Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1867 – April 8, 1994) an American singer, songwriter, musician, is best known as the guitarist and frontman of the rock band, Nirvana. He is remembered as one of the most iconic influential rock musicians in the history of alternative music.
Born in Aberdeen, Washington, Cobain formed the band, Nirvana, with Krist Novoselic and Aaron Burckhard in 1987 as part of the Seattle music scene, later becoming known as grunge. After being signed with a major label DGC Records, Nirvana gained success with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from their second album, “Nevermind” (1991).
With the success of “Nevermind”, Nirvana was labelled as “the flagship band” of Generation X, with Cobain hailed as the spokesman of a generation. Cobain resented this, believing his message and artistic vision being misinterpreted by the public, and his personal problems often a subject of media attention.
During the last years of his life, Cobain struggled with heroin addiction and chronic health problems like depression. Struggling with personal and professional pressures of fame, and his marriage to musician Courtney Love, Cobain was found dead on April 8, 1994, at the age of 27 in his Seattle home. Police concluded Cobain died of a self-inflicted shotgun wound to his head on April 5.
Described as a “Generation X icon”, Cobain was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with Nirvana bandmates, David Grohl and Novoselic, in their first year of eligibility in 2014. In 2003, David Fricke of Rolling Stone ranked him the 12th greatest guitarist of all time. Cobain was ranked 7th by MTV in the “22 Greatest Voices in Music”. In 2006, he was placed 20th by Hit Parader on their list of “100 Greatest Metal Singers of All Time”.
Early Life
Cobain was born at Grays Harbor Hospital in Aberdeen, Washington, on February 20, 1967. He was the son of waitress Wendy Elizabeth (nee Fradenburg; born 1948) and automotive mechanic Donald Leland Cobain (born 1946). Cobain’s parents married on July 31, 1965, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Cobain’s ancestry is listed as Dutch, English, French, German, Irish, and Scottish. His Irish ancestors emigrated from Carrickmore, County Tyrone in 1875. Researchers found that they were shoemakers, originally named “Cobane”, who came from Inishatieve, a townland within Carrickmore. They first settled in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, and then in Washington. Cobain believed his family came from County Cork. His younger sister, Kimberly, was born on April 24, 1970.
Cobain’s family had a musical background—his maternal uncle, Chuck Fradenburg, played in a band called The Beachcombers, his aunt, Mari Earle, played guitar and performed in bands throughout Grays Harbor County, and his great-uncle, Delbert, had a career as an Irish tenor, making an appearance in the 1930 film “King of Jazz”. Kurt was a happy and excitable child, exhibiting sensitivity and care. His talent as an artist was evident from an early age, as would draw his favorite characters from films and cartoons, such as the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Donald Duck, in his bedroom. This enthusiasm was encouraged by his grandmother, Iris Cobain, a professional artist.
Cobain developed an interest in music from a young age. According to his aunt Mari, he began singing at the age of two. At age four, he started playing piano and singing, writing a song about a trip to a local park. Listening to artists like the Ramones and Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), and, from a young age, would sing songs like Arlo Guthrie’s “Motorcycle Song”, The Beatles, “Hey Jude”, Terry Jacks; “Seasons in the Sun”, and the theme song to the televisions show of the band The Monkees.
Cobain’s parents’ divorce when he was nine years old had a profound effect on his life. His mother noted that Cobain’s personality change dramatically, becoming defiant and withdrawn. In a 1993 interview, Cobain elaborated:
“I remember feeling ashamed, for some reason. I was ashamed of my parents. I couldn’t face some of my friends at school anymore, because I desperately wanted to have the classic, you know, typical family. Mother. Father. I wanted that security, so I resented my parents for quite a few years because of that.”
Cobain’s parents both found new partners after divorce, despite the fact that Cobain’s father promised not to remarry, he met Jenny Westeby, to Kurt’s dismay. Cobain, his father, Westeby, and her two children, Mindy and James, moved into a new household together. Cobain liked Westeby at first, giving him the maternal attention he desired. But in January 1979, Westeby gave birth to a boy, Chad Cobain. This new family, a stark contrast to the attention Cobain was used to receiving as an only boy, soon began to express resentment toward his stepmother. Cobain’s mother dated a man who was abusive, Cobain witnessing the domestic violence inflicted upon her, one incident resulting in his mother being hospitalized with a broken arm. Wendy refused to press charges, remaining completely committed to the relationship.
