Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and “In Utero” producer Steve Albini

[0] Hi, my name's Dave Grohl, and I feel good about being Conan's friend.

[1] That feels like a qualified good.

[2] Yeah, I'm still unsure.

[3] Hello, I'm Chris Novicellich, and I feel jazzy about being Conan O 'Brien's friend.

[4] Yes, see?

[5] No pause, no anxiety, just joy, sir.

[6] My name is Steve Albini, and I feel anxiety about being Conan O 'Brien's friend.

[7] You can feel that it's palpable.

[8] And not uncommon, I'm sure.

[9] Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walking blues, climb the fence, books and pens, I can tell that we are going to be friends.

[10] Yes, I can tell that we are going to be friends.

[11] Hey, welcome to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend.

[12] Of course, usually there's a lot of nonsensical bibble babble at the top of the podcast.

[13] Today, there really isn't time for that.

[14] This is a very special episode.

[15] Recently, I had this very cool opportunity to fly to Chicago and sit down and chat with Nirvana members, Dave Grohl, and Chris Novicell, along with producer, audio engineer Steve Albini, so that we could talk about the making of the classic album in utero, which came out 30 years ago.

[16] in September 1993.

[17] I remember this time very well because I was launching my late -night show and the in -utero music was really the soundtrack to that crazy time in my life.

[18] So really cool that my guest today sat with me and we chatted about this very important record.

[19] We covered a lot of ground, including what it was like to deal with the pressures of suddenly being the number one rock band in the world, how they could follow up the unexpected massive success of their album, Nevermind.

[20] And Dave and Chris also shared some memories of their friend and bandmate, Nirvana's creative leader, Kurt Cobain.

[21] So let's listen in.

[22] This is an honor.

[23] Thank you very much for gathering here.

[24] It's the 30th anniversary of in utero.

[25] And my first question for the three of you was, does it feel like 30th?

[26] 30 years.

[27] Well, it's, you know, there's the time component, it's temporal, right?

[28] And I just, when I look back, I think there's somebody who's missing here.

[29] There's a person that should be here right now.

[30] Yeah.

[31] And Kurt Cobain's not here.

[32] And so, you know, just basing that, you know, and looking back at that time, I mean, it was great time to make the record.

[33] I had a good time, and we were really productive.

[34] And that was like the glue that kept the band together was just we really like to play together and we played well together and we made this sorry i didn't understand that okay this is this is absolute bullshit and all of this is staying in so so chris novice uh watch just what the fuck were you talking about just that made no sense can't keep his phone okay gruel you're next what have you what's on you right now i'm sorry i didn't understand that yeah hey syri answer conan's question Hey, Siri, why did Hal kill the crew in 2001?

[35] It feels like just yesterday that we recorded.

[36] It would be great if Siri had a really good, perky answer.

[37] So, yes, you were saying, before you were really interrupted by a computer.

[38] Well, I should have just had the AI spewed out.

[39] Yeah.

[40] But so, I mean, we could tell stories about the record, like how we made it.

[41] It was a good time.

[42] I mean, we were in this house in Granite Falls, Minnesota.

[43] Cannon Falls.

[44] Cannon Falls.

[45] Cannon Falls.

[46] I don't know.

[47] Thank you.

[48] I stand.

[49] Siri.

[50] Where is sorry?

[51] Isn't Granite Falls where Rocky and Bullwinkle are from?

[52] Probably.

[53] We'll pursue that cul -de -sack later.

[54] And Boris.

[55] Yeah.

[56] I remember I have a very clear memory of this album coming out because I had, there's, I think, a three -day difference between when in -utero drops and when I start my late -night television show.

[57] Oh, wow.

[58] The music on the album, because I was such a huge fan, being such a background.

[59] music to the terror and the weirdness of me starting a late -night show from complete obscurity in 1993.

[60] That's similar to the Nirvana experience, I would imagine.

[61] At the time when the band became popular in 1991, we were so young.

[62] I think I was 21 or 22, and you might have been 25 or something, but we were kids.

[63] You're kids.

[64] Yeah.

[65] And so, you know, when you talk about the, you know, when you talk about the, The amount of time that's gone by, to me, it's not even so much about the years.

[66] It's about the experiences that just kind of led one after another, going from three kids that were basically living or touring out of a van to them becoming a huge band, and then in utero becoming the sort of the uncomfortable soundtrack to that sort of transition.

[67] By 1992, 1993, we were living in a different.

[68] world than we were just 16 months before, you know.

[69] I was thinking about it today, and I was thinking the only way that you can understand the making of in utero is to understand where you were at that time.

[70] The only way to understand that is to start with Nevermind, which had its Geffen Records modest expectations by the record label.

[71] I think they were going to be very happy if you sold 250 ,000 units.

[72] They printed 50 ,000 units of the CEs, 50 ,000.

[73] 50 ,000, thinking that should do it.

[74] And if we have to make more, we will.

[75] I talked to someone who was working at Geffen at the time.

[76] They said when Nevermind hit and started to blow up and then really blow up, at one point they had to stop making and manufacturing all of the other CDs for the other artists on their label and turned them all over to making Nevermind, which sounds like something that just doesn't happen.

[77] It was completely unprecedented.

[78] And so that's the good news.

[79] But with that comes all kinds of bullshit.

[80] Well, you mentioned time, Conan.

[81] And so, like, personally, you know, that was 30 years ago.

[82] But that time from when Nevermind released and then Kurt died, what happened in that span of time feels like it was 10 years.

[83] Yeah.

[84] It was so much.

[85] There was so much intense.

[86] Yeah.

[87] I was just thinking, like, you know, for me, it took my entire childhood to prepare me. me for adolescence, right?

[88] And then it took my entire adolescence and young adulthood, prepare me for being gainfully employed and independent as a person, right?

[89] So, like, you have a long runway for, like, the major stages in your life.

[90] And, like, Nirvana went from being couch surfers to being the biggest band ever in the world in a span of about 18 months, something like that.

[91] Like, I can't fathom the kind of whiplash in every, part of your life.

[92] Like, you go from being, from having normal relationships with normal people who see you as another normal person to every time you walk in a room, everybody's mouth just drops open and you're, you're like instantly, you're the center of attention and everyone has, like, expectations and questions and demands and they want to attach themselves to you.

[93] Like, everything changes just from being a normal schmuck to being this, like, intensely public figure on whom other people have laid incredible expectations and on whom other people are like literally dependent.

[94] Their careers are dependent on your behavior and your whims.

[95] And so now they feel like they have to marshal that.

[96] They have to like participate in how you are as a person because of their self -interest.

[97] It's like this like uniquely perversely capitalist notion.

[98] And suddenly you guys are responsible for an industry.

[99] And the thing that occurs to me is that fame, money, success is great news for a lot of artists in the business and a lot of music artists.

[100] If you come from the punk world and you are religious adherence to the punk ethos, which you guys were and Kurt was, success is tricky because there's so many artists, if they make a lot of money, go out, get a Bentley.

[101] You know, Jesus, the Beatles were very comfortable going out and getting a Rolls Royce and paying either that or paying 90 % taxes.

[102] Right, right.

[103] Okay, well, that's a good point.

[104] I hadn't thought of that.

[105] And we're going to do a second one when we get into taxation.

[106] But what I wanted to point out was there's a whole culture of, yay, we made it, and we throw money around.

[107] There's almost a shame and a trap that's set if you're part of the punk ethos, isn't there?

[108] So I want to, this is something that I have run into, over and over and over again is people outside the music scene, people who are not band members, not musicians, not part of the culture of punk at all, ascribing to punks this notion that success is bad and this notion that if you are successful, you are somehow bad and evil and that it is that we don't want people to become successful.

[109] I have never experienced that genuinely from anybody in anyone in the punk scene that wasn't.

[110] purely a jealousy, an expression of jealousy.

[111] On the whole, Nirvana's fans wanted Nirvana to become successful and self -sustaining and be loved.

[112] So I just wanted to clear the air and say, like, there was no animosity toward Nirvana as a successful band.

[113] I'm talking about the band itself.

[114] So, you know, before we made the record, never mind, we were pretty much living in squalor, right?

[115] So I was living with Kurt in this tiny little apartment And there were just corned arg sticks and cigarettes all over the place And it was like pretty fucking disgusting Yeah I would have done anything to have my own apartment You know like and and to be able to do that through making music I know that the transition happened really quickly But it didn't happen you didn't just wind up with a million dollars in your mailbox the next day It went from being like a pretty and went up to $15 a day I was like oh my god that means I can get two packs of cigarettes or whatever and then you know went from this couldn't possibly get better like i honestly exactly i'm saying that's how my gosh we're staying in a motel you know i'm sharing a room with kurt or whatever but it's not someone's floor and then just small things and then from september to december of 1991 is when everything really blew up and um i didn't feel conflicted or any guilt or shame in knowing like oh i just i just paid off my mother's house.

