Nirvana are best remembered today for alternative hits like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the tragic end of the band through Kurt Cobain’s suicide. In an interview, bassist Krist Novoselic also spoke about the beginnings of the band, when they barely managed to scrape together enough money for their first demo. Among other things, Cobain cleaned toilets to finance the recordings, as Novoselic said.
“He had a job as a janitor,” Novoselic said. “He would go out in the evenings to clean a dentist’s office or something. There is some crazy story about what happened. He cleaned toilets to make money to make this record.” Rick Beato, who runs the Everything Music channel on YouTube, interviewed Novoselic along with Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil and producer Jack Endino, who wrote Nirvana’s debut album BLEACH (1989). picked up.
Novoselic looks back on the height of Nirvana’s fame with mixed feelings. “There were all these blessings, but there was also a lot of pain, you know?” he said. “Kurt had his addiction. He was under a lot of pressure. He was sort of ‘the guy’ – he got more attention than we did. He was up front, he was the singer. When I think back to that time, it was a happy, beautiful time. But there was a lot of pain. I mustn’t get too involved with it. And the way it ended was awful.”
Novoselic said it also took him a lot of time to process his time in the band and Cobain’s death: “That time in my life from 1991 to 1994 feels like 20 years to me because it was so compressed. And then it ended so horribly. It took me years to break free from this pressure. And all the problems that come from being under so much stress.”