Nuova intervista a Kristo, Bella lunga!!!

http://www.connerprairie.org/HistoryOnline/grange.html

"...
Ritualism was one of the hallmarks of the organization. Kelley, himself a Mason, felt that ritual bound members together, so he proposed a ceremony of initiation and advancement for members. Kelley believed that many of the hardships endured by farmers came from their own ignorance, and through lectures and other educational tools, the country’s farmers could raise themselves. Consequently, his hierarchy of degrees of membership entailed lectures and courses of study that he believed could be comparable to agricultural colleges. Rituals, the founders believed, became rites of passage through which all members passed to emerge on the other side as enlightened and cooperative farmers, ready for modern society. Grange ritual was designed to encourage members’ pride in agricultural labor and in private and public virtue through a kind of civil religion. This ritual borrowed heavily from Greek and Roman mythology and Christianity and taught by the use of symbols and emblems, all agricultural in nature.
...
Additionally, there were three women officers whose names were derived from Roman mythology, namely Ceres, the goddess representing grain and the growers of grain, Pomona, the goddess presiding over fruits, and Flora, the goddess of flowers and Spring. A Bible, laid open, was located on pedestal in a prominent place in the room. Each meeting started with an invocation and ended with a benediction. Quotes from the Bible were incorporated into meetings to underscore the teachings of each degree.

There were seven degrees within the Grange. The first four degrees were open to subordinate grange members. The fifth degree was originally intended to be accessible only to past subordinate grange masters who became members of the state grange, but in later years it became the province of the Pomona Grange to confer this degree. The sixth degree was intended only for state grange masters and the seventh degree, the climax degree, was conferred at the Annual Meeting of the National Grange by the High Priest of Demeter, who is also the custodian the signs and responsible for the annual password. All Grangers who have received the seventh degree and remain members of a subordinate grange become members of the Assembly of Demeter. The symbolism associated with each degree was related to agricultural tools."

PS: Non è un offtopic questo, riguarda l'articolo postato (vedere inizio della seconda parte dell'intervista)

Ora non l'ho presente l'intervista, scrivo da un altro pc.
Leggi la seconda parte dell'intervista, quella fatta il secondo giorno, proprio all'inizio si parla di un rituale Grange a cui Krist ha partecipato.

Nel link che ho postato si parla di Kelley, massone, e del movimento Grange di cui è il fondatore, non dell'insegnante di chitarra Mason.

Intervista bellissima, consiglio di leggerla....riporto qui i passi secondo me più interessanti...

Novoselic: You know it does. … And the thing with Kurt Cobain is like, I could play a lot
of cover songs on the guitar. I can bust out a guitar and play all kinds of cover songs, but
Kurt never really could because he wasn’t really interested in it. … He’d know how to play
like fi ve or 10 songs, and like half of them are Credence songs, you know. He was such
an original arti st. I’ll show you this pipe Kurt made me; you’ll noti ce that it’s never been
used, but it’s just so weird. You wouldn’t even think it was a pipe by looking at it. But he
was so original and he was just really interested in just doing his own art, and it was all
kind of weird and strange. … He’s left handed, and so a lot of ti mes he just couldn’t go to
somebody’s house and pick up a guitar. He couldn’t play it. He’d have to have a left -handed
guitar.

Novoselic: Left brain, right brain. I don’t know what side (it was coming from). It’s kind of
a diff erent deal, and he was just super original. He was just compelled to do it. He had this
drive. He hated chores. His place was a friggin’ mess. It was a pig sty the way he lived.

Hughes: With all sorts of bizarre stuff too.
Novoselic: Bizarre like, oh my god it was—

Hughes: Well, the fact is you said something really interesti ng there. You were suggesti ng
that Kurt couldn’t just pick up the guitar. He needed a left -handed guitar for starters, and
he couldn’t just pick it up and play “House of the Rising Sun” or “Wooly Bully,” but he
would go off and do something amazingly creati ve because he was really, really outside the
box.

Novoselic: Something compelled him too; he just wasn’t (really interested in ordinary
things).

