Kurt Donald Cobain was born on the 20th of February 1967 in Aberdeen, which is
located about 120 kilometres Southwest of Seattle in the state Washington. He
grew up in a mid class society and was hyperactive as a child, as a result he
was prescribed a morphine based drug to help him concentrate in school. The drug
often kept him awake until 4am in the morning so he was given sedatives to be
able to get some sleep.
Kurt had a happy childhood, until he was seven years old when his parents got
divorced. It was an ordinary divorce, but Kurt got very upset about it. He
became shy and difficult to cope with. The years after the divorce Kurt moved
back and forth from his parents. In the end his parents did not want anything to
do with him so he had to move in at some relatives. This period of his life is
also reflected in his lyrics, e.g. in Sliver.
Kurt did not like school, he felt lonely and lost. He liked to paint and sing,
but the other boy’s were more into football and stuff like that. Most of the
girls liked Kurt and he spent much time with them. The boy’s wanted to hang out
with Kurt to come closer to the girls, but Kurt hated the guts of those macho
boys. Kurt felt more like a girl rather than a boy and has later told: "I'm a
heterosexual . . . big deal. But if I was a homosexual, it wouldn't matter
either."
Until Kurt was nine years old he only listened to The Beatles and The Monkees,
but in -79 his father joined a record-club and he started to listen to music
like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Kiss. He also started to listen to British
alternative rock like Sex Pistols and The Clash.
2nd of February 1981, on Kurt’s 14th birthday, he bought his first guitar. And
in the years to follow he tried to create his own music style and started to
hang out in the Seattle nderground, where he was roadie for a band called
Melvins.
In May 1985 a few weeks before graduation Kurt dropped out of school and started
to work. He had a few jobs but it was never a success, and he never held on to a
job for that long.
Nirvana was started in 1986 of Kurt Cobain and Krist Novaselic. Kurt played the
guitar and sang while Krist played bass-guitar. After a few attempts with some
different drummers they were’t satisfied until they where introduced to Dave
Grohl by the vocalist of the Melvins, which became the new drummer of Nirvana.
They made their first demo in 1988 and it didn’t take long until their first
single was released. Already the next year they released their first
album,Bleach. This album cost a total of 600$ to record, which isn’t so much.
They then started to tour in the U.S. and later that same year they had their
first European concert in Newcastle, England.
The following year they released a new single without very much success. By now
Nirvana thought they had got an unfair welcome in the industry, and they decided
to change record company from Sub-Pop records to Geffen records. In 1991 they
signed a contract with Geffen records and started to produce their next album
which was to be named Nevermind.
September 24th the same year Nevermind was released and debuts as number 144 on
the hit lists, but after an interview on MTV’s Headbangers Ball and an
appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live the album climbs right to the top spot
hit their hit song "Smells like teen spirit".
Kurt had never expected to be so popular and did not even like the idea of being
a main stream rocker. He hated the commercial part of Nirvana and had several
times encouraged the audience to stop buying their records and to stop coming to
their concerts. Kurt thought most of the fans were false fans and only liked
their hit single "Smells like teen spirit". In this period Nirvana mostly played
arena rock shows and this wasn’t the way they liked to play. They
preferred to play in small clubs where the energy gets more intense and
intimate. But because of their bad habit to crush guitars, amps and so, they had
to do the arena rock shows because of the money. Kurt also started to use heavy
drugs more often in this period, such as heroin and morphine. At this point Kurt
described himself as suicidal.
24th of January 1992, Kurt got married to the former stripper Courtney Love in
Wakiki, Hawaii. She is now known for her band Hole and is also doing a god job
in the film industry, The People vs Larry Flint, whatever. Six months after they
got married they had a child, Frances Bean. When Courtney was pregnant there
were big (?????)… in the press which claimed she was using heroin while she was
pregnant with Frances. Courtney, of course, denied all of this,
but she did not deny that she was using heroin. She claims she stopped using
heroin that instant she got to know she was pregnant.
The other members of Nirvana hoped Kurt would calm down now that he had a wife
and kid This was also the fact, for a while. In this period they recorded a new
album, Incesticide. This album was supposed to "get rid off" all the false fans
which they got under the Nevermind success, with the more peculiar sound which
reminded some of the Bleach days and some of the tracks were even supposed to be
on Bleach. They succeeded in this. In the beginning of 1993 they recorded what
was to be their last studio recorded album, In Utero. This album was recorded in
two weeks, but wasn’t released for another six months, due the work-title "I
Hate Myself And I Want To Die. This title reflects the fact of Kurt being
suicidal.
When Kurt was on a seminar in July 1993 he overdosed on heroin. Courtney
injected him with an illegal drug to save him. Later that same day he went on
stage and played a concert, no one noticed anything. From now Kurt’s drug abuse
was starting to get out of hand. Courtney threatened several times to divorce
him if he did not get treatment for his abuse. He agreed to get treatment for
his abuse, but didn’t last long at the rehab centre. He later escaped from this
centre although it was voluntary. He said this was a place for retards or
something. It wasn’t a proper place for him to be.
In the beginning of 1993 Nirvana played anMTV unplugged concert, and they played
what was to be their final concert in Munich 29th Mars 1994. One week later Kurt
was hospitalised in a coma. The next day he awoke and asked for a milkshake.
After a few days he left the hospital by his own will. Kurt disappears after
this and is reported missing by his wife. She also hires a private investigator
to trace him, she fears that he might show up dead.
8th of April 1994 Kurt was found dead in his own house, of what appeared to be a
shotgun blast to his head three days earlier. Two days after there were a
memorial where Courtney read a part from his suicide note. Kurt had said earlier
that same year that he never expected to reach the age of 30. Unfortunately he
was right. He became a rock legend like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim
Morrison. They all became 27.
Later that year their unplugged in NY was released, and this album got great
response although it was weird to hear Nirvana without their distorted guitars.