Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [196]
That’s one reason why I got kicked out of the band. Also, Jerry was jealous ’cause I was getting a lot of attention. I was in a magazine, as “sexiest babe of the month.” When that came out, I was walking to the bus, and Jerry had the magazine ripped up at his feet. And I was kicked out two months after that.
JERRY CANTRELL We were really sad about it, of course … We’d been together for five years, did a couple of records, EPs, been in a movie—we had quite a history together. It was a hard decision to make, but things just weren’t working out, so we made the decision to part ways.
MIKE INEZ Sean had said, “You gotta go and get all these shots to go down to Brazil,” so I went back to L.A., got the shots, and was gonna fly out to Brazil. Then they said, “Mike wants to do the last two shows here in Brazil, so we’ll just meet you in London.” I’m like, Oh great, I’m already sick from these vaccination shots!
JENNIFER FINCH When we went to play in South America, we all took the plane—L7 and the Chili Peppers and Nirvana and Courtney—from L.A. We were making these jokes that if that plane goes down, it’s gonna be like the Big Bopper and Buddy Holly situation. When the plane landed, everyone said it lost a wheel, but what really happened was they lost the braking system on one of the wheels so it locked and the plane kind of spun sideways. Everyone was just in shock. Anthony from the Chili Peppers kicked the door open and started screaming at the pilot, and then Anthony was pulled off the plane.
Nirvana totally wouldn’t talk to each other. Everyone was at the end of their rope with the drug and sickness situation with Kurt. Dave had just started his relationship with a gal he later married who’s also named Jennifer. She’s really lovely and had long red hair. Courtney was so pissed at me that I didn’t marry him. Her quote was, “That could be your house on the hill.”
The first weekend was in São Paulo and then the next weekend was in Rio, so there was an entire week off where the promoters just put together all this different really super-fun stuff to do, like scuba diving or going to the beach or going shopping. We all had bodyguards because we had to. L7 were popular down there. Our faces were so public that there were kidnapping threats.
CRAIG MONTGOMERY Rio and São Paulo, that was quite a trip. First we get down there and we play this giant soccer stadium in São Paulo for 80,000 people—it was this festival with Alice in Chains and L7 and some other bands. We were all staying at the same hotel. Lots of drinking. Going to the beach.
Kurt and Courtney were just holed up in their hotel room. The Courtney Love hotel room was a particular kind of disaster; I learned this later on, after tour managing Hole. She brings like two or three giant suitcases full of clothes, and somehow all those suitcases would get opened and everything would get spread out all over the hotel room. And then it’s all coated in cosmetics and baby powder, it’s just a tornado of clothes and makeup. They just sit in there and order room service, but they don’t let the maids in to clean up or take out the dishes. It looks like an episode of Hoarders.
COURTNEY LOVE The one time I saw Kurt happy with his job was when we went to Rio. We had a bodyguard, we stayed at a four-star hotel. He hung out with Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains. He blew a line, which is like really tacky, but when in fuckin’ Buenos Aires, blow a line. I was like, “Let’s have a threesome with a model!” And he was like, “Really?” I’m like, “Yeah!” Did we? I’m not gonna tell you. No, I do not do sex stuff; that’s not my jam, and it never has been. But my point was that he had fun mingling with his people.
MIKE STARR After Dirt, I never did heroin again, until the day I was leaving the band.
We were touring