Interviewer: Yeah, [the reservations are] terrible, because they never smile, they have a very sad face. I want to know your opinion about these people and what the government made about with these people. It's terrible for a civilized country. I can't understand.

Kurt: Well, when the colonists came over to America, they took advantage of the Indians. The Indians invited them--I mean, they didn't invite them, but they helped them, they taught them how to live off the land, and [audio missing] ...Indian people, and put them in reservations. And they did all kinds of atrocious things to them.

They tried to wipe out whole races. They gave them blankets that were infected with diseases, and they gave them alcohol, which is something they weren't used to. As a people, as a race, they're 200 years behind of having alcohol in their system, so naturally, the majority of all the Indians are alcoholics now. And they don't have much to look forward to because they're all drunk, and they're put in these little reservations and they don't even fight the white man anymore.

-Interview with Viv Morrison and Ann Catherine
Paris, Hotel Royal Fromentin
November 1991

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