[116] Or I bought my mother a car or now I can afford to, you know, buy a new pair of shoes or whatever it was.

[117] I didn't.

[118] And I think the reason why I personally didn't feel so conflicted about everything was because I knew that the band hadn't done anything outside of our true selves to get there.

[119] We just did the thing that we did and then it happened.

[120] And so that was just my experience.

[121] after and then I got to I got to move in with another friend and have a house and I remember it's funny you talk about the Bentley remember that fucking weird Yugoslavian car that you bought Did you own a Yugo?

[122] No, what was it?

[123] Didn't you get some car didn't you buy some car that was like this tiny thing?

[124] Oh, the Renault d 'Alphine.

[125] Oh, that's what I was a Renault.

[126] Oh, right.

[127] Wait, that was your rock star moment is that someone gave you a Renault Dauphine, which sounds like a shoe more than a car.

[128] I barely fit in it.

[129] I got it running pretty good.

[130] But, yeah, I mean, of course, we didn't go straight to the Bentley's and stuff like that.

[131] But, I mean, I was very happy to have finally been able to really support myself as a musician, doing the thing that I love to do.

[132] There is, and this is what's getting us towards in utero, is there is a lot of stuff that comes with being the number one rock band.

[133] Suddenly, there's all this tabloid noise in Kurt and Courtney's life.

[134] That's creating a lot of drama.

[135] and then the other thing that starts to creep in is a dissatisfaction with never mind being too slick.

[136] And now where does that come from?

[137] You'd have to ask him about that.

[138] Ask Kurt.

[139] Ask him.

[140] And we were talking about just like the pressure of being the sudden fame.

[141] And then Kurt had he got more attention because he was out front.

[142] Yeah.

[143] Okay.

[144] So then he felt more pressure.

[145] Okay.

[146] Then yeah, he started to do heroin.

[147] And that he loved drugs.

[148] And there's a price for that.

[149] And that complicated things a lot.

[150] Remember, Dave and I went to go see him in the rehab.

[151] He was in a rehab.

[152] And we were going, how are you doing?

[153] It was so good to see him.

[154] And he was doing all right.

[155] And he goes, you know that Steve Jones came to visit me?

[156] And he didn't have to do that.

[157] I mean, that was really nice.

[158] It's from the sex pistols.

[159] And we're like, what's he like?

[160] Kurtz like, he was wearing Birkenstocks.

[161] Talk about a fucking sellout Oh, jeez for the sex pistols He's wearing Birken socks Yeah, it's very upset But he went to the rehab to see He didn't have to do that Yeah, but it was nice that he, that was a nice thing to do So, you know, just dealing with that stuff, I mean, There's that nonsense, but were you guys Because I know Kurt was very vocal about thinking that, never mind, Yes, huge hit, but he thought the production was too slick.

[162] And that is something that he said at the time.

[163] He may have changed his mind about that later on had he lived.

[164] It must have been like 1989, 1990.

[165] We were cruising in this van, and I think we were listening to Surfer Rosa.

[166] And then Kurt was sitting there in the chair and he raises his finger and makes a decree.

[167] He goes, this shall be our snare sound.

[168] Surferosa, the Pixies.

[169] The Pixies, Surfer Rosa, yeah.

[170] Who is made by yours truly?

[171] Yes, and then he, and then that's the, there you go, that we ended up in working with Steve.

[172] So that's, you know what I think, I think as you were talking earlier about feeling uncomfortable with this new world of Nirvana fame and stuff like that.

[173] I think that when things did become huge, that we all sort of kind of retreated and sort of clung to the things that we felt most attached to.

[174] whether it was weird old cars or going back to Virginia or whatever it may have been for Kurt.

[175] But always musically, I think that whether it was Kurt feeling like, never mind may have been over to produce or too overproduced or something, we had always listened to records that Steve had made.

[176] I remember when I first moved in with Kurt, I think.

[177] He only had like four records.

[178] It was like, well, he had a Mark Lannigan record.

[179] There was Surfer Rosa.

[180] There was a Breeders pod.

[181] and the Jesus Lizard record.

[182] And that was just the sound that we felt most, that we loved.

[183] And I think we had probably wanted to work with Steve before we made, Nevermind, but we wound up making it with Butch.

[184] Who, it should be said, is a divine album.

[185] Yeah, yeah, Butch Vig as the producer on Nevermind.

[186] Yeah.

[187] And, you know, what you're bringing up is that kind of in the background all along, there was this sound that Steve Albini was getting, with the pixies, with the breeders that spoke to you guys.

[188] And so my question for you guys is, what is that sound?

[189] Okay, it's the snare.

[190] Is it the recording of the drums, or is it something bigger than that?

[191] It's the collective sound of all of those things where not one seems to be kind of in front of the other.

[192] To me, it always sounds really centered, where it's like the vocal isn't jumping ahead of everything else, or things are like riding up and down.

[193] It sounds like the sound of a group in a space and really just natural, you know.

[194] I mean, I think, who was it that talked about distance in recording?

[195] Well, Steve will talk to your ear off.

[196] Well, yeah, but like how distance kind of creates depth.

[197] Right.

[198] And so if you listen to a lot of the drum sounds with Steve's stuff, there is sort of this sense of distance in a way that gives the sound more depth.

[199] That's what I think.

[200] And correct me if I'm wrong, but Steve, it felt like what you were going for and what you were about was you wanted the band to sound like the band.

[201] You wanted them to sound like this is how they sound when they're in a room and they're together and something real is happening.

[202] You don't want all that separation.

[203] You don't want double tracking.

[204] You don't want a lot of fall to raw and nonsense.

[205] Well, there is a, I mean, there seems to be setting up as a kind of a compare and contrast between me. and Butch Vig.

[206] And I should point out that Butch Vig's production aesthetic and his approach as an engineer was like formed in precisely the same way that mine was, doing budget records for dead broke bands in a short amount of time, like trying to be as efficient as possible with not just with the time, but with the materials.

[207] And like, you're hitting your snare drum head so hard, we're going to have to buy a new snare drum head.

[208] So like, let me put some gaffer there or something to keep so that we don't split the snare drum head.

[209] Like his aesthetic and his techniques are very much in the same school as mine.

[210] The thing that I remember most about the Nirvana Butch connection is that when we got to the studio to start work on the in -utro album, Kurt had a cassette of the rough mix that Butch had given him of the Nevermind Sessions.

[211] It wasn't the finished album that was in the stores.

[212] it was the cassette of the tracks that Butch had done without any, like, fanciful mixing, without any, like, yeah, just like, these are the tracks.

[213] And he played that to get familiar with the sound of the studio.

[214] He played it through the speakers.

[215] And I thought it sounded fucking fantastic.

[216] Do you guys know what I'm, do you remember that?

[217] No. I thought it sounded fucking great.

[218] And I don't remember, forgive me, I don't remember hearing the Nevermind album and thinking, this sounds fucking great.

[219] It didn't bring to mind any of the records that Butch had done that I was familiar with that were the records that made his reputation and probably made Nirvana want to work with him in the first place.

[220] So to be fair, to just go back to that time, never mind is out.

[221] They're the biggest band in the world.

[222] They're looking to make their follow -up album.

[223] At that time, were you a fan?

[224] Were you a fan of Nirvana?

[225] I wasn't super familiar with Nirvana.

[226] I had heard like the ubiquitous stuff that everyone that was being played on the radio and all the clubs.

[227] And like every gig, you would go to as you were loading in, the sound guy would put Nevermind on to crank the PA and balance the PA.

[228] So I had heard the album many times sort of secondhand, right?

[229] I wasn't a student of Nirvana.

[230] If I had ever seen him play live, I'm certain I would have become a fan.

[231] So the decision is made, we would like Steve Albini to produce this record.

[232] And most people, I think anyone else on the planet in that position would have said, please, please, please, please, please.

[233] And you write this letter, when you find out that they're interested.

[234] And this letter is not a please hire me letter.

[235] It's a great letter.

[236] But it is a, I'll do it, but here are my conditions letter, which is really, which is first of all, this is a compliment.

[237] Sounds like that Ethereum thing.

[238] Yeah, yeah, it is.

[239] I mean, it really is a, it's a bit of a screed about what you believe, and I will do this if you do it on my terms and if you're willing to do it.

[240] And then you shockingly say, I'm not taking point.

