Cobain on Cobain  places the reader at the key moments of Kurt Cobain’s roller-coaster career, telling the tale of Nirvana entirely through his words and those of his bandmates. Each interview is another knot in a thread running from just after the recording of their first album,  Bleach,  to the band’s collapse on the European tour of 1994 and Cobain's subsequent suicide. Interviews have been chosen to provide definitive coverage of the events of those five years from as close as possible, so that the reader can see Cobain reacting to the circumstances of each tour, each new release, each public incident, all the way down to the end. Including many interviews that have never before seen print,  Cobain on Cobain  will long remain the definitive source for anyone searching for Kurt Cobain's version of his own story.   “Nick [Soulsby] . . . demonstrates true passion for the music and a deep understanding of the musicians who create it. His words are more than just ciphers to echange for dollars, just as the music he's writing about was always more than just noise for profit."  —Kurt Danielson, lead singer, Tad   “This fascinating collection offers you a front-row seat to Nirvana’s stunning rise and tragic fall. Before the biographies, before the revisionism, before the mythologies, Nirvana’s story is revealed by Cobain and his bandmates as it unfolds, without the benefit of hindsight. Cobain on Cobain is the closest you can get to a Kurt Cobain autobiography.” —Gillian G. Gaar, author of Entertain Us: The Rise of Nirvana and Treasures of Nirvana Nick Soulsby  is the author of  I Found My Friends: The Oral History of Nirvana  and  Dark Slivers: Seeing Nirvana in the Shards of  Incesticide .  His website, www.nirvana-legacy.com, is widely seen as an invaluable Nirvana resource. Cobain on Cobain Interviews and Encounters By Nick Soulsby Chicago Review Press Incorporated Copyright © 2016 Nick Soulsby All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-61373-094-2 Contents Introduction, PART I. FEBRUARY TO JUNE 1989 — FLEDGLINGS, PART II. SEPTEMBER TO NOVEMBER 1989 — OLD NEW WORLD, PART III. JANUARY TO AUGUST 1990 — UNDERGROUND DARLINGS, PART IV. OCTOBER TO NOVEMBER 1990 — UK RISING, PART V. MARCH TO OCTOBER 1991 — ONE TO WATCH, PART VI. NOVEMBER TO DECEMBER 1991 — THE DELUGE, PART VII. JANUARY TO FEBRUARY 1992 — SULLENNESS, PART VIII. MARCH TO SEPTEMBER 1992 — REST AND RESUSCITATION, PART IX. OCTOBER 1992 TO JANUARY 1993 — NADIR, PART X. MAY TO DECEMBER 1993 — DAMAGE CONTROL, PART XI. FEBRUARY TO APRIL 1994 — THE REST IS SILENCE, About the Contributors, Credits, Index, CHAPTER 1 HAIR SWINGING NEANDERTHALS Phil West
February 25, 1989
Daily (US) I had the great fortune to be covering music for the Daily (the University of Washington's student newspaper) when Sub Pop was beginning its campaign to put Seattle on the map. I'd met Nirvana once before the interview, one evening having gone over to the apartment of a woman named Tamera who seemed to be helping manage them. Kurt, Chris, and Chad were sitting cross-legged around a turntable in the middle of her living room, transfixed by Black Sabbath's "Into the Void." I relayed that story to a Daily writer on the tenth anniversary of Cobain's death, but the writer misheard and reported they'd been sitting on stairs, which isn't as good a story. I did the interview at Sub Pop's offices in February 1989 — back when the label was in an eleventh-floor office in an art deco building in Belltown. Tamera had given me their early demo tape a few weeks before the interview, and it was getting heavy rotation on my Walkman. The interview was with Kurt and Jason Everman, who'd just joined the band and would be included on the live photo on the cover of Bleach — released just over three months after the interview — even though he didn't play on the record. We did the interview in a side room of the office that was being used for storage. No chairs; we just sat on the floor. Kurt (who was spelling it Kurdt at the time) didn't say much throughout the interview, but what he did say was funny, to the point, and quotable in the context of how Sub Pop was packaging itself, and I ended up using pretty much everything he said in the article. I could tell he was sort of bemused that someone was interested enough in the band to interview them. Jason talked most of the time, but I only used a couple of his quotes at the very end of the interview; as it turns out, Jason would eventually have the distinction of being kicked out of both Nirvana and Soundgarden. — Phil West Nirvana transcends all the pretensions that go along with being rock stars. They come across as the type of earthy psycho scums you wished you could beat up in high school. They view music as a trend, think the SubPop movement is sincere but "the ultimate rehash" and "the last wave of rock music," and singer/guitarist/group founder Kurdt Kobain, on the average, listens to th