Hughes: Did you see that immediately, when you met the guy?
Novoselic: No, I actually saw this prett y sweet dude with a nice temperament, and he was
just prett y mellow and easy to be around. I was listening to a lot of punk rock (and thinking
about getti ng back to basics in rock). In the American hardcore music, a lot of it was
doctrine too. … It was just like, you would have the punk rock evangelists and … there was
an ideology. So basically now the whole pantheon of rock and roll – classic rock – that was
a false god, and those who espouse it are false prophets. The new true god is punk rock.
That is the new ideology. So you would have people who would basically just give away or
throw their records in the garbage.

Hughes: Sort of like busti ng all those disco records.

Novoselic: A lot of these records I have (on the shelf) are from Dill’s second hand store (in
Aberdeen). They’re sti ll here, I sti ll have them. I go, “Why would I want to throw away this
Aerosmith record? I really like this record. I like this Black Sabbath record, it’s really good
music.” OK, so that was the thing with Kurt. He wasn’t a doctrinaire punk rock disciple. He
had an open mind about things. But again, he wasn’t about conventi on anyway, and he
didn’t care. I don’t even know if he knew he could play, here’s a D, here’s an F, here’s a G,
like on an acousti c guitar, D major chord. … Not that he couldn’t do that. He just wasn’t
interested in it. He just did his own chords; he just made his own thing.

Hughes: He was just really innovati ve in some of those sounds he was making …?

Novoselic: Yeah, he would just always do two strings kind of diff erent. A lot of ti mes he’d
just kind of tune the strings diff erent and have his own tweaky tunings. But that was part
of his personality…

Hughes: Well, it was a good thing you were playing bass.

Novoselic: He had a guitar and I was happy to play bass. He wrote all these great riff s.
And again it goes to my understanding of music, like “Ahaha! I hear what’s going on here.
This is what I’m going to do.”

Hughes: It’s like (improvisati onal) jazz, isn’t it?

Novoselic: It’s kind of like jazz, or I would just fall back on my knowledge of music. Or this
song is like we’re going off into a zone; we’re not adhering to anything here. And so that
was my approach to it.

Hughes: What was that fi rst record you heard when you were a teenager, in punk rock that
just absolutely blew your mind and made you say, “Holy crap”?

Novoselic: Oh it was “Generic Flipper”; it was “Generic Flipper.” And that record was like,
I put it on the fi rst ti me, Buzz ( Osborne) lent it to me and I’m like, “God, this is really weird.
It sounds like live, was this recorded live?” Because the sound was so raw. It wasn’t really
polished, especially like the heavy metal music of the ti me. And I put it on again, and I was
like “uh, gosh, I don’t know.” And the third ti me I heard it, it just like blew me away. What
it did was, like, if you listen to records like Black Sabbath’s “Vol. 4”, or “Master of Reality”,
or Led Zeppelin’s “IV” record, or II record. Those are all monumental statements in the
whole lineage of rock. And then you have “Generic Flipper” just right up with them. But at
the same ti me Generic Flipper is nowhere on the radar screen, and that is a failure of mass
media, or society doesn’t recognize how important this is. Well, I recognized it, and Kurt
Cobain sure did. He loved that record. And then Kurt was such an arti st, and you’ve got to
come from somewhere. Our predecessors have handed us all kinds of things – knowledge.
They gave us the wheel.

Hughes: Records are round.

Novoselic: Records are round, and somebody’s pulled guts out … and they invented
strings, and instruments, and we all benefi t from that. Well, Kurt, he took “Generic
Flipper” and he mixed it with his knack for a mean pop hook, and for melodies, and then
you have a record like “In Utero.” So “Generic Flipper” is such a monument. (Today) I’m
like listening to “In Utero” and listening to “Generic Flipper.” I made a record with Flipper
and hopefully it will be out this January. But while I was doing it, and when it was done,
and I was listening to it, it’s like, I haven’t done work like this since “In Utero,” which is the
last Nirvana record I did in the studio.

Hughes: That must have been a real kick.

Novoselic: I was inspired. And I busted out all the riff s, for all those riff s, because … it just
goes back to me working with Kurt and Dave. So it took me back there, so.