[241] on this record.

[242] I don't want to do that.

[243] You said, I want to be paid like a plumber.

[244] Just give me some money up front, but you thought it was immoral to get points in the record.

[245] Yeah.

[246] I mean, the way that record producers and recording people are compensated in at that time in particular was a trick of accounting that shifted the cost away from the label and toward the band, made the band ultimately responsible for whatever the producer got paid.

[247] And it didn't come out.

[248] out of the general proceeds of the record, the way it would in an independent labels contract, for example.

[249] It came specifically out of the money that would otherwise have gone to the band.

[250] Like, literally, every dollar I would get paid would mean that was a dollar that Dave didn't get or Chris didn't get or Kurt didn't get.

[251] I mean, that's just the way the, that's the way the accounting works and those kinds of deals.

[252] And I think that's ethically untenable.

[253] I don't, and I'll admit that I think less of people who opt to do things that way.

[254] I think it's, on its face, it's absurd.

[255] Like, I work on a record for a few days, and then for the rest of your fucking life, you have to keep paying me?

[256] Like, you get me a chip off of every nickel that you earn?

[257] I'd like you to talk to my agent and my manager, if you would.

[258] Speaking about this letter, very specifically, the letter has sort of acquired a notoriety of its own because it was included in some of the reissue materials.

[259] And it was sort of, for the first time, the general public got to read.

[260] this correspondence, right?

[261] What happened was that I'd had several phone conversations with Kurt about the prospect of me working on a record, and we talked all of this stuff through.

[262] So some of the things in there that sound kind of flippant or sound like I'm being kind of brusk, that's based on a conversational awareness between me and Kurt.

[263] Were you guys united that, yep, Steve is the guy, and were you united in this new direction, stripped down, leaner to do in utero?

[264] Was that like you felt like all three of you were united in that idea.

[265] Yeah.

[266] So, you know, it's funny we were in between, I guess it might have been 1992 when we went down to Brazil.

[267] We had that week off in Brazil.

[268] Oh, yeah.

[269] We were playing this festival was called the Hollywood Rock Festival in Rio and San Paulo.

[270] So there are two shows.

[271] One weekend in Rio, one is apart.

[272] And then we had a whole week off in between.

[273] And we had nothing to do.

[274] So we found this studio that I think belonged to the record company.

[275] Yeah, it's a record company.

[276] And they're like, hey, there's this nice old neat board in here, if you're not doing anything.

[277] So we set up our gear and just started fucking around, maybe for two or three days.

[278] And I think maybe Kurt had some riffs and some things here and there.

[279] A lot of it was just jamming.

[280] But it was great because it was just the three of us in this room with nothing but time to fuck around.

[281] And no one to tell us what or to do or how.

[282] to do it and i i think that that was kind of the beginning of the vibe uh coming to record with steve like there was it wasn't really a laundry room there was barrett's the basement with his laundry room yeah in my house in my basement yeah and there was a washer and dryer there and we set up and we just we did these like improvisation songs again i think that a lot of this was meant as some sort of return to us feeling like we still own ourselves or we own, we're still the same people.

[283] We're still the same band and were not to be changed by all the other crazy bullshit.

[284] And we felt most comfortable doing it like that.

[285] It's funny, I, having been in the Food Fighters now for so long, when I think about being in Nirvana, it was just, when we got in a room to play music, it was so fucking simple.

[286] There was all of that other complication just disappeared.

[287] Literally, like, put my drums in the back of my car, go to Chris's house, then go to the basement and put it in there and start playing.

[288] Even though people consider us to be this giant band, we still functioned as we always had when it came to making music.

[289] So I think the Brazil stuff is really, that's where I started to get a vibe or a feel of what was going to happen when we went to record with Steve.

[290] Those were considered like demos, you know.

[291] The magic was the three of you guys working together and not being really interfered with that much.

[292] And so you have this weird trip to South America where accidentally you get to reconnect with that, which is pretty amazing.

[293] And then you think, okay, we think we know the guy who can do this.

[294] And that takes us to the studio where you record this, which is 50 miles south of Minneapolis.

[295] Yeah, I had been there a couple of times already.

[296] But also, I have a question.

[297] Yeah.

[298] This studio is called Packaderm Studio.

[299] It was amazing.

[300] The house was beautiful.

[301] It was like a Frank Lloyd Wright looking thing.

[302] I have an indoor swimming pool.

[303] It's the Brady Bunch house.

[304] It's like the Brady Bunch house.

[305] But kind of flanked, way to like.

[306] Am I crazy?

[307] Or was this place owned by some kid that inherited a bunch of money from his rich family?

[308] Yes.

[309] Because his rich family was the family that invented that smoked brown plastic desk organizer.

[310] Desk organizer.

[311] Yes.

[312] The story you're relaying is 100 % true.

[313] No one could make that up.

[314] I thought Steve made it up and told it to me. So I want to set the picture for people because one of you, I don't know who it was, described it as a gulag, meaning you go.

[315] I think that was you, Chris.

[316] He was reading Solzhenitsyn.

[317] Like, he's walking through the gulag and he can hear the snow crunch beneath his boots.

[318] Yeah, beneath his boots.

[319] And it's like, you know, an ancient Soviet detention center.

[320] But a lot of it makes sense.

[321] With an indoor swimming pool.

[322] With an indoor swimming pool.

[323] It was nice.

[324] Which a lot of gulags had.

[325] To be fair, the nicer gulags had it.

[326] But, Steve, it's almost like you were offering them a sensory deprivation tank saying, well, come to this middle of nowhere, you were booked because you're huge stars, number one band in the world, you're booked as the Simon Ritchie group.

[327] Oh, yeah.

[328] There was a general concern about Kurt having a relapse, so they didn't want him to be in an urban setting that had another layer of concern, which is that, like, I shouldn't even tell them that Nirvana is coming to their studio because even if only one person tells one person, that one person is going to tell for sure one person and that one person is for sure going to tell 100 people.

[329] And before you know it, there's going to be a fucking news truck and a bunch of teenagers outside this studio, no matter where it is.

[330] Right.

[331] And we got away with it for kind of a long time.

[332] Like it was like I think the end of the first week, some local kid showed up at the front door because he saw Kurt at the supermarket or something.

[333] I'm a snowmobile.

[334] Yeah.

[335] But we got away with it.

[336] Like the studio didn't know that Nirvana was coming to record at their studio.

[337] I booked it under my name.

[338] I had done a bunch of sessions there, like I said.

[339] And I told him, yeah, the Simon Ritchie group, it's a country and western outfit.

[340] And a lot of things were sort of tactical.

[341] Like, Kurt didn't have to be handled with mittens.

[342] Like, it wasn't like he was like on the, verge of relapse every second.

[343] It was just anyone that's in recovery, they're an addict, right?

[344] To the point of you're in this very remote location, and at the end of your letter, you say, P .S, if a record takes more than a week to make somebody's fucking up.

[345] So your ethos was, I want to get this band in a room and let them play.

[346] And I will place the mics.

[347] I will do my job, but I want to really capture this band live.

[348] And that experience of seeing Nirvana show up and play for you, you know, live.

[349] So how did you feel when you first saw them play?

[350] What I wanted was for them to go into a studio and behave normally.

[351] You don't have to just sit there in a room by yourself playing to a click track.

[352] You get to play with your band around you like always, you know.

[353] We don't have to replace everything with a microscope and tweezers.

[354] You can just play like a band.

[355] Right.

[356] Right.

[357] You know, behave normally.

[358] Have the normal experience that is the thing that got you animated about me. music.

[359] It got you here in the first place.

[360] Exactly.

[361] You guys had had some downtime and the impression I get from everything I've read and everyone I've talked to is that you came into the in utero experience ready to go with a real sense of purpose and playing really fucking well.

[362] Does that feel right accurate description?

[363] I think so.

[364] The first song we did was Serve the Servants and then we had met Steve and he set up and then I remember Steve just standing by that big stouter tape machine and just He hits record and he's got his arms crossed.

[365] He's watching us and we knocked the song out in one take.

[366] We're like, oh, that was the keeper.

[367] Literally, the first thing recorded in the session is the first song on the album as recorded.

[368] What's amazing is a lot of songs were done in a take or two takes, but...

[369] There's a thing that, like, so far none of the train spotters have mentioned this, so I don't know if it's generally known.

[370] But the song, there's like a quiet bit of the song, and then it kicks in to full.

[371] Monty, and we had done a soundcheck of the instruments before they did the take, but the full Monty was Kurt kicked on an overdrive pedal, which he hadn't used in the sound check.

