kurt cobain biography

Kurt Cobain

• Born February 20 , 1967 · Aberdeen, Washington, USA
• Died April 5 , 1994 · Seattle, Washington, USA (suicide by gunshot)
• Birth name Kurt Donald Cobain
• Height 5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
• Kurt Cobain was born on February 20 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington. Kurt and his family lived in Hoquiam for the first few months of his life then later moved back to Aberdeen, where he had a happy childhood until his parents divorced. The divorce left Kurt's outlook on the world forever scarred. He became withdrawn and anti-social. He was constantly placed with one relative to the next, living with friends, and at times even homeless. Kurt was not the most popular person in high school as he was in public school. In 1985 Kurt left Aberdeen for Olympia where he formed the band Nirvana in 1986. In 1989 Nirvana recorded their debut album Bleach under the independent label Sub-Pop records. Nirvana became very popular in Britain and by 1991 they signed a contract with Geffen. Their next album Nevermind became a 90s masterpiece and made Kurt's Nirvana one of the most successful bands in the world. Kurt became trampled upon with success and found the new lifestyle hard to bear. In February 1992 Kurt married Courtney Love , the woman who was already pregnant with his child, Frances Bean Cobain . Nirvana released their next album Incesticide later that year. The album appealed to many fans due to the liner notes, which expressed Kurt's open-mindedness. In September 1993 Nirvana released their next album, 'In Utero', which topped the charts. On March 4, 1994, Kurt was taken to hospital in a coma. It was officially stated as an accident but many believe it to have been an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Family and friends convinced Kurt to seek rehab. Kurt was said to have fled rehab after only a few days from a missing person's report filed by Courtney Love . On April 8th Kurt's body was found in his Seattle home. In his arms was a shotgun, which had been fired into his head. Near him laid a suicide note written in red ink. It was addressed to his wife Courtney Love and his daughter Frances Bean Cobain . Two days after Kurt's body was discovered people gathered in Seattle, they began setting fires, chanting profanities, and fighting with police officers. They also listened to a tape of Courtney reading sections of the suicide note left by Kurt. The last few words were "I love you, I love you". - IMDb Mini Biography By: Tony Russomanno <[email protected]>
• Spouse Courtney Love (February 24, 1992 - April 5, 1994) (his death, 1 child)
• Children Frances Bean Cobain
• His unclean hair and unshaven appearance
• Raw agonizing voice
• Smashing instruments and stage equipment after shows
• Garbled,Incomprehensible Singing
• Shoulder-length blonde hair
• Said he eventually wanted to experiment with filmmaking. He even wrote a script for a horror movie.
• The last movie he watched before his death was The Piano (1993) .
• During a Nirvana concert, he witnessed a girl being groped in the audience. Without missing a beat, he threw his guitar to the ground (a Martin D-18E electric guitar, one of the rarest electric guitars ever made and worth a significant amount of money), dived into the audience and angrily confronted the man who groped the woman. Upon returning to the stage, Cobain and the other band members openly mocked the man as he was being forcibly led out by security.
• Died at 27 years old, making him a member of the "27 Club"; The 27 Club is a group of prominent musicians who died at the age of 27. Other members include Rolling Stones co-founder Brian Jones , guitarist Jimi Hendrix , singer Janis Joplin , guitarist Alan Wilson , The Doors frontman Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse .
• John Lennon 's song "In my Life" was played at his funeral.
• Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.
• I'm not well-read, but when I read, I read well.
• I'm not a death rocker, and I don't wear black.
• I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not.
• I think people who glamorize drugs are f**king *ssholes and if there's hell they'll go there.

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Kurt Cobain: What to Read and Watch, 25 Years After the Nirvana Leader’s Death

By Gavin Edwards

• April 5, 2019

Twenty-five years ago, on April 5, 1994, Kurt Cobain died at the age of 27 , a victim of suicide. He left behind the epochal rock music he made as the singer and guitarist for Nirvana, piles of journals and artwork, and a final note that didn’t clear up the contradictions of his short life. Which was probably how he wanted it: The previous year, he had painted on the wall of his rented Seattle home, in large red block letters , “None of You Will Ever Know My Intentions.”

Many Nirvana biographies rehash the basics of Cobain’s story or peddle conspiracy theories that he was murdered, but there are also plenty of ways to go deeper. Here’s what to read, listen to, watch and explore:

‘Journals’ ( Riverhead )

With nearly 300 pages of photo replicas of Cobain’s personal journals and letters (and doodles, sketches and song lists), this 2002 book is funny, painful and shockingly intimate: a guided tour of the singer’s own churning psyche. “Its hard to decipher the difference between a sincere entertainer and an honest swindler,” Cobain wrote. Here’s what The New York Times’s Neil Strauss wrote when the book came out.

‘Come as You Are’ ( Three Rivers )

This deeply reported 1993 biography by Michael Azerrad, first published while Cobain was alive, was the original bible for Nirvana fans. Its strongest passages evoke the life of young Cobain in Aberdeen, Wash., a child of divorce who would sometimes spend the weekend killing time at a local logging company where his father worked: “He would get into his dad’s van and listen to Queen’s ‘News of the World’ over and over again on the eight-track. Sometimes he’d listen so long that he’d drain the battery and they’d have to find someone to jump-start the engine.”

‘Heavier Than Heaven’ ( Hachette )

Charles R. Cross, formerly the editor of the Seattle music paper The Rocket, covered the Nirvana story from early on — and conducted over 400 interviews for this thorough, definitive 2001 biography. Cobain’s widow, the musician Courtney Love, granted Cross extensive interviews and access to Cobain’s archives, including arcana such as a visual assignment he completed during his final stay in rehab: “For ‘surrender,’ he drew a man with a bright light emanating from him. For ‘depressed,’ he showed an umbrella surrounded by ties.” Read The New York Times review .