Hughes: I like what you said about the music being obtainable. One of the most touching
things you said aft er Kurt died was when you
told the grieving kids, “Just bang something
out and mean it. Just catch the groove and
let it fl ow out of your heart.” Kurt’s genius
is what made Nirvana’s stuff really break out
… But along the way it doesn’t mean you
can’t have a hell of a lot of fun with your own
garage band and just dig the music.

Novoselic: If it was a chore it would never
have gott en done. It was all a labor of love,
and it was being compelled to do it, so there
was some kind of drive there. I don’t know
what it was … It’s that kind of compulsion.
Discipline, too. I mean we were hard workers.

We would just lock ourselves away. We would practi ce every day, and we’d be really
serious about rehearsing. We would play over and over and over, and we would develop
things.

Hughes: So it was really collaborati ve?

Novoselic: It was, yeah. It was in the sense where you had Kurt, he was the genesis of
it. He was a true arti st. He could have done sculptures; he could have been a painter; he
could have been a comic book cartoonist, and he chose to make music a priority. He loved
music. And so he’d come in, and he’d have these litt le songs, he was a song writer, he
wrote songs. He would listen to other bands and say like, “Where’s the song? Where’s the
song.”

Hughes: Where’s the hook?

Novoselic: “Where’s the song?” So he knew what the song was. And so my part was
really easy because I got to work with Kurt, I got to work with Dave, and we put these
songs together. One thing that Kurt would do is when he’d arrange a tune he’d tend to
drive the riff into the ground. And so I would come in and say, “Well, we need to do that
riff half as long. Or here’s the structure, verse-chorus-verse, this and that.” Which was all
basically Beatles, which was Tin Pan Alley—

Hughes: Sure, Carole King. You’re back there at the Brill Building.

Novoselic: Yeah, it’s the same thing. So it’s just basically like listening to so much music for
so long, I wasn’t inventi ng anything. I was just kind of putti ng it into this traditi onal format,
or suggesti ng that we do it.

Hughes: Dale Crover seemed like an extraordinarily good drummer to me.

Novoselic: Dale Crover is one of those (outstanding) drummers. Ask Dave Grohl about
Dale Crover. He’ll say it bett er than I am because Dave Grohl is one of the great rock and
roll drummers. He’s up there with John Bonham or Keith Moon. He’s original. He’s as solid
as a rock. I know drummers because the bass notes are always off the kick-drum. You’re
always going off the kick-drum. I’ve got a drum set right over there. (Points to a corner of
the music room.) As for Dale, his eff ect on Nirvana was undeniable. I mean listen to those
songs on “Bleach.” He’s a powerhouse. He’s solid and straight ahead when he needs to be,
and at the same ti me he could be incredibly complex and like inventi ve, or innovati ve. So
he’s a real musician, and he’s had classical training …

Hughes: Where is Matt Lukin?

Novoselic: He’s up in West Seatt le.

Hughes: You mean candid stuff of the guys playing music and hanging out?

Novoselic: Yeah, yeah. … And so there would be the band and there would be other
teenagers, and there was this one kid who started hanging out there. Kurt Cobain. He
could play guitar, and he was interested in music. Like me, he was not interested in like
sports. He was maladjusted or wasn’t interested in the mainstream culture … searching for
something.
And so I started hanging out with Kurt. He was prett y compelling … always drawing, always
doing this expressive work. And he had a guitar and an amp. Kurt was cleaning motels over
in Ocean Shores, and it was, “Hey, let’s just start a band ourselves.”

Hughes: That was in 1986. You two really hit it off , right from the get-go?

Novoselic: Yeah, we hit it off . We’d make litt le fi lms or we’d make music. And then we got
serious and we needed to fi nd a drummer, and we found Dale Burckhard – no, not Dale,
Aaron Burckhard.
END OF INTERVIEW I
Krist Novoselic
October 14, 2008

Hughes: In Kurt Cobain’s journal there’s that classic quote about, “Aberdeen’s not being
parti al to any kind of weirdo new wavers and ‘faggots’ ” – this real angry riff . Did Aberdeen
get a bum rap, or was that just Kurt being mischievous?

Novoselic: Kurt had bad experiences in Aberdeen. I didn’t really have those experiences. I
never got beat up, like Kurt got beat up.