[372] So when the first loud bit comes in, the guitars were pinning on the tape machine, like he was about 60B hotter than proper for the session, right?

[373] So I immediately grabbed those channels and ratcheted them back.

[374] So the first beat of the loud part, the tape machine is slightly overdriving and those channels are in the red and it's you know bad engineering on my part but you know by the second or the third beat it was back to normal so but there is this moment there's this like slightly like you're a tent yeah you caught it it's like you know or a couch guy just like telling your guy hey turn that down or he you know but in a conventional in a conventional setting just the fact that we went over on that first beat just the fact that it was the first run through just the fact that there there was this potential scar would be enough to say all right well let's let's do it again you know let's do it that was nice for a first take let's try it again but everybody heard it on playback and i mentioned it i said you know there's an overload here on this first beat because i wasn't prepared for the overdrive and you know got it back got it in line but and everybody heard on a playback was like yeah that's fine and so that's on the record now which is the the sort of thing that you know when you're working in budget conditions and and like sort of grubby studio sessions, that shit happens all the time and you just live with it.

[375] But for a band of their stature and of their resources to be able to say, let's go ahead and use the first take just because it sounds fine.

[376] We're not that picky.

[377] I thought that was a remarkable display.

[378] Never mind, I think it was two months maybe to make, and then utero is...

[379] Nevermind.

[380] It was like 12 days or 14 days.

[381] Was it 14 days?

[382] I thought it was...

[383] It was really quick.

[384] Really?

[385] The recording of it, yeah.

[386] The recording of it, but then it's...

[387] Oh, then the mix and stuff, yeah.

[388] and everything that.

[389] I mean, I think soup to nuts in utero is two and a half weeks, three weeks.

[390] If we had been a little bit more efficient, we could have been out the door in 12 days.

[391] But I think we were done in 14 for sure.

[392] Here's the thing.

[393] So because we were looking for that kind of performance and we were looking for that kind of recording and most of the takes were maybe one or two takes or something.

[394] We were done with the drums and I think the basic tracks in, what, three days?

[395] Three or four days.

[396] Three or four days.

[397] So that left me with.

[398] a good week of sitting around doing fucking nothing in that house like The Shining, watching those David Attenborough videotapes, like, things like that.

[399] Wait, why are you watching David Attenborough Nature videos?

[400] Because it was nothing else to do.

[401] Yeah.

[402] This is before streaming.

[403] This is a different time.

[404] Oh, I would do the fireplace.

[405] I would start fires, remember?

[406] And I would do the fireplace.

[407] Very primordial activity is a man tending the fire.

[408] It was very shining.

[409] It was very shining.

[410] Yeah, okay.

[411] You mentioned it so I can bring it up.

[412] You say tending fires.

[413] There was also some pyromania happening during the making of in utero.

[414] And I don't know if this was something that you guys picked up from.

[415] These guys would play with lighter fluid.

[416] Yeah, let's talk about that.

[417] Let's get out to do it.

[418] There's a cleaning solvent that was used in the studio to clean the tape heads and clean equipment of stuff.

[419] It's a very pure alcohol that burns off.

[420] So you can put it on your hand and set your hand on fire.

[421] Oh, look, I'm a human torch, blah, blah, blah.

[422] It's fine.

[423] Whatever.

[424] And so, I've brought some in.

[425] We're going to all douse ourselves with it.

[426] And, you know, you get bored with setting regular things on fire, and then you start setting other people on fire and stuff, you know.

[427] What kind of things are you setting on fire?

[428] Did you...

[429] My ass.

[430] We did that one.

[431] I think you lit a cigar off of my ass while that was on fire.

[432] Was there any...

[433] How long is your ass on fire for?

[434] What's the amount of time?

[435] Well...

[436] Long enough for...

[437] Wrong enough for Chris to light a cigar, so I'm thinking that's at least 10 seconds.

[438] For someone to take a picture.

[439] Yeah, okay.

[440] Did you ever smell anything cooking?

[441] Just our hot tracks.

[442] No, I think that, yeah, I mean, you know, we're out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do.

[443] No, things, you light things on fire.

[444] We did.

[445] There were also prank phone calls.

[446] Oh, because Steve had this realistic, like, remember Radio Shock?

[447] And it was a, it was a microphone like you can stick on a phone the microphone part of a phone or the receiver part in that drawer there you still have it you have some of these recordings you can record off the phone like on a cassette right yeah okay i've done some research and like nixon you should have gotten rid of these tapes uh you guys pranked jean simmons yeah i believe it one of kiss fame that's my favorite one who deserves who deserves pranking by the way my favorite one that was a real i don't know if you've ever spoken to jean simmons Yes, I have.

[448] I love the Melvins.

[449] That was my favorite.

[450] He says, what?

[451] I love the Melvins.

[452] He does.

[453] He does.

[454] He sounds just like Jackie Mason.

[455] Yeah, he was on my show once, and all he did was sell merchandise, and I kept trying to get him to tell interesting stories, and he'd say, we'll get to that, but first.

[456] And then he'd go in, and he'd say, The Kiss Coffin, and he had a Kiss Coffin that he was selling.

[457] Absolutely true.

[458] I pretended to be Kurt calling Gene Simmons.

[459] Gene Simmons had reached out to Kurt.

[460] Gene Simmons had called their management because there was a Kiss tribute album being put together and Nirvana, the biggest band in the world, were friends with the Melvins, and the Melvins did a kiss cover, and he assumed that Nirvana would want to do a kiss cover to be on that.

[461] Gene Simmons cannot fathom that anyone on Earth is not a massive kiss fan.

[462] Right.

[463] I'm going to say this, a healthy ego.

[464] And Gene, if you're listening, this is a good thing to have.

[465] When I was like 12 years old to like maybe 14, I was huge in a kiss.

[466] Yeah.

[467] Yeah, and Gene was my favorite.

[468] Yeah.

[469] And Nirvana had recorded a kiss song once.

[470] Oh, God, that was a disaster.

[471] What did you record?

[472] We were drunk.

[473] Do you love me?

[474] Uh -huh.

[475] We were drunk.

[476] Okay.

[477] Well, a few drinks are needed to record a kiss song sometimes.

[478] So the word comes down that Gene Simmons is desperate to get Nirvana on this album.

[479] And Kurt is like, I don't want to talk to fucking Gene Simmons.

[480] And I said, I'll do it.

[481] So I called him, I called him back and I pretended to be Kurt.

[482] And I parried the whole thing away by saying that, I wasn't making all the decisions because I had a reliability problem.

[483] So you're, and are you talking directly to Gene?

[484] Yeah, as Kurt.

[485] And Gene thinks he's talking to Kurt.

[486] Yeah, and Kurt is sitting right next to me, listening to me, do an impression of him.

[487] You do a really good Kurt, by the way, stay.

[488] Can we hear just a second of you talking to Gene Simmons?

[489] I get to see Kurt giggling.

[490] Do you know the wipers?

[491] That's a good one.

[492] I really love the wipers.

[493] Do you know the wipers?

[494] And then Gene Simmons comes back with, I don't know the wipers.

[495] I know the melvins I love the melvins I don't know the wipers I don't know the wipers uh you call I love this one you call Evan dando no even better Evan dando there was someone in Evan dando's tour party who was a friend of Nirvana and had the phone number for the studio and called from a hotel in Australia a direct call from a hotel in Australia probably the most expensive fucking phone call that you could make.

[496] Build to the room.

[497] So Evan Dando's like footing the bill for the most expensive direct call on earth.

[498] And what we did was we somehow we convinced that that guy found Evan and convinced him that Madonna's personal assistant had tracked him down at the hotel in Australia and wanted to talk to him.

[499] That's it.

[500] That's the whole context.

[501] So Evan Dino thinks he's on hold waiting for Madonna.

[502] Right.

[503] And every few minutes I would get back on the phone and say, she asked me to place the call.

[504] She's still busy.

[505] Can you wait a little bit longer?

[506] And I had some absurd accent that I thought Madonna's assistant would have.

[507] Yes.

[508] And now Madonna has.

[509] And then he's just like, yeah, of course.

[510] Yeah, sure.

[511] I'll wait.

[512] Yeah, of course.

[513] And so literal silence for minutes on end on this.

[514] And then the sound of him exasperatedly, like telling everyone around him like, I'm on the whole.

[515] I'm on hold.

[516] hold for Madonna, you know.

[517] And he's paying for the whole thing.

[518] Sure.

[519] Because it was actually the call actually started.

[520] It's a $700 ,000 prank phone call.

[521] Yeah.

[522] And then Australian dollars.

[523] Eddie Vedder, I think was there a prank called Eddie Vedder at some point?

