Gasping for Airtime - Jay Mohr [47]
As I approached the studio doors, I thought, What if they don’t let me in? That feeling of uneasiness gave way to feelings of entitlement when I double-checked all my studio and NBC IDs. I walked into the studio, and thirty feet from me stood Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic. Only twenty other people were in the entire studio. Half of those were working cameras, measuring sound, and doing lighting. The rest of us were about to enjoy a private Nirvana show.
The band looked pretty bored. As the cameras and lighting people in the control room made adjustments, the band picked at their instruments. It was obvious by their demeanor that they had done this before. If they were being told to hurry up and wait, it wasn’t bothering them. Hey, whatever, never mind, right?
Kurt was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt with a pajama top over it. It was the same pajama top I had often seen in magazine photographs. He was tiny, but he filled the entire room. Krist Novoselic, on the other hand, was gigantic. He stood six foot five, and with Kurt next to him, he looked about seven three.
As they fiddled with their instruments, each band member chirped two-word instructions to some invisible person somewhere. They were on three completely different wavelengths. It looked as if they were the technicians brought in to tune the instruments and do a sound check before the real band arrived. But they weren’t. They were the biggest rock stars in the world at the time, and they were thirty feet away from me. The only thing separating me from Kurt was empty floor and his guitar. All ten of us watching could have moved forward, but we didn’t. No one wanted to spook the thoroughbreds by standing too close to the stage. There were a few seconds of calm where everything in the room stopped. No fiddling, no small talk, nothing. Just a sense of calm. Then the storm hit.
The first sounds that came after the stillness were of Kurt Cobain singing “Rape Me.” The song starts with the sound of a guitar and Kurt repeating the lyric a couple of times. On this take, Kurt sang the first “Rape Me” a cappella and then began strumming. It was a strong move that implied: This is the song we are playing, and if you have any problems with its content, shove it up your ass. When Kurt reached the chorus of “Rape Me,” he screamed like he was dying. Until that moment, I had never heard that sound anywhere in nature. I had certainly not heard it come from a human. The sound that those three men created was mind-blowing. The hairs on my neck stood up, and I told myself that I had the greatest job on the planet.
I had never seen a band rehearse before, so I figured they took everything at half speed. Work out the kinks and save the voice. Not Nirvana. They were gone. Watching them rehearse, I saw that they knew how to do this thing only one way. There wasn’t a sliver of restraint. They were merciless. Grohl beat his drums as if they owed him money. Kurt stayed pretty still, which made the sheer volume of his voice that much more impressive. Krist danced around a bit with his bass hung just over his knee, forcing him to hunch over to play it. In a word, they were ferocious.
When the song ended, the three of them just stood there as if someone had pushed stop. They looked at each other a couple of times and launched right into “Heart-Shaped Box.” Again, Dave thrashed. Krist pounded. And Kurt screamed like a beautiful, wounded animal. Ferocious.
After finishing “Heart-Shaped Box,” the band walked offstage. I was standing between them and their dressing room, so they had to walk past me. They did so in order of height: first Krist, to whom I said, “Great job,” which drew a response of “Thanks”; then Dave, who gave me a nod; and finally Kurt, who was walking a little slower than the other guys. When Kurt was