‘Takeoff: The Oral History of Nirvana’s Crossover Moment’ ( Cuepoint )

When Nirvana’s “Nevermind” hit No. 1 soon after its 1991 release, it shocked the band members and their grunge cohort, who had assumed that at best, the group would be underground heroes. Its multiplatinum success also opened the doors for many Nirvana-bes. This oral history by Nick Soulsby tells that story from the viewpoint of Nirvana’s college-rock peers, such as Gary Floyd of opening act Sister Double Happiness remembering Nirvana’s “road manager telling everyone backstage one night the CD had hit 1 million sales that day. They seemed almost embarrassed.”

‘The Dark Side of Kurt Cobain’ ( The Advocate )

Cobain loudly and frequently declared himself as an ally of gay people (and women, and people of color), so it was fitting that he gave one of his best interviews in this 1993 cover story with The Advocate, telling Kevin Allman, “I’ve always been a really sickly, feminine person anyhow, so I thought I was gay for a while because I didn’t find any of the girls in my high school attractive at all.”

‘Kurt Cobain, The Rolling Stone Interview: Success Doesn’t Suck’ ( Rolling Stone )

In Cobain’s last major interview, he informed David Fricke that he had wanted to call Nirvana’s “In Utero” album “I Hate Myself and I Want to Die,” “but I knew the majority of the people wouldn’t understand.” He insisted that the suicidal sentiment was only a joke: “I’m a much happier guy than a lot of people think I am.”

‘Never More’ ( The Village Voice )

After Cobain’s death, Ann Powers filed a raw dispatch from Seattle, reporting how the tragedy affected his friends and the neighbors who had never met him. “The kids I found who did mourn Cobain, hovering behind police lines at the house where he’d died or building shrines from candles and Raisin Bran boxes at the Sunday night vigil organized by three local radio stations, seemed to think of him more as a lost friend than as a candidate for that dreaded assignment, role model.”

Live Videos

‘Nirvana — The Moon, New Haven 1991’

On Sept. 26, 1991, just two days after the release of “Nevermind,” Nirvana played a great, sweaty show at a tiny club in New Haven — and miraculously, it was captured on this remarkably high-quality amateur video. The set featured just a few songs from the unfamiliar “Nevermind,” leaning heavily on the band’s 1989 debut, “Bleach.” Cobain, the bassist Krist Novoselic, and the drummer Dave Grohl all performed with joy and abandon, looking more at home in a filthy black room with a low ceiling than they ever did in arenas.

‘Live at Reading’

In the summer of 1992, when Nirvana played this storied U.K. festival, the band was divided by arguments over royalties and reports of Cobain’s heroin habit. Responding to the mood, Cobain came onstage in a wheelchair, wearing a hospital gown and a blond wig, and began the set with an out-of-tune cover of Bette Midler’s “The Rose.” At the end of the show, the group systematically destroyed its equipment. In between, almost as an afterthought, it delivered an hour and a half of full-blast rock.

‘Drain You’

When Jimmy McDonough, the author of the 2002 book “Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography,” wanted to show Young a live Nirvana performance after Cobain died, this 1993 clip from an MTV “Live and Loud” concert was the one he chose. “When you see the way he was,” an impressed Young said, “there’s no way he could ever get through the other end of it. Because there was no control to the burn. That’s why it was so intense. He was not holding back at all.”

‘Nirvana — Munich, Germany’

Nirvana’s last concert, on March 1, 1994, at a cavernous airport terminal that had been converted into a club, was an ordeal for a burned-out Cobain: He wanted to end the band, he wanted to divorce Love, he wanted to score drugs at the Munich train station. But the show (rendered here with just the first 10 minutes of video but a full 80 minutes of audio) was one final scream of pain, ending with “Heart-Shaped Box.” “Hey, wait, I got a new complaint,” Cobain sang, never meaning it more.

‘Kurt Cobain — Different Vocals’

This video collects live moments when Cobain dramatically altered his usual performances of familiar songs for various punk-rock reasons such as needing to shout over out-of-tune instruments (on “Come as You Are”) or just wanting to mess with a TV countdown show that was forcing him to mime playing his guitar (on “Smells Like Teen Spirit”).

‘MTV Unplugged in New York’

Playing acoustically for 44 minutes, Nirvana paid tribute to influences ranging from David Bowie to the Meat Puppets, and showed the delicate beauty behind its distorted guitars. And with the final song, a cover of Leadbelly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” Cobain gave one of his greatest vocal performances; it felt powerful enough to bring the curtain down on all of human existence.

Documentary Footage

‘Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck’ ( Amazon )

Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, served as executive producer on this authorized documentary feature directed by Brett Morgen. Mike Hale wrote in his Times review in 2015, “Mr. Morgen was given access to Cobain’s archives — ‘art, music, journals, Super 8 films and audio montages’ — and his exhilarating, exhausting, two-hour-plus film, both an artful mosaic and a hammering barrage, reflects years of rummaging through that trove.”

‘One of Kurt Cobain’s Final Interviews’

In this 26-minute WatchMojo interview from 1993, filmed with the Seattle waterfront as a backdrop, Cobain was bearded and scabby, smoking one cigarette after another. He was also relaxed and thoughtful, laughing at questions about his rock-star status that on a different day would have made him bristle. He explained, “Either I’ve accepted it or I’ve gone beyond insane.”

‘8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain’

The poet Jim Carroll, famous for the autobiographical book “The Basketball Diaries” and the autobiographical song “People Who Died,” wrote and performed this poem after Cobain’s death, trying to make sense of the senseless. It begins, “Genius is not a generous thing/In return it charges more interest than any amount of royalties can cover/And it resents fame/With bitter vengeance.”

