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Kurt Donald Cobain
(February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994) was the lead singer and guitarist of
the American grunge band Nirvana, which also included bassist Krist
Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl. He was the frontman and the band's
"leader and spiritual center". Cobain became a major national celebrity,
an uncomfortable position for him as he was "ill at ease with fame and
ill-equipped to handle the responsibility that accompanies success".
Cobain and Nirvana were
highly influential, popularizing what came to be known as grunge music.
Grunge was a style that evolved in part as a reaction against the
perceived superficiality of 1980s stadium rock and metal bands with
glamorous images. His best known song is "Smells Like Teen Spirit",
which was pushed by the music media, especially MTV to
"anthem-of-a-generation status", and it has come to be seen as
emblematic of both grunge and Generation X. Among other well known
Cobain songs are "Lithium", "About a Girl", "Polly", "In Bloom", "Come
As You Are", "Heart-Shaped Box", "All Apologies", and the highly
controversial "Rape Me".
* * * *
Early life
Cobain was born weighing
7lb 7.5oz. in Grays Harbor Community Hospital, Aberdeen, Washington and
spent his early years in Hoquiam, Washington and Montesano, Washington,
after his parents, Wendy and Donald, divorced. He moved to the Seattle
area in 1985.
As a teenager with a
chaotic home life growing up in small town Washington, Cobain took part
in the thriving Pacific Northwest alternative culture, going to punk
rock shows in Seattle and forming a lifelong friendship with fellow
Montesano musicians The Melvins, whose music heavily influenced
Nirvana's sound. He had a small "K" inside a shield tattooed on his
forearm, the insignia of Olympia, Washington, label K Records, largely
chosen for the coincidental ellipsis of his name.
At school Cobain didn't
take much interest in academics or sports, mostly focusing on his art
courses. He was an outspoken supporter of gay students at his school,
sometimes suffering physically at the hands of homophobic students for
his beliefs. Although he once claimed in an interview with The Advocate
that he was arrested for spray-painting a pro-gay slogan on a bank,
Aberdeen police records show the phrase he was arrested for in 1986 was
actually "Ain't got no how watchamacallit".
It has been rumored that
Cobain was gay or bisexual; however, Cobain himself said numerous times
that he was heterosexual. In a February, 1992, interview with The
Advocate, Cobain admitted that he thought he was gay while in high
school and stated, "I could be bisexual... If I wouldn't have found
Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle".
In his journals he wrote that he was heterosexual, but wished he was gay
just "to piss off homophobes". Riding on the success of the recently
released music video to "Teen Spirit" Nirvana appeared on Saturday Night
Live in February 1992. At the end of the show when actors and guests
thank the crowd and close the show, Cobain and Novoselic french kissed
as the credits rolled. The video was cut from the show in syndication
and never aired again.
In his youth, Cobain spent
a lot of time reading in the local library, discovering such literary
figures as William S. Burroughs, whose cut-up technique Cobain later
utilised to write lyrics for some of Nirvana's songs. Cobain also later
recorded with Burroughs a spoken word/guitar improvisation piece called
The Priest They Called Him, whose words were originally one of
Burroughs' short stories out of The Exterminator. Other literary works
which provide illumination on Cobain's philosophy also include Perfume,
by Patrick Süskind, and the SCUM Manifesto, by Valerie Solanas.
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Nirvana
Before dropping out of high
school in 1983, Cobain met Novoselic, a fellow devotee of punk, with
whom he would form what would become Nirvana in 1987. Cobain convinced
Novoselic to form a band by lending him a demo tape of Fecal Matter,
Cobain's former band. Nirvana played around Washington, signed with Sub
Pop, and released their debut album Bleach in 1989. They exploded into
the mainstream two years later with the album Nevermind.
Cobain struggled to
reconcile the massive success of his band with his underground roots. He
also felt persecuted by the media, comparing himself to Frances Farmer,
and harbored no small amount of resentment for people who claimed to be
fans of the band but believed in nothing that Nirvana stood for or what
it came from. Of particular distress to the feminist Cobain was an
incident involving two men raping a woman while singing the Nirvana song
"Polly", which itself was about rape. Cobain condemned the episode in
the liner notes of the album Incesticide, calling the rapists "a waste
of sperm and eggs."
Marriage
After a proposal that
allegedly took place at the T.J.'s live music venue in Newport, Wales,
Cobain married Courtney Love, lead singer of the band Hole. The ceremony
took place on Monday 24 February 1992 on Waikiki Beach, Hawaii. Later
that year the two had a daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, born on 18
August. The unusual middle name was given to her because Cobain thought
she looked like a bean on the first sonogram he saw of her. Her namesake
is Frances McKee of The Vaselines, of whom Cobain was a big fan.
Love was somewhat unpopular
with Nirvana fans. Her harshest critics cited Cobain's total devotion to
her, combined with what they saw as her domineering personality and
inferior musical talent, as evidence that she was merely using him as a
vehicle to make herself famous; Critics who compared Cobain to John
Lennon were also fond of comparing Love to Yoko Ono. Rumors persist to
this day that Cobain wrote most of the songs on Hole's breakthrough
album Live Through This, although they remain unproven. It's worth
noting that, until Nirvana's stratospheric success with Nevermind, both
bands had virtually the same commercial stature. In fact, Hole was
becoming more popular on the club circuit until "Smells Like Teen
Spirit" suddenly reached #1 hit status on the Billboard charts.