Cobain behaved insolently toward the adults in his youth, and began bullying another boy at school. The misconduct eventually caused his father and Westeby to take him to a therapist, who concluded that he would benefit from a single family environment. Both sides of the family attempted to bring his parents back together, without much success. On June 28, 1979, Cobain’s mother granted full custody to his father. Cobain’s teenage rebellion quickly became overwhelming for his father, who placed his son in the care of family and friends. While living with the born-again Christian family of his friend Jesse Reed, he became a devout Christian and regularly attended church services, but he later renounced Christianity, engaging in “anti-God” rants. The song “Lithium” is about his experience while living with the Reed family. Religion still remained an important part of his personal life and beliefs.
Despite uninterested in sports, Cobain enrolled in a junior high school wrestling team at his father’s urging. A skilled wrestler, Cobain despised the experience due to ridicule he endured from his teammates and coach, he allowed himself to be pinned in attempt to sadden his father. Cobain’s father then enlisted him in a Little League Baseball team, where Cobain intentionally struck out to avoid playing. Cobain befriended a gay student at school, suffering bullying from his peers who concluded that Cobain was also gay. Cobain said in an interview that he liked being associated with the gay identity because he did not like people, and when they thought he was gay they left him alone. He stated, “I started being really proud of the fact that I was gay even though I wasn’t.” his friend tried to kiss him, causing Cobain to back off, explaining to his friend that he was not gay, but still remained friends with him. A 1993 interview with The Advocate, Cobain claimed that he was “gay in spirit” and “probably could be bisexual.” He also stated that he used to spray paint “God Is Gay” on pickup trucks in the Aberdeen area. Police records show that Cobain was arrested for spray painting the phrase “ain’t got no how whatchamacallit” on vehicles. A personal journal states, “I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes.”
Cobain got through class by drawing objects associated with the human anatomy. A caricature assignment for an art course, Cobain drew Michael Jackson, but his teacher said that the image was inappropriate for a school hallway. Cobain then drew an image of the then-President Ronald Reagan that was seen as “unflattering.” According to testimony by Cobain’s classmates and family members, his first concert was Sammy Hagar and Quarterflash at the Seattle Center Coliseum in 1983. Cobain, however, claimed his first concert was the Melvins, writing prolifically in his journal of the experience. As a teenager living in Montesano, Washington, Cobain eventually found escape through the thriving Pacific Northwest punk scene, going to punk rock shows in Seattle.
Cobain was living with his mother his second year of high school in Aberdeen, but just two weeks prior to graduation, he dropped out of Aberdeen High School, when he realized he didn’t have enough credits to graduate. His mother gave him a choice: find employment or leave. After one week, Cobain found his clothes and other belongings packed away in boxes. Feeling banished by his mother, Cobain stayed with friends, occasionally sneaking back into his mother’s basement. Cobain claimed that during periods of homelessness, he lived under a bridge over the Wishkah River, and experience that inspired the song “Something in the Way”, however, Nirvana bassist Novoselic later claimed, “He hung out there, but you couldn’t live on those muddy banks, with the tides coming up and down. That was his own revisionism.”
In late 1986, Cobain moved into an apartment, paying the rent working at The Polynesian Resort, a Polynesian coastal resort about 20 miles (32 km) north of Aberdeen. During this time, Cobain was traveling frequently to Olympia, Washington, to attend rock concerts. It was during one of these visits that he formed a relationship with Tracy Marander. Despite having a close relationship, it was strained with financial difficulties and Cobain’s absence while touring. Marander supported the couple working at the cafeteria of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, often stealing food. During his time with Marander, Cobain spent most of his time sleeping late in the evening, watching television, and concentrating on art projects. Marander’s insistence that he get a job caused arguments that influenced Cobain to write “About a Girl”, which was featured on the Nirvana album Bleach. Marander is credited with taking the cover photo for the album, but did not become aware Cobain wrote “About a Girl” until years after his death.