‘About a Boy’ ( Penguin )

The death of Cobain haunts Nick Hornby’s second novel, shattering some of its characters and binding some of them together. The 12-year-old Marcus tries to make sense of the news he sees plastered all over the front pages of the evening papers: “He wondered if his mum was O.K., even though he knew there was no connection between his mum and Kurt Cobain because his mum was a real person and Kurt Cobain wasn’t; and then he felt confused, because the newspaper headline had turned Kurt Cobain into a real person somehow.”

‘Skip to the End’ ( Insight )

This evocative 2018 science-fiction graphic novel by the writer Jeremy Holt and the artist Alex Diotto tells the story of a grunge band called Samsara (clearly inspired by Nirvana) and a guitar that functions as a time-travel device. The metaphor works not only because of the urge Nirvana fans have to create an alternate timeline where Cobain survived, but because recorded music is itself a time-travel device, teleporting people both to the moment when it was made and the moment when it first touched a listener’s soul.

‘Last Days’ (Streaming Services)

The filmmaker Gus Van Sant was a kindred spirit to Cobain: an independent artist from the Pacific Northwest who somehow wandered into the cultural mainstream. So it seemed natural in 2005 when he made a movie about (a thinly fictionalized version of) Cobain, played by Michael Pitt. In her Times review , Manohla Dargis called the movie a “mesmerizing dream” and said “Mr. Van Sant’s refusal to root around in Cobain’s consciousness, to try to explain why and how he created, suffered and died, is a radical gesture, both in aesthetic and in moral terms.”

How The New York Times Covered Nirvana

In 1991, Karen Schoemer was supposed to interview Cobain; he didn’t show up, so she wrote about “Nevermind” instead . Novoselic provided a few quotes: “We just want to play,” he said, “and put out what we consider good records.” A few months later, Simon Reynolds dissected some of the album’s songs: “‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ could be this generation’s version of the Sex Pistols’ 1976 single, ‘Anarchy in the U.K.,’ if it weren’t for the bitter irony that pervades its title.”

In 1992, Schoemer mused on Nirvana’s set on “Saturday Night Live,” a performance that she said “showed an astounding lack of musicianship” while later acknowledging that the band had released “quite simply, one of the best alternative rock albums produced by an American band in recent years.”

Also in 1992, The Times was fooled by a former Sub Pop receptionist when a reporter called to talk about grunge culture. The resulting glossary of terms she provided — “harsh realm,” “lamestain” and “swingin’ on the flippity-flop” — did enter the pop-culture lexicon, but not the way The Times had planned . The receptionist, Megan Jasper, is now the label’s chief executive.

A year later, Jon Pareles interviewed Nirvana on the cusp of releasing “In Utero,” as Cobain complained about “Nevermind” sounding too “clean.” “Ugh,” he said. “I’ll never do that again. It already paid off, so why try to duplicate that? And just trying to sell that many records again, there’s no point in it.” Pareles also reviewed Nirvana at the Roseland Ballroom , the band’s first New York show in two years.

When Cobain died, Timothy Egan wrote our obituary and Pareles wrote an appraisal that discussed how “Nirvana was the band that brought punk-rock kicking and screaming into the mass market.”

Neil Strauss later wrote about the songs written about Cobain : “Perhaps the most touching song about Cobain was written by a 10-year-old friend of his, Simon Fair Timony. Titled ‘I Love You Anyway,’ it is performed with the former Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic joining Timony’s band, the Stinky Puffs.”

In 2004, Thurston Moore wrote a first-person piece about his relationship with Cobain and Nirvana’s rise.

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Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain died 30 years ago, but his legacy lives on

His influence and music remain vital today.

Kurt Cobain, Nirvana frontman and music icon, died April 5, 1994, 30 years ago Friday.

With Nirvana, Cobain released only three albums during his lifetime over a five-year span, including the RIAA Diamond-certified "Nevermind," making him the face of counterculture and the grunge and alternative movement of the early ‘90s. Yet despite their brief tenure, Nirvana and its frontman had a profound impact on both rock music and pop culture, which continues more than a generation later.

Kurt Donald Cobain was born February 20, 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington. While in high school, he met fellow musician Krist Novoselic, and they started a band together.

After various personnel and name changes, Nirvana was created, with Cobain on guitar and vocals, Novoselic on bass, and Chad Channing on drums. They released their debut album, "Bleach," in June 1989, on the influential, independent Seattle label Sub Pop – the choice a reflection of Cobain’s passion for the anti-corporate ethos of punk and indie rock.

“Kurt subscribed to that very deeply,” Michael Azerrad, who interviewed Cobain as author of the 1993 authorized Nirvana biography "Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana," told ABC News. “And yet, he had this conflicting impulse to be as famous as he felt his talented merited. That was a large conflict, I think, that he never managed to resolve.”

MORE: Video -- Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain died April 5, 1994

After "Bleach," Nirvana jumped from Sub Pop to a major label, DGC Records, and brought on a new drummer: Dave Grohl, who cut his teeth playing in Washington, D.C. punk bands. Together, the band recorded what would become "Nevermind," adding a glossier, expansive finish to their sound.

"Nevermind" was released in September 1991, and word quickly spread of its lead single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and its video , which showed Nirvana performing in a high school gym while surrounded by anarchist cheerleaders.

By January 1992, "Nevermind" hit #1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 album chart. Driven by hits that also included "Come as You Are," "In Bloom" and "Lithium," the album ultimately sold over 10 million units and was RIAA-certified Diamond just seven years later.