A 1992 article in Vanity
Fair in which Love admitted to using heroin while (unknowingly) pregnant
worsened her image; while Cobain and Love's romance had been something
of a media attraction before the article was published, they were now
constantly hounded by tabloid reporters wanting to know if Frances was
addicted to drugs from birth. The notoriety of the article even resulted
in Child Welfare Services launching an (eventually dismissed)
investigation into the couple's fitness as parents. Love, along with
Cobain, claimed that Vanity Fair took her words out of context. It is
believed that this trauma worsened Cobain's depression and alienation
from the music industry.
Musical influences
Cobain was a devoted
champion of alternative rock acts. He would often make reference to his
favourite bands in interviews, more often than not placing a greater
importance on the bands that influenced him than on his own music.
Making references to obscure performers like The Vaselines, Daniel
Johnston, The Meat Puppets, the Pixies, Young Marble Giants, The Wipers
(which Nirvana recorded two tribute songs: "Return of the Rat" and
"D-7") and The Raincoats as well as sharing a split single with The
Jesus Lizard, proved beneficial to both parties in that the bands found
a larger audience and Cobain cemented his indie rock credibility. Both
The Raincoats and The Vaselines records were reissued by Nirvana's
record company Geffen Records. Kurt has also said that the black metal
band Celtic Frost was an influence on Bleach.
Curt and Cris Kirkwood from
the Meat Puppets appeared with Nirvana on Nirvana's MTV Unplugged
special, playing on three Meat Puppets covers. The set also featured
cover versions of songs by the aforementioned Vaselines, David Bowie and
legendary bluesman Leadbelly. One of Cobain's favorite musicians, Pat
Smear of the L.A. punk legends The Germs, briefly joined the band in
1994, most notably playing guitar on the MTV Unplugged album.
Addiction and death
Throughout most of his
life, Cobain had battled depression, as well as intense physical pain
due to a chronic stomach condition, and chronic bronchitis. To dull the
stomach pain he blamed on the stresses of performing, he self-medicated
with heroin, which he had used casually since Nirvana's early days. By
1993 (at latest), his use developed into an addiction, which he battled
unsuccessfully for the better part of a year. While on tour in Rome,
Kurt overdosed on Rohypnol. It is disputed whether he attempted suicide
or if someone else was trying to kill him. He was revived and
hospitalized. He headed home and his drug began to escalate. A group of
close family and friends finally came to him to tell him to get help. He
finally agreed and headed to the clinic in California. While there, he
told the nurses he was going out for a smoke break. When he finished it,
he jumped over the facility's 4 foot wall, caught the next flight back
to Seattle, and disappeared, although this is disputed. On April 8,
Cobain's body, which had one gunshot wound to the head, was discovered
in the guesthouse above the garage at his Lake Washington home by Veca
Electric employee, Gary Smith, who had been commissioned to install
security lighting. He is believed to have died on April 5.
Cobain is believed and
legally recognized to have committed suicide with a shotgun his best
friend Dylan Carlson bought for him, though a growing group is now
claiming he was murdered. Private investigator Tom Grant is the most
vocal of a group that claims Cobain's death was not a suicide, but
rather murder. Grant cites as physical evidence the level of heroin in
his bloodstream, which he claims was enough to incapacitate him enough
that it would have been impossible to shoot himself once, as well as
contending the apparent suicide note that he claims was actually a
letter to announce his intent to leave Courtney Love, Seattle and the
music business; Grant also claims that a number of handwriting experts
have questioned the authenticity of a crucial section of the note. In
addition, the shotgun Cobain used was too long for him to use with his
fingers to cause the angle of the wound, and there were no fingerprints
on the gun. He would have had to pull the trigger with his toe to cause
the angle described in the report; he was found with both shoes still in
place. Grant's conclusion is that Cobain was murdered by resident nanny
Michael DeWitt on the instruction of Love. Filmmaker Nick Broomfield
made a documentary film on this theory entitled Kurt & Courtney.
In the alleged suicide
note, Cobain quoted a lyric from Neil Young's song "Hey, Hey, My, My":
"It's better to burn out than to fade away." Cobain's use of the lyric
had a profound impact on Young, who recorded portions of the Sleeps With
Angels album in Cobain's memory.
Cobain was cremated, with
one third of his ashes scattered in a Buddhist temple in New York,
another third in the Wishkah River, and the rest in Love's possession.
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After Cobain's death
Writer Charles R. Cross
published a biography of Cobain titled Heavier Than Heaven in 2001. A
year later, a collection of Cobain's journal excerpts was released.
Years after his passing, Cobain continues to intrigue and inspire fans,
most recently with the release of a new track titled "You Know You're
Right" in the fall of 2002, along with a greatest hits album called,
simply, Nirvana. The release of both had been held up by legal wrangling
between Love, who didn't want the album to be released, and the
remaining members of the band. After legal battles, a Nirvana box set,
With The Lights Out, was released in 2004, which included previously
unreleased material. Cobain's bandmates went on to form new bands:
Novoselic formed the commercially unsuccessful Sweet 75, then formed an
equally unsuccessful supergroup with ex-members of The Meat Puppets and
Sublime by the name of Eyes Adrift. When not playing music, he often
goes on speaking tours as a political activist. Grohl, meanwhile, went
on to form the hugely successful Foo Fighters.
In 2005, a sign was put up
in Aberdeen, Washington that reads "Welcome to Aberdeen- Come As You
Are" as a tribute to Cobain. The sign was paid for and created by the
Kurt Cobain Memorial Committee, a non-profit organization created in May
2004 to honor Cobain. The Committee also plans to create a Kurt Cobain
Memorial Park and a youth center in Aberdeen.
The movie Last Days is
loosely based on the final hours of Cobain's life. It is directed by Gus
Van Sant and stars Michael Pitt as a drug-addicted, depressed rock star
modeled after Cobain. The movie will be released in on July 22, 2005.
* * * *
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Date Article Copied:
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