Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [121]
Was going back to school a reaction to our success? Probably. I don’t know what I was afraid of. I didn’t think I was meant to be a rock star, so I was fighting it.
MATT LUKIN Steve’s like, “I’m taking the year off, I’m going to school.” And I’m like, “Well, fuck it, then. I gotta go back to work. I can’t sit around for a year and do nothing.” So I went back to work as a carpenter, and it kind of took the wind out of my sails as far as being in the band.
DAN PETERS I ran into Kurt’s and Krist’s girlfriends, Tracy and Shelli, at the Vogue one night, and they told me that Nirvana was looking for another drummer. Steve was back in school, so I’m like, “I got some time. Let ’em know that I’m interested.” Next thing I knew, I get a call from Kurt, and I start jamming with those guys. But the practices weren’t fun, like in Mudhoney, where we were drinking beer and having a good time. But I was glad I was able to record that one song, “Sliver,” with them.
The one show I played with them was at the Motor Sports International Garage. You could tell there was a lot of momentum building for those guys. They were already planning on leaving Sub Pop at the time.
JONATHAN PONEMAN That was a huge show, with the Melvins and the Dwarves and the Derelicts on the bill. I was on the side of the stage, and I remember Kurt looking at me from the stage and saying in front of probably fifteen hundred people in the audience, “Jon, we’re not signing to Capitol.” That was the rumor that had spread around.
JULIANNE ANDERSEN The Motor Sports show? That was the moment. That’s when I knew. This little kid from Aberdeen that’s obviously a little bit shy, a little bit overwhelmed by everything that’s happened, and there’s so many cameras in his face.
I remember watching Charles Peterson have to jostle for space; that was his deal, and that guy had to fight for physical space on that stage. It just wasn’t right. I had photo passes, but I walked off that stage, because I knew right then and there that quiet kid from Aberdeen was in for a long and rough ride, and at the time, I felt like the best thing anyone could do for him was back the fuck off.
SALTPETER (bassist for San Francisco’s Dwarves) That was an all right show, until some little cunt in the audience threw a 7-Up bottle and split my forehead open during “Let’s Fuck.” I did finish the song before I went to the emergency room and got my head sewn up. The other thing I remember was that the Dwarves had like a $100 guarantee. And I think Nirvana had like $1,000. And I remember Blag haggling with Krist over money before the show, like, “Could you kick us another hundred bucks for gas money?” And Krist was not having any of it, until I went to the emergency room. When the Dwarves came to pick me up after the show, they said, “Hey, we got another hundred bucks out of Nirvana because you got hit with a bottle.” I guess that was worth it.
DAN PETERS The day after that show, they had an interview and BBQ scheduled at Krist’s place in Tacoma. And I was like, “Let me see if I can borrow my wife’s car.” And they were like, “Nah, don’t worry about it.” And I’m like, “I’ll make it.” And they didn’t say anything.
I go down to Tacoma the next day and do the interview and the photo shoot. And this guy Dave, he’s the drummer for Scream, is hanging in the background, having hamburgers and whatnot, and nobody says anything.
Kurt and Krist were going off to L.A. to talk to labels, and there was talk of the band going off and doing a U.K. tour after that.
BRUCE PAVITT There were rumors that Nirvana were shopping themselves around. Jon had asked me to go down to Olympia to talk to Kurt to try to convince him to stay with the label, to have a heart-to-heart. It was more of an act of diplomacy. I brought down a couple of records that I thought he would really appreciate, Philosophy of the World by the Shaggs and Hi, How Are You by Daniel Johnston, two of the freakiest, most obscure records I had in my collection. My intention was to essentially