MORE: Nirvana's 'Nevermind' Turns 25

Cobain’s lyrics, about self-hatred to adolescent rebellion, coupled with Nirvana’s hook-filled, distorted rock, spoke directly to the disaffection felt by that generation’s youth, and was viewed as an antidote to the excess and debauchery of the ‘80s hair metal scene. “Grunge” quickly became a household term, and the Seattle bands Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains – all of which embodied the same sound and ethos – surged up the charts.

As Nirvana's popularity grew, so too did interest in Cobain’s personal life, which deeply affected his already fragile mental and emotional health. Reports of his heroin use, as well as his relationship with his wife, Hole frontwoman Courtney Love, became tabloid fodder.

Cobain and Love welcomed a baby girl, Frances Bean, in August 1992. Shortly thereafter, Vanity Fair published an article that alleged Love had used heroin while pregnant. In September, Los Angeles officials investigated the couple's fitness as parents, with Cobain and Love briefly losing custody of Frances.

Nirvana’s third and final album, the dissonant "In Utero," dropped in September 1993. The following November, at the height of their popularity, the band recorded an intimate show for the TV concert series "MTV Unplugged." The performance was released in 1994 as the live album "MTV Unplugged in New York," which ultimately was RIAA-certified eight-times Platinum. Nearly thirty years later, the guitar Cobain played during the concert sold at auction for a record-breaking $6 million in 2020, while the tattered green cardigan he wore sold a year earlier for $334,000.

Yet Cobain remained a troubled soul. His drug use continued, and on March 4, 1994, he was hospitalized in Rome for an overdose while Nirvana was on tour in Europe. Following a five-day hospitalization, Cobain returned home to Seattle.

On April 8, an electrician who arrived at Cobain's Seattle home to do some work discovered him dead. Following an investigation, it was ruled that he had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on April 5. Cobain had turned 27 not two months earlier.

Cobain’s death marked the end of both Nirvana and the grunge era, and enhanced the dark notoriety of the so-called '27 Club,' which includes the late musicians Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, all of whom died at the same age. More poignantly, his death raised national awareness of both suicide and mental health, and focused a spotlight on Cobain’s past comments and lyrics that referenced guns or self-harm.

“It’s very painful,” Azerrad told ABC News of revisiting those earlier Cobain comments. “You smack your forehead metaphorically and just think, ‘Oh, why didn’t I notice that?’ It was staring at you in plain sight. But sometimes there’s such thing as hiding in plain sight, and that was one of those things.”

MORE: Frances Bean Cobain Talks About Father Kurt's Death

With Nirvana over, Grohl formed his own band, the chart-topping Foo Fighters. He and Novoselic have reunited several times, perhaps most notably at the 2014 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where Cobain and Nirvana were inducted during their first year of eligibility, and during which they performed Nirvana hits with guest singers including Lorde and Joan Jett.

MORE: Video -- 2014 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominees Include Nirvana, The Zombies

In the three decades since Cobain's death, Nirvana's influence never waned, and has reached beyond rock music into other genres, and pop culture in general. Rapper Post Malone livestreamed a celebrated Nirvana tribute set during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, while actress and singer Selena Gomez – born less than a month before Frances Bean – recently shared that she was “obsessed” with Kurt Cobain growing up. In 2022, the "Nevermind" song “Something in the Way” enjoyed a resurgence due to its use in the trailer for the hit movie "The Batman."

"That's why Kurt made music – to rock people and himself," Azerrad said. "To make him feel better, and, by extension, hopefully, the audience feel better."

Josh Johnson writes about alternative and active rock music for ABC Audio.

If you're struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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He Wrote the First Nirvana Bio. 30 Years Later, He Has a Few Changes

By Brian Hiatt

Brian Hiatt

For a music journalist in the Nineties, there could have been no better phone call. Not long after Michael Azerrad hung out with Kurt Cobain for Nirvana ’s first Rolling Stone cover story, Courtney Love reached out to ask him if he wanted to write a book about Nirvana. He agreed, and after nine months of breakneck work, he managed to get Come As You Are out in 1993, just in time to coincide with Nirvana’s Nevermind follow-up, In Utero .

Thirty years later, Azerrad (also the author of the beloved indie/punk history Our Band Could Be Your Life ) has a new version of his Nirvana book out. The Amplified Come As You Are more than doubles the length of the original edition with new material from Azerrad’s interviews, fact-checking, and fresh revelations.

Azerrad looked back on the book, the making of In Utero (which is also out in a new 30th anniversary edition), and more in an interview that also appears in a recent episode of Rolling Stone Music Now .

(To hear the full interview, go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify , or just press play above.)

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There’s been a lot of books about Nirvana, but yours was first, which made things harder in some ways. That meant you had to lay down a lot of this story for the very first time. I did have the advantage of talking to all the people in the band, which subsequently no one else did. That was a coup. That was a very helpful thing for constructing this story. But yeah, I didn’t have the benefit of years and years of articles about the band and many other interviews and several other books and just the power of the internet to search for YouTube clips and all those things when I was writing the original Come As You Are .

The downside of that was I really depended on the people telling me these stories to tell the truth, and sometimes they did not always do that. And I had to write the book in nine months, so I didn’t have time to fact-check a lot of stuff, and that’s partially what inspired this new edition. Kurt supposedly wanted to dispel all the myths when he talked to you, but actually in many cases, he was trying to add to them. He disavowed the idea that he followed music journalism. But I could tell from our conversations and just the way he spoke about rock music that he’d read quite a bit of music journalism. He understood that all the great artists constructed myths about themselves that kind of enhanced their image, or in today’s parlance, their brand. Kurt was really aware of that, and he put it in action with me, for sure. It was only 30 years later that I got a chance to debunk some of it.