[524] Yeah, and I don't remember why that one.

[525] That was me as well.

[526] I don't remember why we did that one.

[527] Because I don't, there was no, you guys weren't like fighting or feuding with him.

[528] No, no, no. Yeah.

[529] I do remember getting him on the phone and telling him, I pretended to be Tony Visconti, record I remember that.

[530] By the way, you're supposed to be the adult in the room.

[531] I remember that.

[532] You're the guy that's supposed to be, you're in charge, and you're lighting, you're lighting artists on fire and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, he's like, he's like, I'm producing David Bowie or something.

[533] I remember.

[534] I can't remember what it was, I can't remember the context, but I was like, yeah, I'm, uh, I'm here with the black crows or something.

[535] I had some bullshit band that I claimed that I was with, and then I, and they were playing me your record and I, I want to get you in the studio with a real band.

[536] guys who can really play that's pretty good did he get mad or no yeah well you have these you're gonna you gotta put these out at some time yeah I don't I genuinely don't remember the banter but I do remember I think he I thought he handled it pretty deftly I think he acquitted himself well like talking on the phone to Tony Visconti record producer who wanted to fire his band do you You say at one point you say he goes Where are you I'm in Manitoba And then he said, do you know where that is?

[537] And there's this long pause.

[538] He goes, no. Oh, please put these out.

[539] You'll get the releases.

[540] I'll take care of the legal end of it.

[541] Just please release these.

[542] One of the nice things about the studio is it's residential.

[543] Like you're there the whole time you can, you know, get up in the morning and have breakfast.

[544] There's nowhere to go.

[545] You can take a long walk, I think, in the woods.

[546] Yeah, there's a creep there.

[547] I mean, we also, I don't know if we've, uh, really established that this was in February.

[548] Yeah, the dead of winter.

[549] In the dead of winter.

[550] In the middle of fucking nowhere.

[551] 20 foot icicles off the eaves of all the buildings.

[552] So even just a walk from the house to the studio, which is what, 100 yards?

[553] Yeah.

[554] If that, you risk frostbite.

[555] So there's really no getting out and doing anything.

[556] You're all just kind of really contained in this beautiful house.

[557] It was great.

[558] But there's no little town to go to.

[559] I mean, there is.

[560] Like, if you want to drive a few miles, you can get into the little town of Cannon Falls.

[561] But there's, like, a bar and, like, an antique shop and, like, a gas station.

[562] That's it.

[563] I have really fond memories of making that record, to be honest.

[564] Like, I really had fun.

[565] Yeah.

[566] And I think that we, it sounded so good as we were doing it.

[567] Just within the room as we were playing, and then we would listen to playback.

[568] And, I mean, you have to imagine, like, here's this guy who's made these albums that sound.

[569] And we just always wanted to sound like Nirvana making a Steve Albini record.

[570] And it was a dream come true.

[571] And as a drummer, I mean, you know, to get that Steve Albini drum sound, it's like, it was a joy.

[572] It was really fun.

[573] Can I just ask, without getting overly technical, but what is, how do you get that drum sound?

[574] Because I remember reading Hammer the Gods years and years and years ago, and they described how Jimmy Page had ideas about, I'm going to get a sound from John Bonham's drum.

[575] by moving the, and I remember it was a revelation to me that by moving the microphone, you could get a different sound, because I don't know shit.

[576] Let me just cut you off and bum you out by saying that everything that has ever been written about studio techniques and studio lore and all of the fables of things that have happened in the studio on famous records, every single thing in the popular culture that people have heard about happening in the studio did not happen.

[577] It's all bullshit.

[578] There are a very, very, very small number of the studio stories like, oh, they smeared cocaine on the tape, you know, like all this, it's all bullshit.

[579] It does, you know, it's all just completely, like, fabulous stuff that people write because they want to ascribe some sort of magic to the process.

[580] There's no magic to it.

[581] Well, this is heartbreaking.

[582] What about Jimmy Page really being the guy who played all those cool leads for the Who in the early 60s?

[583] For example.

[584] Is that a lie?

[585] I mean, that's probably true.

[586] Jimmy Page, I heard.

[587] Okay, so not everything's bullshit.

[588] Okay.

[589] Is there a Santa?

[590] But things like, you know, like, I think Dave can confirm that he set up a normal drum kit in a normal room and I put normal microphones all around it and then I didn't fuck with him.

[591] Right.

[592] Like, you know.

[593] It's about not getting in the way.

[594] And the, like, I suppose one, one thing that's kind of notable is the ambient sound in that room.

[595] That room is really, nice was a really nice acoustic sound and I'm fond of using the ambient sound in a room if the room is nice.

[596] The room we're sitting in right now is a lovely sounding room and the sound of my voice echoing off the walls is much better than my actual voice, right?

[597] Yeah, I talked to you outside and it was awful.

[598] But he uses like vintage German microphones that are sweet and they have their own kind of sound and personality.

[599] Yeah.

[600] It's funny that you mentioned Jimmy Page because I actually interviewed Robert Plant and Jimmy Page after they made the record with you.

[601] So Robert Plant and Jimmy Page made a record with Albini in, what, 1998 or something, 99 or something like that?

[602] No, no. Wasn't that far after yours?

[603] Because it was like.

[604] Was it?

[605] Yeah, like I was on everybody's shit list after I did your record.

[606] And then I did a Bush record and the Page and Plant record.

[607] And that was it.

[608] So they called me to interview them for this, some magazine.

[609] And I, and I, you were the connection.

[610] They're like, well, you should interview these guys because you love Led Zeppelin and you've made a record with Steve Albini.

[611] And so I was terrified.

[612] I don't know if I'd ever met them before and never interviewed anyone before.

[613] And so we sat down and tape and cameras rolling and stuff.

[614] And I knew that at some point I was, we were going to talk about you.

[615] I listened to the record.

[616] We talked about the record, but we were going to.

[617] And I asked why they chose you.

[618] And I remember Jimmy Page saying that.

[619] he felt very connected to or familiar with your recordings because it was somehow similar to what he was trying to achieve when making Led Zeppelin records.

[620] Same sort of ambience and stuff like that.

[621] And we started talking about microphones, talking about placement and equipment and shit like that.

[622] And then Robert Plant stops us and he goes, excuse me, it's getting a bit technical, isn't it?

[623] I was like, fuck you, dude.

[624] I was actually dreading, I was dreading this anecdote because you never told me this anecdote.

[625] I never told you that.

[626] And my presumption was the reason that you never told me this anecdote was because they were mean to me and that you didn't want to hurt my feelings.

[627] No, no, no, no, no, they loved you.

[628] You're too sensitive.

[629] People always say that about you.

[630] The, well, let's get to it because you said you're on...

[631] some people's shit list after in utero.

[632] You guys make this, you have this experience, you have this great experience, you make this album, it goes off to Geffen, and then you find out, I think it was in Kurt's words, the grown -ups don't like it.

[633] They don't, they, it's too raw, they're worried about it, it's not what, they're worried it's not radio -friendly.

[634] When did you start to hear about that?

[635] I remember hearing that the initial reaction was, You're fucking joking.

[636] You're kidding, right?

[637] Like, I think that was maybe one of the record company's first reactions.

[638] Because I think, you know, when you make a record like, Nevermind, of course, most of the people, the record companies want a follow -up that's going to do the same thing.

[639] Butch Vig was supposed to mix, Nevermind.

[640] And the recording went a little over, and Butch wanted some time to just rest his ears and just get away from it for a few days.

[641] And then we went to Devonshire, remember?

[642] Mm -hmm.

[643] And then we started mixing it, and it just wasn't, the label wasn't happy.

[644] And then we stopped mixing the record, and we all went home, and then we brought Andy Wallace in.

[645] And that was just one of those compromises, and the label was just like, you know, so then we worked with Andy Wallace mixed, never mind.

[646] Yeah.

[647] And so then, like, well, I like the record, but we're, we'd have this.

[648] I talked to Kurt about it.

[649] We'd have these conversations.

[650] Dave, we're like, oh, well, you know, we are a big band, and we do have this obligation, and we live in a fabulous houses, right?

[651] And so maybe we just compromise, like, what is, like, the big, what's going to be the radio song?

[652] See, Kurt wrote a song called Radio Friendly Unit Shifter, which is totally cynical, right?

[653] And so, like, all right, and then we knew we were big REM fans.

[654] They were recording automatic for the people in Seattle, and that was Studio X at the time.

[655] That was the best studio in Seattle.

[656] So I would go down there and hang out and listen to them make this record and listen to their mixes at the end of the night or the recordings.

[657] And then that's how I got to know Scott Litt.