Not long after separating from Marander, Cobain began dating Tobi Vail, and influential punk zinester of the riot grrrl band Bikini Kill who embraced the DIY ethos. Upon meeting Vail, Cobain vomited, becoming completely overwhelmed with anxiety caused by his infatuation of her, inspiring the lyric, “love you so much it makes me sick,” in the song “Aneurysm”. Despite regarding Vail his female counterpart, their relationship waned due to his desired maternal comfort of a traditional relationship, which Vail regarded as sexist within a countercultural punk rock community. Vail’s lovers, according to her friend, Alice Wheeler, as “fashion accessories”. Cobain and Vail spent most of their time together as a couple discussing political and philosophical issues. In 1990, they collaborated on a musical project, “Bathtub is Real”, both singing and playing guitar and drums. They recorded their songs on a four-track tape machine that belonged to Vail’s father. In Everett True’s 2009 book Nirvana: The Biography, Vail is quotes:
“[Kurt] would play the songs he was writing, I would play the songs I was writing and we’d record them on my dad’s four-track. Sometimes I’d sing on the songs he was writing and play drums on them … He was really into the fact I was creative and into music. I don’t think he’d ever played music with a girl before. He was super-inspiring and fun to play with.”
Slim Moon described their sound as “like the minimal quiet pop songs that Olympia is known for. Both of them sang; it was really good.” Cobain’s relationship with Vail inspired many of the lyrics of the songs on Nevermind. Once, while Cobain was discussing anarchism and punk rock with friend Kathleen Hanna, another member of Bikini Kill, Hanna spray-painted “Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit” on Cobain’s apartment wall. Teen Spirit was the name of a deodorant Vail wore, despite Cobain being unaware of the deodorant’s existence, interpreted the slogan having a revolutionary meaning, inspiring the title of the Nirvana song “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Career
Early Musical Projects
On his 14th birthday on February 20, 1981, Cobain’s uncle offered him either a bike or used guitar—Kurt chose the guitar—and soon he was trying to play Led Zeppelin’s power ballad, “Stairway to Heaven”. He also learned how to play “Louie, Louie,” Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”, and the Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl”, before working on his own songs. Despite playing left-handed, Cobain was forced to write right-handed.
In early 1985, Cobain formed Fecal Matter after dropping out of Aberdeen High School, one of “several joke bands” that arose from the circle of friends associated with the Melvins, initially featuring Cobain singing and playing guitar, Melvins drummer Dale Crover playing bass, and Greg Hokanson playing drums. They spent several months rehearsing original material and covers, including songs by The Ramones, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix. Fecal Matter disbanded in 1986, while the Melvins supported their debut EP, Six Songs.
Cobain rarely found anyone he could play music with during high school. while hanging out at the Melvins’ practice space, he met Krist Novoselic, a fellow devotee punk rock. Novoselic’s mother owned a hair salon, and the duo occasionally practiced in the upstairs room of the salon. A few years later, Cobain tried to convince Novoselic to form a band with him, lending him a copy of a home demo recorded by Cobain’s earlier band, Fecal Matter.
Nirvana
Novoselic finally agreed to form the band Nirvana, after months of Cobain persuasion. Religion appeared to remain an significant part of Cobain’s life, using the Christian imagery in his work, and maintaining a constant interest in Jainism and Buddhist philosophy. The band name “Nirvana” was inspired by the Buddhist concept, Cobain described as “freedom from pain, suffering and the external world,” a concept he aligned with the punk rock ethos and ideology.