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Another thing I think that we learned for the first time in your new edition of the book is that there were these two British writers who were working on a Nirvana book that caused a lot of upset in the Nirvana camp. In your first edition, Kurt admitted to calling them up and basically threatening their lives. And now we learn that Come As You Are started as an attempt by Kurt and Courtney Love to preempt that book. When Courtney called me about this, I said, “Oh, that’s great. But can I talk to Kurt about this?” And she hands the phone to Kurt. I had already done a Rolling Stone cover story about Nirvana, focusing on Kurt. We already were familiar with each other. I said, “Hey, what’s up, what’s the story with this book?” And he told me, “We want you to write a biography of Nirvana.” And I said, “It can’t be authorized.” He knew exactly what authorized meant, that the subject has basically final cut over the book. And he said, “No way. That would be too Guns N’ Roses.” He said, “Just tell the truth, and that would be better than anything else that’s been written about us.” So I took that as my marching orders. That’s how it started. 

Especially in this enhanced version, you have a really unvarnished take on In Utero . I’m not sure how many people realize how many of the best songs on In Utero were written way beforehand. Some of the best songs on In Utero were older songs written as early as 1990, I think. And some of the newer ones were just jammed into existence, or started with a drum beat by Dave, and Kurt thought, we can kind of trick this out and make it into a song. Kurt was fighting a heroin addiction. He was also a new father. They’d moved house a couple of times. They were touring. There was all that ruckus about the Vanity Fair story [that accused Courtney Love of using heroin while pregnant]. There was a lot of stuff distracting him from being able to sit down and focus and write songs. It wasn’t just drugs, although that was certainly a major factor.

You mention that Kurt said in a sing-song voice that “Dave is the most well-adjusted boy I know.” It feels like there’s sort of a mix of condescension and perhaps even envy in that. I think Kurt partly was mocking Dave for being, you know, fairly together and normal. He’s a popular, well-adjusted guy, he really is. I think partly Kurt was making fun of that because he wasn’t a freak like Kurt. And I think Kurt was a little bit jealous of Dave because Dave did have his act together.

Using “ Serve the Servants” as an album opener feels like an example of Kurt’s brilliance and savviness — he knew how apropos and quotable “teenage angst has paid off well, now I’m bored and old” would be as the first thing you hear on this particular album. He thought a lot about these things. He may have worn torn jeans and not washed his hair very often, but he was very meticulous as an artist. And that’s a really great example. The very beginning moments of In Utero are Dave clicking his sticks to cue in the rest of the band to start the song. That’s something that’s usually cut out of a professional recording, but they left it in as a very clear signifier that this was something raw and real. And then that huge, dissonant, gorgeous, ugly guitar chord that begins the song. It’s so beautiful. That’s a mission statement right there. And that all happens in the space of, like, five seconds. You already know what the whole record’s gonna be like just from that.  

You also solve the mystery in the new book of what the chorus line means. It refers to feeling obligated to do whatever music-industry types asked or forced them to do,

“Dumb,” which is a great, catchy song, was written all the way back during the summer of 1990. I got the sense that they didn’t want to include songs like that on Nevermind because especially Kurt was so acutely self-conscious of appearing to sell out for their major-label debut. Instead of “Dumb,” they would have, like, “Territorial Pissings” to broadcast their hardness and their lack of capitulation to the major-label ogre.

 But it’s got some pretty interesting lines in it. He calls himself “the king of illiterature.” Kurt was extremely self-conscious about not being educated and cultured. He first got a taste of taking it to the next level by moving to Olympia, Washington and hanging out with all these affluent, cultured kids from the Evergreen State College. And he realized he was really curious and he wanted to leave the provincialism of his life in Aberdeen behind and become a more cultured, artistic person. Those kids taught him a lot. Then soon Courtney, who’s another extremely cultured person, taught him a lot. And the people in Sonic Youth taught him a lot.

“Tourette’s,” appropriately for the song title, doesn’t have real lyrics. Kurt was obsessed with psychological and neurological disorders. He claimed he had narcolepsy and manic depression. I don’t think he thought he had Tourette’s, but that was maybe sort of a fantasy of him just losing his mind and being someone out on the street who stands on a corner and wears shaggy, shabby clothes. He was caricaturing the idea that he was being driven to a point where he would just swear uncontrollably. 

As honest as he was with you in these interviews, he ducked your question about the inspiration for  “All Apologies.” In writing this book, I learned the difference between honest and candid. Honest means you’re telling the truth and candid means you’re saying stuff that’s pretty intense, but may or may not be true. I think Kurt was more candid than honest sometimes.

You write that it was a breakup song in a version from 1990 and then was seemingly updated due to there being a lot going on in his life. I do speculate about that song in The Amplified Come As You Are , where I did not in the original. When he sings, “aqua seafoam shame,” maybe it’s a reference to being in a hospital with those bland aqua/seafoam-colored walls, and he’s feeling shame because he’s there due to his drug habit. I may be reading too much into that, but it makes sense to me.

In the original mix, the bass sounded a little bit more like a tuned bass drum, like more thump-y. And then a couple other songs he said, “I think the vocals could be louder.” And those turned out to be the songs that they raised the vocals on. This all happened before anyone else heard the album. So I think that the ensuing brouhaha was just a bunch of BS as far as I can tell. 

It became a national story because of the power of the idea of selling out in the Nineties. Now you complain that someone is selling out and no one knows what the heck you’re talking about. But in 1993, that was a huge deal for someone who had championed independence and underground values to appear to cave to the major-label Man. So it was a really big deal. People thought, “Oh, we’re catching the world’s biggest band out on a major hypocrisy.”

