The Rocket. October 1991

PAGE: 3 | back

"People try to blow up the band by bragging about some unimaginable amount of money," says new drumer Dave Grohl, formerly of the DC band Scream. "Somebody heard so much money, and the next person can't really remember, so they spit out something else, someone hears that - it's like that game telephone."

(Spin magazine printed they received $750,000 in one of the largest deals made concerning an indie band. Though neither label will reveal the terms of the deal, this amount is greatly exaggerated.)

I went home to DC and people are asking what I did with the million dollars. I told them we spent three-quarters of it on our video, filmed at the Epcot Center in 3D with the entire cast of Disney."

"The new Mouseketeers," adds Kobain.

Grohl fits in perfectly as third weird guy. He is the band's fifth drummer in the true rock 'n' roll drum searching fashion. He wails on them like he has a personal vendetta and wants those drums dead. So his playing style and personality are right in sync. Plus, he balances out the height difference.

"We told him that if he didn't join the band we would kill him. Now he's still living in fear, a perpetual state of being kidnapped all the time. And we make him buy us drinks," Novoselic says.

"it was almost Danny [Peters] from Mudhoney, and that would've worked out really great, but Dave came along and he can sing back-up vocals. And he had long hair," Kobain says.

"See, Dave and Danny played Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots, and Danny by chance had the screwed up robot - the one if you just kind of shake it its block would be knocked off. I don't think it was a fair fight, but that's how it goes," Novoselic explains.

The three of them recently returned from three weeks in Europe touring with Sonic Youth, and you might say Kim Gordon has nothing on them in the wildness department.

"Kim got the card saying, 'Welcome to MCA Nirvana,'and wrote 'Fuck you all' on It and taped it to our mirror," Novoselic says.

"When we walked in after playing I noticed the card and thought, 'gee, that's kind of harsh,' that some MCA woman would put 'fuck you' on that," Grohl continues. "But I thought, oh, maybe she's trying to be rock 'n' roll. She came back after we had already trashed the dressing room and left, and she wrote a note saying 'Fuck you guys too' and we overheard her later totally cursing us and calling us evil pagans and bastards and 'I hate them I hate them."'

Actually, that's pretty mild. The rest of the trip Included, In no particular decadent order: flying chairs, backstage Belgian strippers, whipped cream and sparklers, beaning a drunkenly unaware Shane MacGowan with edibles, rearranging Ramones name tags, oil-douching cars and Courtney Love...

"Then we lit her on fire and she ran out on stage with Iggy Pop and did 'I Wanna Be Your Dog,"' Grohl finishes.

This country better gear up, because the tour is on, with lots of interviews, In-store appearances and the like. "It's kind of cheesy, but we'll just get drunk and bust the place up," Novoselic says.

But what the hell, it's only music, right? Where Kurdt Kobain gets off being a musical genius or why his name is now spelled "Kurt Cobain" on Nevermind - well, who knows. Maybe It's divine inspiration, maybe it's all a mistake. The most important thing Is the song.

"We just want people to have a chance to buy our record, you know?" Novoselic says. "There's a lot of hype behind It, but I have confidence In our record. I liked the way it turned out. If there was a lot of hype and I wasn't really confident with the record I'd be apprehensive about It, but if people are going to go out and buy it they should like it. Hopefully. If not, oh well. There's always Tacoma."

(Nirvana and Mudhoney are at the Paramount in Seattle 10/31. Wanna bet they're in Portland, too. I thought so.)


< END >
Main Page | Interviews