Hughes: No doubt about it – he got assaulted?

Novoselic: Yeah, he got assaulted. He got in trouble for some vandalism or something,
and some police dog bit him. So it’s those kinds of things. And just Kurt’s temperament
too. He had some strong opinions and …he could bite. I think that Aberdeen, yeah, got a
bad rap. I hope that I didn’t contribute to it, or I hope we have made amends for it. I’ve
been all over the world. I’ve lived in diff erent places, and Aberdeen is not a lot diff erent
from any other place. There’s good things and there’s bad things. There’s humanity. I was
in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1998 and I was just kind of checking the town out and I go, “You
know this is what Aberdeen would have looked like in 1998 if the economy had sustained
itself.”

Hughes: Doug Barker who is the managing editor at The Daily World in Aberdeen lives
right around the corner from a Christi an church on Market Street. He said that when you
and Kurt were growing up there was a sign out front that said, “Come as you are.” He
advanced the theory that Kurt walked by there – you might have walked by there – and
took note of the sign. Do you think that had any infl uence on that great song – “Come as
You Are”?

Novoselic: I have no idea. I know there’s a Christi an Center, church, in Longview that has
“Come as you are” on its sign. … If you look at social structures – associati ons outside of
the state – I think the evangelical community are leaders on providing services for people.

Hughes: One thing that people who followed the band have always been curious about is
the fi rst ti me that you laid eyes on Kurt Cobain and what you thought of him?

Novoselic: I don’t remember.

Hughes: There’s one story that your brother Robert introduced you to him.

Novoselic: I think that’s when it was, Robert brought him over to my house.

Hughes: Robert’s two years younger than you are?

Novoselic: Three years.

Hughes: He would have been in the same class because Kurt is three years younger than
you are, right?

Novoselic: Kurt was born in February ’67, and I was May ’65. I might have saw Kurt at the
high school or just kind of on the periphery. And then I started to get to know him …

Hughes: You’d known Buzz Osborne and Matt Lukin and Dale Crover of the Melvins and
had been interested in that band. And then Kurt came along and had the same sort
of eureka moment, that, “Man, is this incredible stuff ?” That happened to me—I was
20 years older than you guys, I heard them in the parking lot at Pick-Rite Thrift way in
Montesano … It was just amazing.

Novoselic: Yeah it was cool. It was diff erent. It was completely unique. It was fresh. It was
vital. It was—

Hughes: Loud!

Novoselic: It was loud. It was compelling. It was mischievous … kind of a rebellion.

Hughes: There’s the story that Kurt had this cassett e of things he had done with this
wonderfully named band, Fecal Matt er. Is that a true story that you heard that?

Novoselic: I heard that song “Spank Thru” and I go, “This is a really good song.”

Hughes: Was that on the Fecal Matt er thing – Spank Thru?

Novoselic: I think so... Yeah, he gave me this cassett e. I thought it was really good. It’s a
well put together song. It’s got a hook. It’s kind of unique. It sounds diff erent. I could play
guitar and I could play bass, so (we got together).

Hughes: So what was that like? When did you guys fi rst start to get together to make
music?

Novoselic: ’87.

Hughes: 1987. And where typically did that happen, over at Dale Crover’s place?

Novoselic: No, no. Kurt was working. I had a job too, but he had this house over on, I think
it was 2nd Street. And we just started rehearsing there.

Hughes: Were you sti ll working in fast food, or are you working for Foster Paint by then?

Novoselic: I don’t know what I was doing. I worked for Root Painti ng, too. And I worked
at Sears for a while.

Hughes: At Sears Roebuck?

Novoselic: Yeah, on the South Side at the mall.

Hughes: What did you do there at that wonderful mall?

Novoselic: I worked in the warehouse.

Hughes: So nobody was making much money. Did you have an automobile? Could you get
around?

Novoselic: Yeah, I had my trusty Volkswagen.

Hughes: Is it true that you and Kurt decide that to make some money that you would have
a Credence Clearwater Revival cover band?

Novoselic: Yeah, we had cover songs that we were going to play at a tavern. But it was
just kind of something to do to screw around on the side. He played drums.