Yeah, the amount of psychological torment Kurt and others put themselves through over that stuff is not to be underestimated. In that moment, it was everything. Kurt really wanted to be accepted by the indie nation. And even at the height of his fame and success, he was really insecure about being exiled by them. Some of his friends in Olympia started the label Kill Rock Stars — and he was a rock star. He was acutely conscious of what they thought. He wrote “Fugazi” on the toes of his sneakers. He wrote the name of the head of Matador Records, Gerard Cosloy, on his bedroom wall. He was very aware of these people and their arbiter-like status, and he wanted to make sure that he was accepted by them and not rejected because he had become so famous and sold so many records. That he was selling lots of records was antithetical to the community that he came out of and still worshipped. It was a really difficult thing for him to deal with.

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To really progress, Kurt might have had to get over his aversion to craft. He did work somewhat on instinct. He would often use chords that didn’t belong technically in the key of the song. I shouldn’t presume to say whether he knew he was breaking the rules or not, but he certainly did come up with some genius moves like that. Maybe he would have found an arranger, some sort of collaborator who could help walk him down a new musical path. I don’t know. 

When you wrote the original book, did you have a sense of Dave either starting to be a greater creative force in the band, or maybe even of a guy who has some talents that can’t be contained by Nirvana? There’s a lot of instances of Dave saying that he was a little frustrated about being boxed in as just the drummer. And, as we know, he’d already written and recorded and sung his own album . He was certainly capable of being a front person, even just temperamentally. But he also said he was in awe of Kurt’s songs and that he felt it was best that he keep his own songs to himself. For someone as alpha-male and charismatic and completely talented as Dave, I could see that would be frustrating after a while. And that’s only natural. Completely understandable and also borne out to a completely astonishing degree by what actually happened.

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Inside Kurt Cobain's Final Days Before His Suicide

Lanegan’s intuition proved to be correct. On the morning of April 8, an electrician found 27-year-old Cobain dead of an apparent suicide in a greenhouse above the garage of his Seattle home. According to Rolling Stone , a 20-gauge shotgun was lying across his chest, and, as a medical examiner’s report later revealed, Cobain, who had already been dead two and a half days at that point, had a high concentration of heroin and traces of Valium in his bloodstream. The magazine also reported that he was identifiable only by his fingerprints.

Cobain wanted to quit Nirvana

Because he had been missing for six days prior to his dead body being discovered, many tried to piece together the last days of Cobain’s life. By all accounts, he had already been in a downward spiral for years before he died, battling depression and chronic drug addiction. In an interview with MTV, Cobain’s wife, Courtney Love , claimed that not long before her husband’s suicide, he told her that he hated being in Nirvana and couldn’t play with them anymore and only wanted to work with R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. All things considered, his loved ones’ alarm reached a fever pitch.

His loved ones staged an intervention

In fact, following Cobain’s failed suicide attempt in March 1994, Love, along with several of his friends and bandmates, enlisted the help of intervention counselor Steven Chatoff. “They called me to see what could be done,” Chatoff explained to Rolling Stone . “He was using, up in Seattle. He was in full denial. It was very chaotic. And they were in fear for his life. It was a crisis.”

In late March, Love, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear, along with several other friends went through with staging an intervention at Cobain’s home. During the meeting, Love reportedly threatened to leave Cobain , with whom she shared daughter Frances Bean , and his band also issued an ultimatum of breaking up the band, should he not agree to seek treatment at a rehabilitation facility.

READ MORE: The Destructive Romance of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love

Cobain bought a shotgun six days before using it to kill himself

Several days later, Cobain would do just that, but first, he paid a visit to pal Dylan Carlson, who also participated in the aforementioned intervention, at his Seattle home on March 30. Citing problems with trespassers on his property, Cobain asked for help securing a firearm. “He seemed normal, we’d been talking,” Carlson later said. “Plus, I’d loaned him guns before.”

Per Carlson, Cobain gave him about $300 to buy a 20-gauge shotgun and a box of ammunition from Stan’s Gun Shop. Knowing that Cobain was about to depart for treatment near Los Angeles, Carlson said that his friend’s need for the purchase did give him pause: “It seemed kind of weird that he was buying the shotgun before he was leaving. So I offered to hold on to it until he got back.”

Cobain, however, insisted on keeping the weapon himself, and, according to police, he likely dropped off the gun at his home before traveling to Exodus Recovery Center in Marina del Rey, California, later that day.

He spent two days in rehab before fleeing the treatment center

On April 1, Cobain phoned Love with a cryptic message. According to an account, the Hole frontwoman gave a local Seattle newspaper, he said, in part, “Just remember no matter what, I love you.” Later that night — after spending just two days in rehab — staffers said he alerted them that he was stepping out to smoke a cigarette on the patio. Love explained that’s when he allegedly jumped over a more than six-feet-high brick wall and disappeared.

Police suspect he flew back to Seattle where he spent his final days wandering, with neighbors claiming to have spotted an ill-looking Cobain in a park near his home dressed in a heavy coat, which they deemed inappropriate for the April weather. Others have suggested he may have spent a night with an unidentified friend at his nearby summer home.

READ MORE: Kurt Cobain: The Inspiration and Meaning Behind Nirvana's Hit 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'

An electrician discovered Cobain's body more than two days after he shot himself

By April 5, however, law enforcement officials believe Cobain had barricaded himself inside the greenhouse where an electrician who came to the home to install a security system discovered his body, days later. Love later recounted to MTV that after taking drugs, Cobain used the shotgun Carlson had helped him purchase days earlier to shoot himself in the head, thus ending his short life. She also said that her husband left a note in red ink that she read from at a Seattle memorial service.

The loss of the talented musician remained unimaginable for his adoring fans, as well as all of those who knew him personally. "I remember the day after that I woke up and I was heartbroken that he was gone,” Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl later recalled. "I just felt like, 'Okay, so I get to wake up today and have another day and he doesn't.'"

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Your complete Kurt Cobain reading guide: Journals, biographies, and more

David Canfield is a Staff Editor. He oversees the magazine's books section, and writes film features and awards analysis.