[658] And then I don't remember the details, but then it was like, we'll have Scott Litt can mix a song or two.

[659] And that's it.

[660] That's like the compromise.

[661] So to me, it feels a little bit like there's this.

[662] Again, this thing I was trying to get to earlier with this push -me -pull -you -feel of we want to stay true to what we set out to do and we have this certain sound.

[663] But we are the number one band in the world and we are competitive and we want to get some radio play.

[664] But like for Hard Shaped Box, remember Steve?

[665] Like that solo, like I didn't like the way that solo was and the way it was just, it was so, it was too intense.

[666] Really snarly.

[667] It was really snarly.

[668] And I'm like, well, you know, this song is a really pretty song and it's in a sad song in some ways.

[669] And this, I think I use the term like, this sounds like you just threw this abortion on the floor.

[670] That's what I said.

[671] Like all of a sudden there's this abortion on the floor.

[672] This is terrible.

[673] And then, you know, and then we would just talk, we would discuss it, you know, and then one thing led to another.

[674] And I don't know if we, yeah, so you got the different solo, I believe.

[675] As someone who wasn't in Nirvana and didn't have these internal band conversations with them, like my assessment of it was that they were managing their internal tensions and it's normal after you finish a record to have some doubts about it and they'll like you know wander like should we do another take of this should you know should we try this I think Kurt added some backing vocals to a song that had otherwise was otherwise finished like the public perception is that the record label insisted that they change things and Nirvana gave in on some stuff well no they were leading on us and they're you know And that wasn't my read on it at all.

[676] My read on it was that Nirvana had decided that they were going to resolve these things on their own, and the record label was carping to the rest of, you know, and the management and everybody, they were carping about it, but Nirvana was going to fucking handle it.

[677] It wasn't up to them, right?

[678] And what I said then, and what I've been saying ever since, is the record that made it into the stores is the record that Nirvana wanted everyone to hear.

[679] Well, you know, the funny thing is that after in utero, it became.

[680] kind of a predictable move for other bands that were in similar situations.

[681] An unknown band goes into the studio, unknown underground sort of like rock band goes into the studio, gets a record deal, goes in the studio, they're put into the studio with a producer, they make an album that's produced, and it does really well, and then they feel kind of weird about it because maybe it didn't sound the way they wanted to sound, maybe they got too popular, whatever it was, and then they go into this, make their second record, they're like, well, Now, this is what we really sound like.

[682] So Weezer did it with their album, Pinkerton, which is a fucking amazing record.

[683] The first Weezer record has a bunch of hits, and they become really popular.

[684] Then they go in to make their second record, Pinkerton.

[685] And that album, it's kind of like they're in utero.

[686] Yeah.

[687] Another band like Bush.

[688] You know, Bush is a band that gets really popular and has this produced record.

[689] Then they decide, no, wait, fuck that.

[690] Now that we're big, we get to do the thing that we really want to do.

[691] So we're going to go in and make an album that's raw.

[692] on the way it sounds.

[693] So I don't know if it was something that was happening before the end.

[694] I'm sure it happened a million times before in utero.

[695] But for people that came from the place that we came from, being in the garage and being in the van and being in the clubs and stuff like that, I think maybe if a band felt uncomfortable with their immediate rise to fame, that's the knee -jerk reaction is to go in and make an album where they're like, no, no, no, wait, this is what we sound like.

[696] I have to say, remember when I first heard the first track was Serve the Servants.

[697] And it is such a shot across the bow from the Nevermind experience, which I love Nevermind.

[698] And then I heard this.

[699] And even today, it feels a little bit like you're taking a brillo pad and you're scrubbing the patina off of something.

[700] Well, the opening line of the song is teenage.

[701] Teenage X has paid off well.

[702] Now I'm born and old.

[703] Yeah.

[704] So he's saying, he goes, now I'm bald and old.

[705] Then I shot him a dirty look.

[706] Really?

[707] he changed the lyric yeah what a guy that's her friends are four that was nice of him though yeah really nice to change it yeah really nice to change it when I listen to the record now the range of the songs so for the difference between say a service service service and in all apologies or heart -shaped box and you know radio friendly unit you know it's just it's how about milk it It's just downright menacing.

[708] And that's when you get the full -on Kurt Cobain, just the way he does the vocals.

[709] It's just terrifying.

[710] It's really spooky.

[711] But then there's all that stuff that's so sweet, too.

[712] Yeah, it is.

[713] And even on, like, the songs that have, like, big dynamic, like, harsh bits, when he was recording the vocals, he always had that little toy, that little broken acoustic guitar, and he was strumming along.

[714] So, like, a lot of the songs in the verses, there'll be this, like, sort of funky sounding acoustic guitar, which was kind of a comfort thing for him.

[715] What was the guitar?

[716] Was it just a, it was really a broken down?

[717] It was a 12 string with the six strings on it, and then it wouldn't stay in tune, so he tightened the cheap tuning pegs with like a screwdriver, and then you'd have to use pliers to, like, tune it?

[718] Like, they were so tight.

[719] And I think it had like a crack in the top and stuff.

[720] It was like a real, yeah, but.

[721] It was a total piece of jump.

[722] He was more comfortable singing if he was strumming along on this guitar.

[723] So you hear this acoustic guitar under the vocals in a lot of these songs and the verses, and it's not like he did a session where he did the acoustic guitar overdub.

[724] He was just strumming the acoustic guitar while he was singing as a comfort thing for himself.

[725] And it stayed on the record because it didn't sound bad.

[726] It sounded fine, right?

[727] And it was a casual and loose and informal thing, but it made him more comfortable.

[728] And so when I think of his aesthetic, I don't think of this harsh, gnarly, violent thing.

[729] And when you listen, like when you think about the way people describe that record at the time.

[730] It's like, oh, it's this cathartic, menacing, terrorish, you know, terroristic kind of a thing.

[731] It could be.

[732] And you listen to it.

[733] Yeah.

[734] And there are big, you know, angry, powerful moments on it.

[735] But it's like a lot of it, I think, is really sweet.

[736] I remember when you came here in 2013, we did that alternate version of it.

[737] And we're playing through the stuff and listened to it.

[738] Like, we played the masters for the, like, the first thing we did was play the masters of the original session.

[739] And both of us were like, man, this sounds really great.

[740] Like you're, you know, you're listening to it now with the 25 or 30 years of aesthetic that we've been exposed to since then.

[741] What was the fucking big deal?

[742] Like, well, what were people so hot about?

[743] It just sounds like a really good record.

[744] Well, I mean, to be fair, I got to point out, the reviews when the album came out, universally, almost without exception, were glowing.

[745] I mean, people really, the critics, whatever that means to you guys at the time, thought it was fabulous work.

[746] Bad reviews sting.

[747] I wouldn't know.

[748] Never a bump in the road.

[749] I hear an echo.

[750] Yes, they do.

[751] Those fabled electrical audio acoustics is what you're hearing.

[752] Yeah.

[753] No, but it was appreciated when it came out.

[754] And of course, one of the difficulties is that once Kurt died, everybody had to go back and parse through in utero and read live.

[755] And, lyrics like their tea leaves leading you somewhere.

[756] And that feels like a recipe for incredible bullshit and misunderstanding.

[757] You can do it with sound garden lyrics too.

[758] Yeah, it's strange.

[759] When we were making the record, we did all of the instrumental tracks first.

[760] I don't know if Kurt sang any of the songs live.

[761] It was all just the three of us doing the instrumental tracks first, live in a room, without really having ever heard what Kurt was going to sing, or even how he was going to sing it like his melodies and patterns that most of these things I just listened to them as instrumental so it was always exciting like a mystery knowing like oh he's in there singing this track today and wondering what it was going to sound like when he was finished.

[762] One of the, you know, one of Kurt's amazing abilities was not just that he was a great lyricist but he had a really specific, kind of signature, melodic turn of phrase.

[763] So he could, he He always braided really two simple lines together, I think, in a way that was almost unpredictable.

[764] And he would go from, like, maybe a gentle voice to a scream or maybe a minor key to a major.

[765] But he would do it in this way that was, like, really beautifully patterned, which I always thought was really cool.

[766] And really simple.

[767] Ultimately, at most everything that he did, I thought was simple.

[768] But really smart, you know.

[769] Anyway, so you would hear these things as they came back.

[770] and you would hear, for the first time, his melodic idea, but also the lyric.

[771] And every time I would hear it for the first time, I'd think, that's just odd.

[772] That's unusual.

[773] It's a weird, what a strange thing to say?

[774] What does that mean?

[775] But as the drummer, of course, I'm like, shit, did I slow down in the chorus?