Soon, Cobain became disillusioned with early touring due to the band’s inability to draw substantial crowds and sustaining themselves. During the first few years of playing in the band, Novoselic and Cobain hosted a rotating list of drummers. They eventually settled on Chad Channing, recording the album Bleach, released on Sub Pop Records in 1989. But Cobain was soon dissatisfied with Channing’s style, resulting in finding a new drummer in Dave Grohl. With Grohl, the band recorded the 1991 major-label debut, Nevermind, and Nevermind’s lead single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Nirvana entered the mainstream, popularizing a subgenre of alternative rock called “grunge”. Since their debut, Nirvana has sold over 25 million albums In the United States (U.S.) alone, and over 80 million worldwide. Nevermind’s success provided numerous Seattle bands like Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, access to wider audiences, resulting in alternative rock to become a dominant genre on radio and music television in the U.S. during the early to middle 1990s. Nirvana was considered the “flagship band of Generation X,” and Cobain found himself reluctantly anointed by the media as the generation’s “spokesman.”
Cobain struggled with the success of Nirvana and his underground roots. He felt persecuted by the media comparing himself to Frances Farmer. He soon began to resent people who claimed to be fans of the band, refusing to acknowledge, or misinterpreted, the band’s social and political views. A vocal opponent of sexism, racism, and homophobia, he was publicly proud that Nirvana played at a gay rights benefit, supporting No-on-Nine in Oregon in 1992. The show held opposition, which if passed, would have directed schools to teach that homosexuality was “abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse”. Cobain was a vocal supporter of the pro-choice movement and Nirvana was involved in L7’s Rock for Choice campaign. Due to his political views on pro-choice, Cobain received death threats from a small number of anti-abortion activists, one activist threatened to shoot Cobain as soon as he stepped on a stage.
Collaboration with Other Artists
In 1989, members of American alternative rock bands Nirvana and the Screaming Trees formed a side project, The Jury. The band featured Cobain on vocals and guitar, Mark Lanegan on vocals, Krist Novoselic on bass and Mark Pickerel on drums. Over two days of recording, on August 20 and 28, 1989, the band recorded four songs also performed by Lead Belly; “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”, “Ain’t It a Shame”, and “They Hung Him on a Cross”; the latter which Cobain sang solo. Cobain was inspired to record the songs after receiving a copy of Lead Belly’s Last Sessions’ from a friend, Slim Moon, after hearing, he “felt a connection to Lead Belly’s almost physical expressions of longing and desire.”
Cobain contacted William S. Burroughs in 1992, about doing a collaboration. Burroughs sent a recording of “The Junky;s Christmas (recorded in his studio in Lawrence, Kansas). Two months later, in a studio in Seattle, Cobain added guitar backing based on “Silent Night” and “To Anacreon in Heaven”. The two would later meet in Lawrence, Kansas, and produce “The ‘Priest’ They Called Him” a spoken-word version of “The Junky’s Christmas”.
Musical Influences
The Beatles were an early and lasting influence on Cobain, as his aunt Mari remembers him singing “Hey Jude” as early as age two. “My aunts would give me Beatles records,” Cobain told Jon Savage in 1993, “so for the most part [I listened to] the Beatles [as a child], and if is I was lucky, I’d be able to buy a single.” Cobain expressed a fondness for John Lennon, whom he refers to as his “idol” in one of his journals, admitting to writing the song “About a Girl”, from Nirvana’s 1989 debut album Bleach, after spending three hours listening to Meet the Beatles!.
Cobain was a fan of 1970s hard rock and heavy metal bands like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, Queen, and Kiss. Nirvana occasionally played cover songs by these bands, including Led Zeppelin’s “Heartbreaker,” “Moby Dick,” and “Immigrant Song,” Black Sabbath’s “Hand of Doom,” and Kiss’ “Do You Love Me?” and wrote the Incesticide song “Aero Zeppelin”, a tribute to Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith. Recollecting touring with the band, Cobain stated, “I used to take a nap in the van and listen to Queen, over and over again, draining the battery on the van. We’d be stuck with a dead battery because I’d listened to Queen too much.”