Reading to remember

On the 25th anniversary of Kurt Cobain 's death, HarperCollins ' Ecco published Serving the Servant , a fascinating biography of the Nirvana frontman by none other than Danny Goldberg, the band's iconic manager. ( Available for purchase. ) The book works to reframe Cobain's legacy by blending Goldberg's memories with information and files that have previously not been public. As Cobain is remembered, it's vital reading—though hardly the only book out there worth your time. Here, EW has rounded up the essential Cobain reading list.

Journals by Kurt Cobain

Arranged in close chronological order and kept in their rawest form, Journals is a necessary read for any Cobain fan: a collection of his writings, from scrapped notes and letter drafts to wild sketches and shopping lists, which offer unparalleled access into his interior life. The No. 1 New York Times best-seller was originally published in 2002. "The publication of this unintentional autobiography of the famously talented and infamously troubled artist is a vast leap in the mythologizing and marketing of Kurt Cobain," EW wrote at the time of release. "And the journey from Cobain's hands to a store near you involves healthy measures of the serendipitous and the surreal."

Heavier Than Heaven by Charles R. Cross

Charles R. Cross' definitive biography of Cobain traces his life story via more than 400 interviews and intimate access to the Nirvana frontman's private journals and lyrics. Despite its breadth and close sourcing, Heavier Than Heaven drew criticism for Cross' subjective account of Cobain's final hours.

Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain by Max Wallace and Ian Halperin

This 2004 best-selling book, co-written by Ian Halperin and Max Wallace, arrived as a controversial work of investigative journalism. Drawing on dozens of hours of conversation audiotapes obtained by the authors, Love & Death makes the argument that Cobain was murdered, with his then-wife Courtney Love a potential conspirator. The book is a product of a rigorous decade-long process for Halperin and Wallace.

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck by Brett Morgen

A companion to the HBO documentary of the same name, Montage of Heck includes extensive interviews, gorgeous animation stills, and previously-unseen photography as filmmaker Brett Morgen put on screen. It doesn't shed a ton of new light on Cobain, but it's perfect reading for those who've yet to check out the heartbreaking, illuminating documentary.

Godspeed by Barnaby Legg & Jim McCarthy & Flameboy

This explicit, starkly visual homage to Cobain combines biographical details with interpretations of the artist's internal struggles. Barnaby Legg and Jim McCarthy constructed their story accordingly, while the vivid, nightmarishly provocative art came courtesy of Flameboy.

Kurt Cobain: The Last Session by Jesse Frohman & Glenn O'Brien & Jon Savage

Get inside of Cobain's final photoshoot with Nirvana, which took place in August 1993. In The Last Session , 90 stunning photographs present a dazzling final visual memory of the man, capturing him in a plethora of extreme, intense emotional states.

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This podcast provides an in-depth biography of the massively influential 1990s grunge band Nirvana. It traces the band's improbable rise from the obscurity of the Pacific Northwest indie rock scene to unexpected, meteoric stardom in 1991 with their breakthrough album "Nevermind." The article delves into Nirvana's musical and cultural impact at the height of their fame, while also illuminating frontman Kurt Cobain's creative genius and lifelong struggles with addiction and mental health issues. It culminates with the tragedy of Cobain's early suicide in 1994, just as the band was set to embark on a highly-anticipated European tour, and explores the lasting legacy left by Cobain's iconic songwriting and Nirvana's short-lived but game-changing career at the forefront of alternative rock.

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This eposide provides an in-depth biography of the massively influential 1990s grunge band Nirvana. It traces the band's improbable rise from the obscurity of the Pacific Northwest indie rock scene to unexpected, meteoric stardom in 1991 with their breakthrough album "Nevermind." The article delves into Nirvana's musical and cultural impact at the height of their fame, while also illuminating frontman Kurt Cobain's creative genius and lifelong struggles with addiction and mental health issues. It culminates with the tragedy of Cobain's early suicide in 1994, just as the band was set to embark on a highly-anticipated European tour, and explores the lasting legacy left by Cobain's iconic songwriting and Nirvana's short-lived but game-changing career at the forefront of alternative rock.

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Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain Paperback – April 2, 2019

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 448 pages
• Language English
• Publication date April 2, 2019
• Dimensions 5.25 x 1.13 x 8 inches
• ISBN-10 0316492442
• ISBN-13 978-0316492447
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hachette Books; Updated,Expanded edition (April 2, 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316492442
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316492447
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.4 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 1.13 x 8 inches
• #86 in Rock Music (Books)
• #86 in Rock Band Biographies

About the author

Charles r. cross.

Charles R. Cross graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle with a degree in creative writing. At the UW, he served as editor of the Daily in 1979, and caused a major ruckus when he left the front page of the newspaper blank. The only type was a small line that read “The White Issue,” in deference to the Beatles’ White Album.

After college, Cross served as editor of The Rocket, the Northwest’s music and entertainment magazine, from 1986 through 2000. The Rocket was hailed as “the best regional music magazine in the nation” by the L.A. Reader, and it was the first publication ever to run a story on Nirvana. Cross wrote stories on such seminal Northwest bands as The Wailers, Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and hundreds, if not thousands, of lesser-known bands. In addition to The Rocket, Cross’s writing has appeared in hundreds of magazines, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, Playboy, Spin, Guitar World, Q, Uncut, and Creem. He has also written for many newspapers and alternative weeklies, including the London Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Seattle Times, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He has lectured and read at universities and colleges around the world, and has frequently been interviewed for film, radio, and television documentaries, including VH1’s "Behind the Music."

