When
was the last time you listened to Nevermind all the way through?
Six
or seven months ago. It's funny to listen to it back-to-back with other
albums from the time, like Jane's Addiction's Ritual de lo Habitual and
the Smashing Pumpkins album Gish. It's easier to think about production
values than to think about the emotional value that Nevermind has for me
- not in a negative way, just in an overwhelming way. That time was such
a whirlwind.
But
that was the greatest achievement of my life. I celebrate it every now
and then. Krist and I actually listened to a little bit of it recently
as we were mixing a new Nirvana track, just to compare.
That
track, "You Know You're Right," from the last Nirvana recording session
in January 1994 - what does it sound like?
It's
pretty melodic. But it has probably the most feedback I've ever heard on
a Nirvana track. With Nevermind, we
wanted
to capture the raw energy of the band but with optimum performance. In
Utero was all about capturing the vibe on tape. This song is somewhere
between the two -but stranger.
What
was the reason for doing the session?
We
had been touring America and we had this new song we had been fucking around
with in sound checks. The first two days [in the studio], it was just Krist
and me messing around. Kurt came in on the third day, and we did the song
in one take. Then he sang three vocal tracks. That was it.
When
you joined Nirvana, they had been through a lot of drummers. Why did Kurt
and Krist have so much trouble finding the right guy?
Kurt
was kind of a drummer himself. When he would play guitar or write songs,
if you ever looked at his jaw, he would be moving his jaw back and forth,
like he was playing the drums with his teeth. He heard in his head what
he wanted from a rhythm, and that's a hard thing to articulate. I think
one of the reasons they wanted me was that I sang backup vocals. I don't
remember them saying, "You're in the band." We just continued.
Butch
Vig talks about how he had to work around Kurt's mood swings in the studio.
As the new guy in the band, how did you deal with his changes?
There
would be times when we would really connect - smile and laugh and feel
like a band. And there were times when you felt lost and questioned what
you were doing there. There were times when I had to back off completely
and think, "I'm just the drummer in this band." And there were other times
when we'd all share something really beautiful, like a show or recording
or just a vocal harmony. That's when you really felt like you were part
of something great.
Were
you shocked by the money that suddenly appeared - advances, recording budgets
- when Nirvana signed to Geffen?
Fuck,
yeah. It was unbelievable. We went from selling amp heads and "Love Buzz"
singles for food to having millions of dollars. Coming from Springfield,
Virginia, I went from having no money at all and working at Tower Records
to being set up for the rest of my life. I remember the first time we got
a thousand-dollar check. We were so excited. I went out and bought a BB
gun and a Nintendo - the things that I always wanted as a kid.
How
would you describe the relationship between Kurt and Krist?
Krist
was Kurt's best friend - always. The two of them had a connection beyond
words. I think they were closer to each other than they were to anybody
else. Krist is a very lovely, gentle, sweet and huge man. If he's your
friend, he's your friend for life. He protected Kurt in a lot of ways and
situations. The perfect example is Krist keeping that huge bouncer from
killing Kurt after Kurt smacked him over the head with his guitar in Dallas,
Texas. The first person to jump up and protect Kurt was Krist. You have
a 400-pound bouncer wanting to kill Kurt, and Krist just got up and said,
"Don't even try it."
Do
you have any particularly fond memories of the Nevermind sessions, when
you knew you had something special?
Hearing
your music played on the big speakers for the first time after the track's
been completed -that's the payoff, like when "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
first came through the speakers. The only demos we'd done of that song
were on a boombox - we were used to hearing it sound like a shitty bootleg.
All of a sudden, you have Butch Vig making it sound like Led Zeppelin IV.
And as we were mixing the album, Krist and Kurt and I would take a tape
of the songs and just drive around the Hollywood Hills, listening to it.
That was something else.
Did
you have any sense that the album could be a hit?
It
didn't seem possible. The charts were filled with fucking Mariah Carey
and Michael Bolton. It seemed like we were about to make another pass through
the underground. One of the first peopleto say they thought the album was
going to be huge was Donita Sparks of L7. And I didn't believe her. I was
going, "There's absolutely no way."
It
was playing the Reading Festival in England in [August] 1991 - we were
maybe fourth on the bill - watching the audience respond to "Smells Like
Teen Spirit." It was something about the song. People just bounced
to it. Basically, it's a dance beat - the verses are like Cameo-disco drumming
and the choruses are heavy-metal Sixties go-go.
