Kurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – c. April 5, 1994) was the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter of the Seattle-based rock band Nirvana.
In 1991, the arrival of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" marked the beginning of a dramatic shift of popular rock music away from the dominant genres of the 1980s (glam metal, arena rock, and dance-pop) and toward grunge and alternative rock. The music media eventually awarded the song "anthem-of-a-generation" status, and, with it, Cobain ascended as the reluctant "spokesman" for Generation X. Other hit songs written by Cobain include "Come as You Are", "Lithium", "In Bloom", "Heart-Shaped Box", "All Apologies", and "About a Girl".
Cobain was born to Donald and Wendy Cobain
on February 20, 1967 in the Grays Harbor Community Hospital in
Aberdeen, Washington and spent his first six months living in
Hoquiam, Washington before the family moved to Aberdeen.[2] Cobain
enrolled at Robert Gray Elementary School in 1972. By most accounts,
his early life was happy and he lived as a part of the typical
American family, which grew to include sister Kimberly in April
1970.
He began developing an interest in music early in his life.
According to his Aunt Mari, "He was singing from the time he was
two. He would sing Beatles songs like 'Hey Jude.' He had a lot of
charisma from a very young age."
Cobain's life changed dramatically at the age of seven when his parents divorced in 1975, an event which he later cited as having a profound impact on his life. His mother noted that his personality changed dramatically, with Cobain becoming more withdrawn. In a 1993 interview, Cobain said, "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." After a year spent living with his mother following the divorce, Cobain moved to Montesano, Washington to live with his father and transferred to Beacon Elementary School, but after a few years his youthful rebellion became too overwhelming and he found himself being shuffled between friends and family. At school, Cobain took little interest in sports. At his father's insistence, Cobain joined the junior high wrestling team. While he was good at it, he despised it. Later, his father signed him up for a local baseball league, where Cobain would intentionally strike out to avoid having to play. Instead, Cobain focused on his art courses. He often drew during classes, including objects associated with fetuses and the human anatomy.
Cobain was friends with a gay student at his school, sometimes suffering bullying at the hands of homophobic students. That friendship led some to believe that he himself was gay. In one of his personal journals, Kurt wrote the phrase "I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes". In a February 1993 interview with The Advocate, Cobain claimed that he used to spray paint "God is Gay" on pickup trucks around Aberdeen. In the accompanying article, writer Kevin Allman noted that Cobain was arrested in 1985 for spray-painting "HOMO SEX RULES" on a bank. However, Aberdeen police records show that the phrase for which he was arrested was actually "Ain't got no how watchamacallit." with every "t" written four times larger than the other letters.
In the Advocate interview, Cobain said that he thought he was gay while in high school. He later stated, "I'm definitely gay in spirit and I probably could be bisexual. But I'm married and I'm more attracted to Courtney than I ever have been toward a person, so there's no point in trying to sow my oats at this point. If I wouldn't have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle". When Nirvana appeared on Saturday Night Live in January 1992, Cobain and Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic jokingly "made out" during the cast and crew farewells as the credits rolled. (Cobain and Novoselic bobbed their heads back and forth wildly as if in rapture; Novoselic and Dave Grohl subsequently repeated the gesture.) The segment was cut from the show on further airings, replaced by the closing credits from the rehearsal taping (which lacked Cobain) and never aired again.
As a teenager with a chaotic home life growing up in small-town Washington, Cobain eventually found escape through the thriving Pacific Northwest punk scene, going to punk rock shows in Seattle. Cobain formed a lifelong friendship with fellow Montesano musicians The Melvins, whose music later heavily influenced Nirvana's sound. Cobain had a small "K" inside a shield tattooed on his forearm, the insignia of Olympia, Washington, label K Records.
At the age of 14, Cobain was given his first guitar by his uncle. (Cobain was offered the choice of a guitar or a bicycle as a birthday gift, and chose the guitar.) Cobain started by learning a few covers, including AC/DC's "Back in Black" and The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl". He soon began working on his own songs.
In high school, he often found himself without anyone to jam with, as none of his friends had any particular musical talent. Eventually, Cobain met Krist Novoselic, a fellow devotee of punk rock, who lived across from the Young Street bridge. Novoselic's mother owned a hair salon (Maria's Hair Design) and they would practice on occasion in the upstairs room. A few years later, Cobain tried to convince Novoselic to form a band with him by lending him a copy of a home demo recorded by Cobain's earlier band, Fecal Matter. After months of prodding, Novoselic finally agreed to join Cobain, forming the beginnings of Nirvana.
During their first few years playing together, Novoselic and Cobain found themselves host to a rotating list of drummers. Eventually, the band settled on Chad Channing, with whom Nirvana recorded the album Bleach, released on Sub Pop Records in 1989. Cobain, however, became dissatisfied with Channing's style, leading the band to seek out a replacement, eventually settling on Dave Grohl. With Grohl, the band found their greatest success via their 1991 major-label debut, Nevermind.
On
April 8, 1994, Cobain was discovered in the spare room above the
garage (referred to as "the greenhouse") at his Lake Washington home
by Veca Electric employee Gary Smith. Smith arrived at the house
that morning to install security lighting and saw him lying inside. Apart from a
minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain's ear, Smith reported seeing no
visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Cobain was asleep. Smith
found what he thought might be a suicide note with a pen stuck through it
beneath an overturned flowerpot. A shotgun, purchased for Cobain by Dylan
Carlson, was found at Cobain's side. An autopsy report later concluded Cobain's
death was a result of a "self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head."
The report estimates Cobain to have died on April 5, 1994.Cobain's
own words were used to narrate a documentary on his life, titled
Kurt Cobain About a Son. Journalist Michael Azerrad
interviewed the band extensively for his 1993 book Come as You
Are: The Story of Nirvana, and recorded twenty-five hours of
tape with Cobain. Filmmaker AJ Schnack collaborated with Azerrad to
use the tapes to tell the story. The film debuted at the 2006
Toronto International Film Festival.
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