Cross is the author of seven books, including 2005’s Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix (published by Hyperion in the U.S., and Hodder in the U.K.). His 2001 release, Heavier Than Heaven: The Biography of Kurt Cobain (Hyperion/Hodder), was a New York Times bestseller and was called “one of the most moving and revealing books ever written about a rock star” by the Los Angeles Times. In 2002, Heavier Than Heaven won the ASCAP Timothy White Award for outstanding biography. Cross’s other books include the national bestseller Cobain Unseen (Little Brown), Backstreets: Springsteen, the Man and His Music (Harmony, 1989); Led Zeppelin: Heaven and Hell (Harmony, 1992); and Nevermind: The Classic Album (Schirmer, 1998).

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Kurt Cobain's daughter writes heartfelt letter 30 years after his passing: 'Gifted me a lesson'

The loss of a loved one undoubtedly brings immense grief . As time passes, people learn how to pick themselves up and carry on through life while still keeping their loved ones close to their hearts. American singer Kurt Cobain's daughter, Frances, shared a post on Instagram revealing the precious things she learned after her father's passing, per The Daily Star . She shared some memories with her father, who died by suicide at the young age of 27. Remembering him from when she was little, Frances shared a heartwarming post on Instagram.

The first picture in the post is a portrait of Cobain's hands, followed by childhood pictures of Frances with her father. "30 years ago, my dad's life ended. The 2nd & 3rd photos capture the last time we were together while he was still alive," she explained. She then mentioned how the late singer's mom often stressed that her hands were just like her father's. "She would breathe my hands in as if it were her only chance to hold him just a little bit closer, frozen in time. I hope she's holding his hands wherever they are," she added. The next few pictures were of childhood pictures of Kurt Cobain with his mother and him just being himself. Frances continued her caption, explaining how her father's death impacted her perspective on loss and grief.

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"In the last 30 years, my ideas around loss have been in a continuous state of metamorphosing. The biggest lesson learned through grieving for almost as long as I've been conscious is that it serves a purpose," she wrote. Adding more, Frances shared a beautiful analogy that life and death are closely connected and complement each other. She said, "The duality of life and death, pain and joy, yin and yang, need to exist alongside each other or none of this would have any meaning. It is the impermanent nature of human existence which throws us into the depths of our most authentic lives. As It turns out, there is no greater motivation for leaning into loving awareness than knowing everything ends." 

With a heavy heart and hopeful smile, Frances reminisced the memories with her father as she noted endearingly in the caption how much more she'd have loved to spend time with him. "I wish I could've known my Dad. I wish I knew the cadence of his voice, how he liked his coffee or the way it felt to be tucked in after a bedtime story," she said. Adding more about her learnings on life and death, Frances commended her father for leaving her with an understanding of the same like no other. She wrote, "He gifted me a lesson in death that can only come through the lived experience of losing someone. It's the gift of knowing for certain when we love ourselves & those around us with compassion, with openness, with grace, the more meaningful our time here inherently becomes."

Frances shared that her dad had written a letter addressed to her. She mentioned that the last lines, "Wherever you go or wherever I go, I will always be with you," are a promise she anticipates every day. "He kept this promise because he is present in so many ways. Whether it's by hearing a song or through the hands we share, in those moments, I get to spend a little time with my dad and he feels transcendent," she concluded.

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Short Bio » Rock Singer » Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and musician. Kurt Cobain was the founder of Grunge band Nirvana . He was the front man of the band. Kurt Cobain was one of the greatest rockstars the world has ever seen. He was the main reason for Nirvana’s success. It is unfortunate he committed suicide at the age of 27.

Kurt Cobain was born on February 20, 1967. He was born in Aberdeen, Washington. He was born to Wendy Elizabeth and Donald Cobain. He was of Irish, English and German descent. Kurt Cobain had a musical background. He was a talented kid. He was described to be a happy child. His parents divorced when Kurt Cobain was 7 years old. Since then he changed a lot.

He formed nirvana with schoolmate Novoselic. They formed nirvana in 1987. The band released songs in the next couple of years. They attained worldwide fame after including drummer Dave Grohl . The band became a major hit in 1991 with the release of Nevermind. With the success, they became the pioneer of Grunge music. He was the main songwriter for the band. He co-wrote classics like Smells Like Teen Spirit, Come as You Are, Lithium and All Apologies. Smells Like Teen Spirit is regarded as the band’s best song. Kurt Cobain’s death ended the Seattle grunge band Nirvana. The band sold multi million copies of their songs. Kurt Cobain has made a mark on history. Nirvana had a small yet memorable run.

Kurt Cobain was addicted to drugs. Particularly he was addicted to heroin. Kurt Cobain met Courtney Love in 1990. Courtney Love, herself is a musician. The couple grew close through their mutual interest in drugs. They eventually married in 1992. Love gave birth to Frances Bean Cobain in 1992.

Duff McKagan said he met Kurton a flight. Duff also said Cobain was happy to see him. That was not a normal feeling due to Nirvana and Guns n Roses’ history. Their front men Axl Rose and Cobain hated each other. In April 8, 1994, Kurt Cobain was found dead at his home. She shot himself with a shotgun. It was reported he died three days earlier. The death was confirmed as a suicide. Cobain was under heroin influence at the time.

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An astrological tribute to kurt cobain.

Legendary live-fast-die-young Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain would have been 41 tomorrow, February 20, had things turned out … differently. (Lord, why couldn’t you have taken Scott Stapp instead?! We all know he longs to be closer to Thee!!) Er, anyhoo, here’s an analysis of Kurt’s chart and the factors leading up to his untimely death. […]

Kurt Donald Cobain Biography

Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – c. April 5, 1994), was an American musician, best known for his roles as lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the Seattle-based rock band Nirvana. Cobain formed Nirvana in 1987 with Krist Novoselic. Within two years, the band became a fixture of the burgeoning Seattle grunge scene. In […]