Cobain’s main influences during his teenage years attitude and artistic style was punk rock. His first punk rock album was Sandinista! by The Clash, becoming a bigger fan of the 1970s British punk band the Sex Pistols, describing them as “one million times more important than the Clash” in his journals. He was introduced to 1980s American hardcore bands like Black Flag, Bad Brains, Millions of Dead Cops, and Flipper by Buzz Osborne, lead singer and guitarist of the Melvins and fellow Aberdeen native. Osborne taught Cobain about Punk, loaning him records and old copies of the Detroit-based magazine Creem. The Melvins were an important early musical influence on Cobain, with their heavy, grungey sound mimicked by Nirvana on many songs from Bleach.
Cobain was also a fan of protopunk acts like the Stooges, whose 1973 album Raw Power was listed as his favorite of all time in his journals. The Velvet Underground 1968 song “Here She Comes Now” was covered both live and in the studio.
But the 1980s American alternative rock band Pixies were probably instrumental in helping the adult Cobain in developing his songwriting style. A 1992 interview with Melody Maker, Cobain states that hearing their 1988 debut album, Surfer Rosa, “convinced him to abandon his more Black Flag-influenced songwriting in favor of the Iggy Pop/Aerosmith-type songwriting that appeared on Nevermind.” The 1993 interview with Rolling Stone, Cobain states, “’Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was his attempt at ‘trying to rip of the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band—or at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard’.”
Cobain’s appreciation of early alternative rock bands extended to Sonic Youth and R.E.M., both of whom the members of Nirvana befriended and looked to for advice. It was Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon’s recommendation that Nirvana signed to DGC in 1990, with both bands doing a two-week European tour during the summer of 1991, as documented in the 1992 documentary, 1991: The Year Punk Broke. In 1993, Cobain stated of R.E.M.: “If I could write just a couple of songs as good as what they’ve written… I don’t know how that band does what they do. God, they’re the greatest. They’ve dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music.”
After attaining mainstream success, Cobain became a devoted champion of lesser known indie bands, covering songs by The Vaselines, Meat Puppets, Wipers, and Fang onstage and/or in the studio, wearing Daniel Johnston T-shirts during photo shoots and having K Records logo tattooed on his forearm, and enlisting bands like Butthole Surfers, Shonen Knife, Chokebore, and Half Japanese along for the In Utero tour in late 1993 and early 1994. Cobain invited his favorite musicians to perform with him: ex-Germs guitarist Pat Smear joined the band in 1993, and the Meat Puppets appeared onstage during Nirvana’s 1993 MTV Unplugged appearance performing three songs from their second album, Meat Puppets II.
Nirvana’s Unplugged set included renditions of “The Man Who Sold the World,” by British rock musician David Bowie, and the American folk song, “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” adapted by American folk musician Lead Belly. Cobain introduced the latter by calling Lead Belly his favorite performer, and in a 1993 interview revealed he had been introduced to him from reading the American author William S. Burroughs. “I remember [Burroughs] saying in an interview, ‘These new rock’n’roll kids should just throw away their guitars and listen to something with real soul, like Leadbelly,” Cobain said. “I’d never heard about Leadbelly before so I bought a couple of records, and now he turns out to be my absolute favorite of all time in music. I absolutely love it more than any rock’n’roll I ever heard.”
Nirvana’s acoustic Unplugged set, released as an album in 1994, provided a hint of Cobain’s future musical direction. The record has drawn comparisons to R.E.M.’s 1992 release, Automatic for the People, and in 1993, Cobain predicted that the next Nirvana album would be “pretty ethereal, acoustic, like R.E.M.’s last album.”
“Yeah, he talked a lot about what direction he was heading in”, Cobain’s friend, R.E.M.’s lead singer Michael Stipe, told Newsweek in 1994. “I mean, I know what the next Nirvana recording was going to sound like. It was going to be very quiet and acoustic, with lots of stringed instruments. It was going to be an amazing fucking record, and I’m a little bit angry at him for killing himself. He and I were going to record a trial run of the album, a demo tape. It was all set up. He had a plane ticket. He had a car picking him up. And at the last minute he called and said, ‘I can’t come.” Stipe was chosen as the godfather of Cobain and Courtney Love’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.
