In a new interview, grunge music legends Krist Novoselic of Nirvana, Kim Thayil of Soundgarden, and record engineer Jack Endino talked and reminisced about songwriter and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. The chat came shortly before Nirvana received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys.
Videos by American Songwriter
In the video, which dropped on Thursday (February 2), Novoselic talks about how Cobain could contradict himself. In one sense, he was counter-culture, says the Nirvana bassist, and in another, he wanted to be “really famous.”
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“He was like a windmill and he would just say one thing and he would, like, change his mind on it,” says Novoselic.
Novoselic also talked about how, in Endino’s words, Nirvana was “shot out of a cannon,” saying, “All of a sudden, you’re on the cover of all these magazines. We got shot out of a cannon… and he had his own thing he had to deal with through his drug addiction. That’s what tore him down, it was too powerful. It should have never happened.”
The conversation then turned to Thayil and Soundgarden’s song, “Black Hole Sun,” from their album, Superunknown. The trio listened to the tune and Novoselic pats Thayil on the back. In fact, Thayil can’t quite recall which parts he played on the track, noting that the band’s frontman, Chris Cornell, likely contributed guitar to the historic single.
Later, Endino says that while the grunge songs from the bands are intricate, they are gratuitous prog rock math rock. It’s all “in service” of the songwriting.
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Towards the end of the conversation, Novoselic refers to the early mixes for Nevermind and how the songs went through several versions before landing on the final.
Check out the full interview with the three music legends below.
Photo by Frank Micelotta/Getty Images
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