[776] Now, fuck, my kick drums, too.

[777] But, you know, it's still to this day, if I listen to that record, I'll find things or I'll feel things that I didn't necessarily feel 25 years ago, not just in light of everything that had happened, but of course that, you know, everything that did happen can, you know, kind of screw the lens a little bit or distort maybe what it felt like before and what it feels like now.

[778] I think it's a slippery slope.

[779] It's easy to look back at that stuff.

[780] There's a thing that people don't give Kurt credit for enough, which is that a lot of people think of his lyrical sensibility as just being a journal of his feelings, right?

[781] He was an artist, and he was incorporating stuff from, you know, other things, other influences, bands and records that he admired, stuff that he'd read, like literature.

[782] There's a line in one of the songs, I think it's, most babies smell like butter.

[783] Is that, you know what I'm talking about?

[784] Yeah.

[785] And I was like, what a weird observation.

[786] Did you, like, smell a baby?

[787] Like, he just had a kid, right?

[788] And I found out that that was a near direct quote from a book that he'd read about a guy who had this sort of sensory experience of the world that was abnormal.

[789] And, you know.

[790] Settles Apprentice.

[791] Yeah, Settles Apprentice, a track on in utero.

[792] Yeah.

[793] And, you know, and then, like, he's from Seattle and Francis Farmer is a tragic figure, a local person to the Seattle area, like a lot of lore involved in, like, there had been recently come.

[794] to light a lot of the sort of manipulative stuff that had been done to her during her career to try to manage her career like you can see that there are parallels there where they're you know like he may have been feeling pressures from outside people trying to manage his artistic expression for their benefit and seeing a parallel between his life and francis farmer's life and then using her as a figure it's such a great title for a song yeah and that image of leaving a blanket of ash, burn all the assholes and leave a blanket of ash on the ground.

[795] But, uh, and also it felt like a little bit of a reaction to, I read somewhere once, I think that there was so many just one name songs that Kurt was really interested in like going the other way.

[796] So it's Francis Farmer will have her revenge, the ghost of Francis, we'll have her revenge on Seattle just as this or at the radio friendly, you know, shipping unit.

[797] What, these were attempts to say, I'm reacting to.

[798] this cute moment we're in where everything is just one word.

[799] And he was aware of that as a trope, and he was playing, and he played with it.

[800] There was one song you wanted to call gallons of rubbing alcohol roll through the strip.

[801] We had that jam, yeah, we did that.

[802] He didn't want to be, like, be dated or be put in, like, some kind of box or something.

[803] So he also was just cryptic, not allowed people to just invite people in to make their own interpretation of it.

[804] Then if you look at his other forms of expression, like Steve said, like Kurt was an artist, And he was, he was a great painter.

[805] He was a sculptor.

[806] He would do comic books, and he's more than happy to walk you through every panel of, like, a comic he did.

[807] And there were always just tragic figures, the people, and they were, or just weird, like, writhing, spirit apparition, kind of, everything was just kind of strange and dark and weird.

[808] But then still, but very well done, you know, beautiful, very, you know, done very well.

[809] So that was when he was expressing himself musically, is that, you know, in utero's, that's all over in utero.

[810] You know, I can go anywhere in the world, anywhere, and see someone walking down the street in a Nirvana t -shirt.

[811] And I was, I mean, we're here in Chicago.

[812] We were walking last night to go get a bite to eat, saw someone in a Nirvana t -shirt.

[813] But, I mean, I could be in, you know, I could be on Guam and just see someone randomly walk by in a Nirvana t -shirt.

[814] And what always strikes me about these moments is that there's this massive projection that happens, which is Nirvana, legend, Kurt.

[815] It all gets prismed out.

[816] It gets so huge.

[817] And then I talk to you guys and he's your friend that you knew intimately.

[818] You guys were very close.

[819] And it's all become so much bigger.

[820] There are people out there that have opinions, strong opinions about who he was and what he meant and what you guys meant.

[821] and it must just seem surreal to you at times.

[822] Like, no, no, no, that was our friend.

[823] There was three of us.

[824] We were in this, we were in a van together.

[825] And it has now become this IMAX projection on the world.

[826] When my kids sometime will ask me, let's say, my daughter Harper and I were driving in the car not long ago, six months ago.

[827] And a Nirvana song came on.

[828] And we don't listen to Nirvana at home.

[829] This Nirvana song comes on.

[830] She's singing along to the.

[831] words.

[832] And I'm thinking, wow, that's weird.

[833] I've never heard her listen to a Nirvana song.

[834] How does she know a Nirvana song?

[835] She says, Dad, how old were you when you made this song?

[836] So, God, I think I was like 22, maybe.

[837] She goes, oh, how old was Kurt?

[838] I said, no, I guess he was maybe like 23, 24.

[839] She goes, what was he like?

[840] And I'd say, well, he was really nice.

[841] It's kind of shy, sometimes quiet, but he was cool.

[842] But she says, well, he was shy?

[843] Was he shy around people that he knew or people that he didn't know.

[844] And I said, well, kind of a little bit of both.

[845] And she said, God, that's so strange that someone who feels shy like that, that could write these songs and sing them for everyone to hear and then stand on stage in front of 100 ,000 people and play them.

[846] I thought that was so cool, because I think she wasn't looking so much at that other thing.

[847] she was looking at the person right and you know after nirvon was over that that curtain got sort of like sort of pulled away so it changed the way i thought about every other mythological rock star that i'd ever followed in my entire life and it really made me realize oh shit they were an actual human being we talked like they're playing cards or something like that but they're just people yeah can somebody help me with this pronunciation of this term apotheosis yeah sounds right that's it okay yeah is that that soap that you get at apotheosis that you need soap to treat it the special medicated so sounds like the name of a boutique that i cannot afford a single funny thing i didn't take a sky rizzi for that i don't know if that's and that's what it is so like basically the apotheosis what's this whole idea that something uh well okay so i had just this is just my own personal connection to a very public thing for you guys but there was some back when they were a big deal MTV Awards kind of situation and because I was brand new on the scene you know here's this new guy we're sending him to the he's going to be sitting in like the second or third row and you guys got up and spoke because it was very shortly after Kurt had died and the two of you went up on stage and spoke and I remember just having this powerful feeling of they lost their friend you could just feel how raw and personal at all was in that moment people that are in bands are the fraternity that you feel like the companionship of the people that you're intimate creative with day -to -day basis is a really incredibly strong bond and it's also you you know those people intimately we have the this box that we did and john silva did a really good job with that he's a music fan first and foremost and if you i'm not going to be selling my nirvana coffin or whatever but it has like uh the live performances, there's...

[848] Because this thing is packed.

[849] I'm curious.

[850] It's packed with like posters and backstage passes and John Silva and Silva and Silver Artist Management.

[851] They put it all together.

[852] And tons of other tracks that didn't make it onto in utero?

[853] There's a bunch of live stuff on here.

[854] See, I'm wondering if it has the demos that we did in Brazil, but...

[855] There's like live in Rome, live in Los Angeles, live in Seattle, and they're board tapes.

[856] And then we use technology to kind of clean to clean him up, you can make a multi -track now from a stereo, digital audio tape?

[857] Do you guys have favorite live performances that just come to mind?

[858] You know, at this point, Pat Smear had joined the band.

[859] Yes, Pat.

[860] Right, he did the, like, from the release of the album, he was touring with the guys.

[861] Yeah, this was, it was big because we had made the album, and Kurt had talked about, you know, at one point there was a second guitarist in Nirvana before I joined the band.

[862] And he wanted to get another guitarist at this point, he goes down to Los Angeles, he comes back, He says, I found our second guitar player.

[863] And he said, really, who's that?

[864] He said, Pat Smear from the germs.

[865] And if anybody knows the germs, they were very early on the punk rock band in Los Angeles, perhaps the most dangerous.

[866] And so I just thought, like, oh, my God, I can't believe that fucking guy's still alive because he was in the germs.

[867] And also, and a sad sign out is Darby Crash.

[868] Yeah.

[869] He committed suicide.

[870] Yeah, the singer of the germs.

[871] Anyway, so Pat comes up, and I'm just expecting this big disgusting.

[872] fat junkie, and he's the most wonderful, energetic, brilliant, beautiful.

[873] Well put together.

[874] He really breathed this whole new life into the band.

[875] The great thing, too, is there's a great anecdote that defines his contribution to the band in addition to being a great musician, and there was a story of you guys playing a show, and then there's not a nice review about the show, and it says, you know, the show was off, and someone's reading their review, and people are getting pissed.