Artistry
Grohl stated that Cobain believed music comes first and lyrics second. Cobain focused mostly on the melodies of his songs. Cobain complained when fans and rock journalists attempted to decipher his singing and extract meaning from his lyrics, writing: “Why in the hell do journalists insist on coming up with a second-rate Freudian evaluation of my lyrics, when 90 percent of the time they’ve transcribed them incorrectly?” While Cobain insisted the subjectivity and unimportance of his lyrics, he labored and procrastinated in writing them, often changing the content and order of lyrics during performances. Cobain described his lyrics himself as “a big pile of contradictions. They’re split down the middle between very sincere opinions that I have and sarcastic opinions and feelings that I have and sarcastic and hopeful, humorous rebuttals toward cliché bohemian ideals that have been exhausted for years.”
Cobain originally wanted Nevermind to be divided into two sides: a “Boy” side, for the songs written about the experiences of his early life and childhood, and a “Girl” side, for the songs written about his dysfunctional relationship with Vail. Charles R. Cross wrote: “In the four months following their break-up, Kurt would write a half-dozen of his most memorable songs, all of them about Tobi Vail.” Though “Lithium” had been written before Cobain knew Vail, the lyrics of the song were changed to reference her. Cobain said in an interview with Musician that “some of my very personal experiences, like breaking up with girlfriends and having had relationships, feeling like death void that the person in the song is feeling. Very lonely, sick”. While Cobain regarded In Utero “for the most part very impersonal”, on the album he dealt with his parents’ divorce, his newfound fame and the public image and perception of himself and Courtney Love on “Serve the Servants,” with his enamored relationship with Love conveyed through lyrical themes of pregnancy and the female anatomy on “Heart-Shaped Box.” Cobain wrote “Rape Me” not only as an objective discussion of rape, but a metaphorical protest against his treatment by the media. He wrote about fame, drug addiction and abortion on “Pennyroyal Tea”, as well as women’s rights and the life of Seattle-born Farmer on “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle.”
Cobain was affected enough to write the song “Polly” from Nevermind, after reading a newspaper story of an incident in 1987, where a 14-year-old girl was kidnapped after attending a punk rock show then raped and tortured with a blowtorch. She eventually escaped after gaining the trust of her captor, Gerald Friend through flirting with him. After seeing Nirvana perform Bob Dylan cited “Polly” as the best of Nirvana’s songs, and said of Cobain, “the kid has heart”. Patrick Suskind’s novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer inspired Cobain to write the song “Scentless Apprentice” from In Utero. The book is a historical horror novel about a perfumer’s apprentice born with no body odor of his own but a highly developed sense of smell, and who attempts to create the :”ultimate perfume” by killing virginal women and taking their scent.
Cobain immersed himself in artistic projects throughout his life, as much so as he did in songwriting. The sentiments of his art work followed the same subjects of his lyrics, often expressed through a dark and macabre sense of humor. Noted was his fascination with physiology, his own rare medical conditions, and the human anatomy. According to Novoselic, “Kurt said that he never liked literal things. He liked cryptic things. He would cut out pictures of meat from grocery-store fliers, then paste them these orchids on them … and all this stuff on [In Utero] about the body – there was something about anatomy. He really liked that. You look at his art – there are these people, and they’re all weird, like mutants. And dolls – creepy dolls.” Often unable to afford artistic resources, Cobain improvised with materials, painting on board games and album sleeves, and painting with an array of substances, including his own bodily fluids. The artwork seen in his Journals later drew acclaim. Many of Cobain’s paintings, collages, and sculptures appeared in the artwork of Nirvana’s albums, such as the covers of Incestcide and In Utero. His concepts featured in Nirvana’s music videos, sometimes leading to arguments with the video producers.
Cobain contributed backing guitar for a spoken word recording of beat poet William S. Burroughs’ entitled “The ‘Priest’ They Called Him”. Cobain regarded Burroughs as a hero. During Nirvana’s European tour Cobain kept a copy of Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, purchased from a London bookstall. Cobain met with Burroughs at his home in Lawrence, Kansas in October 1993. Burroughs expressed no surprise at Cobain’s death: “It wasn’t an act of will for Kurt to kill himself. As far as I was concerned, he was dead already.”
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