Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [202]
I come to Shirley Temple Black’s daughter’s house to get my husband, who was intensively doing production notes with Buzz. And Buzz is shooting Kurt up with a big old needle—and all I see is this black, black … I know that the heroin in San Francisco is Persian and it’s better and it will kill people. Buzz is about to fucking kill Kurt, and I almost broke the needle in his arm. I took that needle out of his arm, squirted the rest in the fuckin’ sink, looked at Buzz.
He looked away, and it was one of those very rare looks that you get when you catch somebody doing something very bad. Very, very bad. And I don’t know what his intention was, but my God, whatever it was, it wasn’t right, and I knew it and he knew it and it was really bad. Very, very bad. Have you ever been caught in a lie? I certainly have. Someone looks at you and they bust you and it’s like, Ohhh, and you feel so bad.
And all of a sudden, I’ve got a blue fuckin’ husband and had an overdose on my goddamn hands. It’s just like, “You motherfucker.”
BUZZ OSBORNE Courtney actually went public saying that I tried to murder Kurt Cobain. That I actually took a syringe of heroin and tried to shoot him up and kill him. Somebody pointed out to me that it was online. That’s an absolute fabrication from someone who is insane. It’s complete and utter garbage.
The people from Babes in Toyland are friends with her and they said that she would tell them these rambling stories about how I wanted rid of Kurt because I was jealous of his fame, and at that point I was like, “That makes no sense at all. This is the biggest PR guy we’ve ever had and you think I want to kill him? Why the fuck would I do that?”
She first said these things publicly two or three years ago: “Oh, yeah, Buzz tried to OD my husband.” So she waited until now to say this? I don’t know about you, but if somebody was trying to kill my wife, I probably would have gone crazy over it. I wouldn’t wait 15 years to mention it. It doesn’t really do much for her case, does it? She’s fabricated this bullshit story to drag me through the mud once again.
COURTNEY LOVE I read recently, Kim Gordon—and she was just trying to fucking get to me, so I ignored it—Kim Gordon going in the NME, “Yeah, Buzz has some theories on Kurt’s death dah dah dah that I agree with.” It’s like, Kim, I can’t wait to see you at the Marc Jacobs store. I’m gonna stick my boot so far up your withered ass! Jesus Christ.
BUZZ OSBORNE I think that that’s where that came from, because I was having a conversation with Kim Gordon around that amount of time ago, and Courtney probably got word of that. That’s why she lashes out with something about me trying to murder Kurt. It’s absolute cockamamie bullshit. Anybody that believes any of that stuff needs to have their fucking head examined.
Remember this: How do you know when Courtney Love is lying? Her lips are moving.
COURTNEY LOVE I don’t like talking about Buzz. That one story, though, that I wanted to get on the record for a while because it really, really bugs me that he did that and then he goes around and talks about that “Kurt was murdered” nonsense. It’s like, you know what, say that to my kid, you asshole.
BUZZ OSBORNE As far as Courtney wanting to take his name off the album, that’s news to me. That wouldn’t have made any difference anyway.
I fired Kurt from the record. I didn’t talk to him about it. I think he was happy to have it go. I don’t know how it was worded to him. I think they just let him walk away from it.
DANNY GOLDBERG Was Kurt fired? Not to my knowledge. I wouldn’t have tolerated such a thing. He finished his work on it, and he did an okay job. I think it wasn’t the romantic thing that he had hoped it would be of working with his idols.
DALE CROVER We did some sessions on our own, and then Atlantic got this guy, Garth Richardson, to