Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [221]
I don’t know why the drill sergeant looked at me. It was kind of interesting. The news didn’t surprise me, though. I think anyone with intelligence has grappled with suicide. I was dealing with other stuff at the time—basic training, being a jackass—but I was a little sad. But it’s not like I had a lot of time to dwell on it.
DALE CROVER We got off the plane from London in New York, and the first thing our road manager tells us when he met us was, “Kurt Cobain just killed himself.” It wasn’t a surprise, because he had already OD’d recently.
In London, we’d done some demos for Stoner Witch, and we were doing a record—a bunch of weird stuff—at the same time. We were going to call the record Kurt Cobain. Yeah, in big letters: KURT COBAIN. And in small letters, underneath: Melvins. A big joke. If he hadn’t died, we probably would’ve named it that, and Kurt probably would’ve been okay with it, too. But after he died, we were just like, “People will think it’s some tribute thing.” That one ended up being called Prick, but not because of him, just because we liked the title.
MARK DEUTROM Our tour manager goes, “Do you want me to send some flowers? What do you want me to do?” Buzz just barked at her: “I’m not going to send any fuckin’ flowers! We’re going to play a show.” She asked if we wanted to cancel the show, and he just kind of laughed at her like, Man, you don’t get it. We’re going to play a show. That’s how we do it. I think it was Buzz channeling his rage. What better way to salute somebody than doing the most life-affirming thing possible, which is playing?
BUZZ OSBORNE I could believe it, but I couldn’t believe it. Whenever you’re dealing with people in your life that are junkies, their death never surprises you—you’re always pretty much preparing for it. It fucking blows, you know? We had a show that night, and we played it anyway. I wasn’t about to stop my life as a result of that stuff. The best thing I can do is be a living example of how that stuff doesn’t work.
GRANT ALDEN My girlfriend at the time and I had a vacation planned on the Olympic Peninsula the next day. When we drove through Aberdeen, there was no sign that Kurt Cobain had lived or died. I still think that those church billboards should have said something. There should have been a kind word for that family, and there was nothing. Why not? Well, what they say out here is, “He got above his raising.” He was white trash, he got to be a star; he moved away and then he did drugs and he died. They didn’t approve of him alive, they didn’t approve of him dead.
KRIST NOVOSELIC We were these young people from southwest Washington, ill-equipped. We didn’t have the emotional support and the experience at all to deal with this. And we were just whisked away—whisked, whisked up into it, and it went up and up and up and up, like the spaceship Challenger. And then it exploded. It’s like, Dave and I landed, right? But Kurt didn’t.
DAVE GROHL There are some people that you meet in life that you just kinda know they’re not gonna live to be a hundred years old. In some ways, I think you kind of prepare yourself emotionally for that to be a reality. It was a terrible surprise. Everybody was totally surprised. And even as much as you prepare yourself for something like that to happen, it doesn’t make it easier. It was probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my life. I remember the day after that I woke up and I was heartbroken that he was gone. And I just felt like, Okay, so I get to wake up today and have another day, and he doesn’t.
KURT COBAIN (from his suicide note) Thank you all from the pit of my burning, nauseous stomach for your letters and concern during the past years. I’m too much of an erratic, moody baby! I don’t have the passion anymore, and so remember, it’s better to burn out than to fade away.