Could
you see Kurt already withdrawing from the mania on that U.S. club tour
in the fall of '91?
Yes.
There was that punk-rock guilt. Kurt felt, in some way, guilty that he
had done something that so many people had latched onto. The bigger the
shows got, the farther we got from our ideal.
We
were all in such a weird state. It was such a whirlwind that no one really
had any time to feel comfortable with it. From the time Nevermind came
out to the time that Kurt died - that's not eventhree years. That's not
enough time to get used to something that life-altering.
If
there is anything you could change about those last six months of 1991,
what would it be?
It
would have been interesting to wait six months before we put the "Teen
Spirit" video on MTV. I would have rather had everyone listen to the record
and get into the music before they had this four-minute teenage-rebellion
commercial.
You're
still in the thick of rock with Foo Fighters. Do you hear Nevermindin the
music around you now?
That
would be far too egotistical. I'm proud that I was a part of that band,
that I had an opportunity to mean so much to so many people. When the Foo
Fighters play shows, kids will walk up - kids from new bands who are huge,
who are twenty-two, the same age I was when we did Nevermind - and they
tell me that I was a great influence on them. And all it does is make me
feel old [laughs], like Neil Young or something.
You
have been touring and recording with Foo Fighters longer than you were
in Nirvana.Has it gotten easier or harder for you to be in the game?
It's
become some sort of normal life to me. One of the good things about being
the drummer inNirvana was that I wasn't the focus of all the attention.
I was the guy who never got recognized. I got to sit back and discover
what the pitfalls were, because none of them happened to me.
Did
you learn from Kurt's mistakes and trials?
Absolutely
- and the mistakes and trials of the band in general. Making albums and
going out on tour shouldn't be that difficult. I make the album in the
studio in my house and go out on tour with the same road crew we
had in Nirvana. We play shows to people who come back every time we come
into town. I come home and have a barbecue with my mom and my sister until
it's time to go back out on tour again.
Kurt
definitely had a lot more inner pain than I did. I'm generally a pretty
upbeat, happy person. I can laugh at almost anything. The whole time
the band was blowing up, I was laughing my ass off, thinking, "This is
absolutely ridiculous. These people are getting duped somehow." I don't
think Kurt's reaction was the same.
There
were times when it was so overwhelming that, yeah, I thought I was going
to lose my mind. I had this amazing panic attack at the Warfield Theater
in San Francisco, where we opened the show playing "Polly." The curtains
were closed, and this stagehand kept coming up to me, saying, "You've got
one minute. Are you ready? One minute!" I'd never gotten nervous before
in my life. I'm like, "I'm fine." Then he'd come back: "You've got thirty
seconds. Are you ready?" I'm like, "Dude, I'm fine! Relax!"
Then
I hit my kick drum to make sure it was in place. The PA was on and the
crowd went "Waaaaagghhh!" The curtains opened up and it's a wall of people
from floor to ceiling. I almost fainted. I had to sit there and sing
backups on "Polly" - it was fucking torture. Every show after that, I'd
have panic attacks - throughout the show, not just before. I'd be counting
down the set list: "I've got eight more songs to go. I've gotta get
through this verse." That was every night of my life, the whole time
I was in the band.
When
you think of Kurt now, what do you remember - and miss - most?
I
think about his smile a lot. And his laugh. He had a funny laugh, this
fucking cackle. I remember him being happy. It's easy to remember him being
sad. But the things that I like to think about are his happiness, and how
much he loved music, whether it was sitting in a living room and playing
an acoustic guitar, or playing at the Off Ramp in Seattle. He really, really
loved creating music. Every night, when we were living together,
he used to go into his bedroom, I was sleeping on the couch, and he would
go in and write for hours in his journals. His bedroom light would be on
for hours, and he would write pages and pages. He was a gentle, sweet,
caring person. He was always so nice to my mom [laughs]. A lot of people
imagine him as this terror, when, honestly, he was one of the nicest
people you ever met. And I like to think about the shape of his hands,
and the way he moved his mouth when he played the guitar. Those are the
kinds of things I remember. I definitely feel lucky to have known him.
He changed my life forever in so many ways. And I miss him. I think about
him a lot.
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