Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [151]
BRUCE PAVITT The success of Nevermind was miraculous, to say the least. By Christmas of ’91, Nevermind had sold two million.
JONATHAN PONEMAN We had a participation in the Nevermind sales, plus we were getting a lot of money from Bleach sales, when people wanted to find out about Nirvana’s first record.
BRUCE PAVITT I was in a state of disbelief that we went from not being able to pay our phone bill to getting a check for half a million bucks. Of course, after that, we were so happy they went to Geffen.
GREG DULLI If every Sub Pop band did not send a fruit basket to Kurt Cobain, then I certainly did. Well, I figuratively sent him one. I went to Nirvana’s show at the Palace in L.A. and hugged Kurt and said, “Good one, bro. Congratulations. And thank you—now I can go home.”
STEVE WIEDERHOLD Everywhere you go people are cranking up fuckin’ Nevermind, everywhere. That really fucked with my head. I didn’t expect it, I didn’t think this would happen. I was always like, “Nobody cares.” People were actually interested, I guess. It was on TV, on the radio. I’m out of TAD, I’m working at Sears, Roebuck and Co. doing shipping and receiving, and I don’t want anybody to know that I know Nirvana. I just want to concentrate on my work, you know.
BILLBOARD (“Nirvana Achieves Chart Perfection,” by Paul Grein, January 11, 1992) Nirvana pulls off an astonishing palace coup by dethroning King of Pop Michael Jackson from the top spot on the Billboard 200 Top Albums chart. The Seattle-area alternative band’s “Nevermind” surges from No. 6 to No. 1; Jackson’s “Dangerous” drops from No. 1 to No. 5.
MARK KATES By the time the Michael Jackson thing happened, we were ready for it. He represented the old business, which involved the ability to pay for chart positions. The Billboard chart, prior to the [May 1991] introduction of SoundScan, was comprised of store reports. Theoretically, the stores reported what they sold. However, that wasn’t always the case. There were companies that you could hire whose job it was to get the best possible store reports. This might not be fair to Michael Jackson or Epic Records, but it really was seen as a changing of the guard. We knew that what we had going on couldn’t be bought.
AARON STAUFFER (Seaweed singer) I was working at Sub Pop when they found out that the Nirvana record went to the top of the charts. Pavitt did some insane Elvis-looking maneuver in elation. He swung his arm in a circle, got down on one knee—with one fist in the air, head down—and went, “Yesss!”
MARCO COLLINS One of the landmark moments for me was going over to Nils Bernstein’s house for a party when Nirvana first played Saturday Night Live. There were 15 or 20 people over there; I think Rusty Willoughby, Kurt Bloch, and maybe Dan Peters from Mudhoney were there. Everybody is drinking a shitload of beer, and there’s just an obnoxious, fun attitude in the room.
When Nirvana launched into their song, the room just got quiet, and when they were done and Saturday Night Live cut away to commercials, the room was still dead silent. It was like everybody in that roomful of drunk people realized at that moment how big it actually was. I’m getting chills even talking about it right now.
AMY FINNERTY I remember that when Nirvana played Saturday Night Live, I was in the greenroom. Somebody, I’m guessing Janet, told Kurt that I was the person that had gotten their video played, and he pulled me aside and was like, “I just wanted to say thank you,” and then he said, “I never knew what you did over there. We always thought you were like the VP of Post-it Notes”—I don’t know what that meant. “We just liked you and thought you were cool to hang around with.”
BRUCE PAVITT I spent some time with Kurt backstage after Nirvana’s Saturday Night Live show. That was a real good heart-to-heart rap session. He talked about signing autographs for some young kids, and I think that made him feel really good. He was a sensitive guy who really liked kids and animals. I remember the first time