[876] the opening night of the tour, the NUTERO tour, was at the Arizona State Fair, and it's the first night.

[877] And so, you know, it takes a couple shows to get rolling.

[878] And so was Edna Gunderson from USA Today?

[879] She's the least.

[880] A name that will live in for me. And she gave us a mediocre review.

[881] Like, why didn't she go, like, three or four shows into the tour, then she would have caught us.

[882] And that's what you get on this box set.

[883] You get the band, at full, but what happens is this review comes out and the story I heard is that the review comes out and everyone on the bus is like, God damn it, why did USA Today write this about us?

[884] And Pat said, oh, come on, we sucked.

[885] And everybody laughed, meaning just sort of taking the piss out of the whole thing.

[886] Come on, we were off.

[887] Well, you know.

[888] Well, also, I love that who do you call to take over the technical side of things in a guitar band?

[889] The fucking guy from the germs.

[890] Yeah, yeah.

[891] I can't think of a band that is a closer parallel to the kind of, like, uneasy feeling that you got from the weirdest moments of Nirvana than the germs.

[892] Like, their, their whole thing had that same sort of, like, familiar, but slightly sleazy and slightly uncomfortable quality.

[893] And it was a sonic thing, like the sound of Pat Smir's guitar, it sounded a little sour and a little, you know, a little creepy.

[894] And it seemed like it was a natural.

[895] As soon as I heard about it, I thought, oh, yeah, that's a natural.

[896] It was great.

[897] So when we came out to do these shows, I mean, there were bigger shows.

[898] And, I mean, really, it was our first arena tour, you know, when...

[899] Did you like playing the arenas?

[900] It felt strange at first, I think.

[901] I mean, towards the end of 1991, we did an arena tour opening up for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

[902] And, you know, I was always afraid that what we did, that energy wouldn't translate.

[903] in a bigger room, you know, because we were used to playing places this big and put us in the corner there and the place explodes.

[904] And it's amazing to try to, you know, move that to a bigger room, be hard.

[905] So, um, it felt weird.

[906] All of a sudden there was like caterers.

[907] Yeah, there was caterer on tour.

[908] And then the catering, Kurt fired him because they made the wrong mac and cheese.

[909] Well, no, because they did it because they had really good food.

[910] I thought it was really good.

[911] And Kurt, like corn dogs and macaroni and cheese.

[912] our baloney sandwiches so they were making actual macaroni with actual cheese and he had never had that before and that was the last fucking straw you know so it was just like you know it was one of those things like uh and well we did a show we had a show it was a 90 minute show we had a stage set up we would do our acoustic breakdown part yeah it's like we did the same show every night play it was like 20 dollars tickets tickets for like 20 bucks because you could sell CDs and make money and then we had like working family prices.

[913] But then also the best part was we're like, oh, okay, we're in arena band now.

[914] Cool, the opening band is going to be the boredoms from Japan.

[915] Or the opening band is going to be fucking the butthole surfers.

[916] So you've got all these kids that just bought their Nirvana T -shirt and they come to the rock show to see their favorite band and they've got like Bobcat Goldthwaite is the MC and then fucking the butthole surfers and the kids are like, what the fuck is going on right now?

[917] How did Bobcat Goldthwaite become the opener for Nirvana?

[918] You guys were real fans.

[919] We were fans.

[920] Kurt had Meet Bob that record.

[921] And then we just so happened to be, it was like in 1990.

[922] And we were in like Michigan or Wisconsin at a college radio station.

[923] And Bobcat was there.

[924] And he's like, hey, we know.

[925] He didn't know who we were.

[926] We nobody knew who we were.

[927] Like, hey, we're, you're on police academy.

[928] Like, we're like.

[929] And he, he tells us where he goes, yeah, I met them.

[930] And I said, good luck with your little band.

[931] As he said, goodbye.

[932] and then we just I don't know he was sort of on our side like as a comedian sure he was like kind of a cynical subversive fucking weirdo yeah yeah and so we liked him he got a bad review Rex Reed gave him a bad review and he goes he was my favorite favorite judge on the gong show well how do we sum this up it's been 30 years and it must feel good that this work stands the test of time.

[933] Well, it does feel good.

[934] We'll come back in the 50 -year anniversary and see what kind of we have to offer.

[935] Yeah.

[936] And it's great that people are interested and that we have the opportunity to do this and to like add, there's vinyl and there's live shows so you can, you won't be tracked or have a cookie put on your consciousness and you can just put the tone arm down on a piece of vinyl and listen to Nirvana Live in Rome or Los Angeles or Seattle and you can be, it can capture imagination.

[937] You're invited to come inside that world and experience that show.

[938] So, you know, I'm just happy to have the opportunity.

[939] And you said that there's no, you don't play Nirvana at home?

[940] No, I mean, is this going to be an exception, do you think?

[941] No, I mean, the cool thing about being a musician for a long time making a bunch of records is that you eventually start measuring your life, not in like increments of time or whatever it's like albums that you've made so if you ask me about a particular record a scream record or a foo fighters record or whatever i'll immediately know what year it was made and i remember almost everything about where i was and who i was at that time so when i think like 30 years ago what the fucking what's that even mean 30 years but if you say 1993 everything comes back and then when you listen to it to me it's almost like these um they're sort of like sonic snapshots like in a photo album or something so when i when i hear the music it brings back a lot of personal vivid memories of just stupid shit like i remember that jacket that i had or that stupid hat i bought in north carolina or the sock full of mashed potatoes that fucking steve put in my suitcase and that leather coat i felt bad when i got ripped off i know i was so sad But things like that.

[942] But then also, you know, again, you know, I refer to my children a lot because they're discovering music in the same way that, well, differently than we did then, but sort of emotionally in the same way that we did at their age.

[943] And, you know, to see their reaction to this music now is really fucking cool.

[944] Actually, we did this one good, we did this charity benefit thing once, that Art of Elysium thing that we did a long time ago.

[945] And we got asked to play this thing in Los Angeles, but we couldn't make it.

[946] And then the person who was putting on the show said, well, why don't you just play acoustic?

[947] I'm like, fuck, man, I don't want to do that.

[948] So I thought, you know what, maybe I'll call Chris and Pat and see if maybe Joan Jett will come up and we could do some neurama songs or maybe someone else is there, whatever.

[949] So we were thinking about people to sing, and then I don't know who brought it up, but maybe it was you that said, does Violet want to sing a song?

[950] Or maybe it was Pat, my daughter Violet.

[951] And I saw this.

[952] Did you see it?

[953] I think there was, yeah, there was footage of it.

[954] Yeah, and so I was like, well, I'll ask her.

[955] And I said, hey, Vi, she's an incredible singer.

[956] I'm like, and she really likes Nirvana.

[957] At the time, I think she was maybe 14, probably 14, 14 -year -old girl.

[958] I said, do you want to sing a Nirvana song?

[959] She's like, yeah, absolutely.

[960] And I said, which one?

[961] Of all of them, not just this record, of all of them.

[962] And she picks a heart -shaped box.

[963] and my first reaction was what have I done to my kid to fuck them up so bad that this is the song they want to sing but seriously I was very proud and what I realized is kids these days there's like this window in between the ages of like maybe 10 and 13 or 11 and 14 or something like that where almost every kid goes through a Nirvana phase and it's for a reason.

[964] And I think it has less to do with the sound.

[965] I think it has more to do with what it means because I think it means the same thing today to those kids as it did when we released it.

[966] So that, to me, is the coolest thing.

[967] And selling a lot of T -shirts.

[968] Yeah.

[969] Gentlemen, it has been an honor.

[970] Seriously, you're great artists and you also have a lot of integrity and you've stood the tested time.

[971] And so getting to hang out with people like you is a big deal.

[972] to me and I really appreciate it so uh Steve Chris Dave thank you very much for doing this and uh I was really looking forward to this one and you did not disappoint thanks man thank you very much I'm happy to be your friend well I got you there yeah lessen the anxiety considerably I feel jazzy still effervescent you look effervescent Conan O 'Brien needs a friend with Conan O 'Brien sonam of Sessian and Matt Goreley Produced by me, Matt Gourley.

[973] Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Nick Liao, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf.

[974] Theme song by The White Stripes.

[975] Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.

[976] Take it away, Jimmy.

[977] Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples.

[978] Engineering by Eduardo Perez.

[979] Additional production support by Mars Melnik.

[980] Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Battista, and Britt Kahn.

[981] You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcast.

[982] podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode.

[983] Got a question for Conan?

[984] Call the Team Coco hotline at 669 -587 -2847 and leave a message.

[985] It too could be featured on a future episode.

[986] And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien needs a friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.