of driving and crash in Bainbridge or Tacoma.
We also rehearsed in Tacoma. We found this barn--someone had made it into a studio. It was warm, and we weren't disturbed. There weren't other bands bleeding through the walls. We had the music to ourselves. And Kurt was always kicking songs around. He'd be in his apartment, cranking out riffs and vocal melodies, then bring them up: "Hey, check this one out." We'd put it into the grinder and see what came out the other end."
-Krist, Rolling Stone 13 Sept. 2001
"Kurt was so many different things. He was funny or shy or this outgoing, larger-than-life persona. He could be sweet or he could be fucking wicked. He could be intimidating."
-Dave, Rolling Stone 2005
"Krist and Kurt had a legendary lifetime connection. Those guys were soulmates. They'd been through so much together, from Aberdeen to the success of 'Nevermind'. They fuckin' shared everything, and they were the kind of friends that didn't have to talk to each other--they just knew."
-Dave, Rolling Stone 2005
An African-American fan approached and asked for an autograph. "Hey, man, I love your record," the guy said. Kurt had been asked for his autograph a hundred times that day, but this was the only time he responded with a smile. Kurt told [Amy] Finnerty, "No one black has ever said they liked my record before."
-Excerpt from Heavier Than Heaven (Cross, 2001, pg 226)
"Krist was one of the only people who could make Kurt laugh. They shared a sense of humor. Krist could make Kurt start laughing, rolling and crying on the floor. Of course, I never understood what the fuck they were talking about."
-Dave, Rolling Stone, 13 Sept. 2001
"I walked right up to him and grabbed him and stuck my tongue in his mouth, kissing him. I just wanted to make him feel better. At the end of it all, I told him, 'It's going to be ok. It's not so bad. Ok?'"
-Krist about his and Kurt's snog on their 1992 SNL appearance, on which Krist also kissed Dave (2001, Heavier Than Heaven, pgs 227-228)
"Bands can recover from bad hair, from genres that have disappeared, from members quitting, or lineup changes. The things that bands can't recover from are death and drugs. And that's bottom line.
If there were anything I could tell a young band, it'd be just "Don't do coke." Go take Ecstasy and fuck your friends and buy giant bags of weed and wear a condom.
But it happens over and over again anyway. Musicians are a funny bunch of idealistic dreamers and self-destructive depressives. Those are the type of people that usually flash out quick."
-Dave, Spin Magazine 1 Aug 2005
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rocknroll1968 - Quote: Dave believes in marriage equality (2009)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Kurt lives in Dave's dreams (2002)rocknroll1968 - Quote: You reject me? I'll reject you first! (2000)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Dancing on the tables (1989)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Krist's inquisition (2005)rocknroll1968 - Excerpt: Kim comes out to Kurt (1994?)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Krist on Kurt's chronic illness (2008)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Kurt & Krist's domestic dream (2000)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Krist on Kurt's addict behaviors & mental illness (2001)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Krist as Kurt's protector (2001)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Krist on Kurt's sense of humor (2001)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Dave on the band dynamic at the end (2005)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Dave wanted Kurt's approval (2005)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Nirvana live in a barn (2001)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Dave was sometimes intimidated by Kurt (2005)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Dave talking soulmates again (2005)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Kurt values the opinions of fans of color (1992)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Dave on his bandmates' sense of humor (2001)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Krist comforts Kurt with a snog (2001)rocknroll1968 - Quote: Dave says to fuck your friends (2005)![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}