Hughes: Was he any good at drums?

Novoselic: Yeah.

Hughes: Who was the drummer at that ti me sort of hanging around, was it Aaron
Burckhard?

Novoselic: Aaron Burckhard.

Hughes: I wonder what he’s up to.


Novoselic: I don’t know, I think he was going to community college or something.

Hughes: Was it a band?

Novoselic: No, we played like once or twice and got bored with it.

Hughes: The noti on of you guys playing “Proud Mary” is prett y interesti ng, although John
Fogerty (of Creedence Clearwater Revival) is an interesti ng guy.

Novoselic: I don’t think we played “Proud Mary.” We might have had like four or fi ve
songs.

Hughes: Did you read the new book by your former manager, Danny Goldberg, “Bumping
Into Geniuses”?

Novoselic: No I need to read it.

Hughes: He quotes you as saying that ironically, for all atmosphere of punk rock, “You
know who wanted to reach more people the most of the three of us? Kurt, he wanted to
make it big.” I’m kind of fascinated by that. Did you guys talk about that when you fi rst got
together – that you wanted to make it big?

Novoselic: We didn’t talk about it a lot. Kurt would. He had his ideas on how he wanted
to promote things, like we need to buy billboards, or we need to do this and that. And I’m
like, sure it makes sense, but …

Hughes: Buy billboards?

Novoselic: Yeah, buy billboards.

Hughes: How ironic is that for a punk rocker guy? Did you guys ever think back then in
your wildest imaginati on of what it would be like to be huge?

Novoselic: I never did because just watching what was going on, on the home television
and then the radio. And living on the margins for so long, living in the underground scene
it’s like, “Oh this will never catch on.” But it did, and it was starti ng to change where
you had bands like Faith No More and Jane’s Addicti on. They were these rock bands but
they were more like alternati ve or edgy. Then they paved the way for Nirvana. And then
Nirvana, again, was at the right place at the right ti me. Made a really good record. It was
slick, and accessible, and full of a lot of pop hooks. That’s when rock music really wasn’t
happening, so “Nevermind” was released and there was “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which
was a phenomenal tune, and a lot of energy. So that compelled the people to buy the
record and they discovered the rest of the work on the record. People really liked it.

Hughes: I’ve heard a lot of songwriters and musicians say that they knew when they
fi nished something that they really had something in the can that was going to be great.
Did you have that feeling?

Novoselic: Yeah, because I remember when Butch Vig, our producer, put up the rough
mixes of that song and he goes, “You’ve got to hear this tune.” He’s just like cranking it up
on the mixer. And I’m like, “Wow, yeah, that rocks.”

Hughes: The change of tempos in there and that refrain just before it breaks into the vocal
is just amazing. But some musicians kind of get bored with keeping the audience sati sfi ed
and playing the same thing over and over again. Did you ever get to the point where you
thought, “God, I don’t want to play ‘Teen Spirit’ again”?

Novoselic: We kind of fl irted with that, but we always played it. You know there was so
much going on, and it was such a whirlwind that the shows were a component. In a lot of
ways just to play shows was good to just do the music, keep it about the music.

Hughes: Well the energy from that must have been incredible. Do you miss that, Krist?

Novoselic: I can. I mean I’ve played some shows with Flipper. I just like playing.

Hughes: So Nirvana went to Europe on that fi rst really big tour, and I gather the recepti on
you were getti ng then was a lot more fervor than what had happened when you were in
Cheney or Bellingham or wherever you’re playing.

Novoselic: When “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (was released as a single) we did this club tour.
And the song was (catching on), and more and more people were coming to the shows.
We’d get these label rep folks that said, “Hey, your song just got added to the rock stati on
here.” And I’m like, “Well that’s cool.” There was a buzz and so we were selling the places
out.

Hughes: How big were those venues – small clubs?

Novoselic: They were small clubs, yeah. And then we just got on a plane and went over to
Europe and that’s when the whole phenomenon happened. The song just exploded.

Hughes: Was there one parti cular night were you went out there and you thought, “Holy
crap, this is incredible. It’s beyond my wildest expectati ons”?
Novoselic: It seemed like there was all this momentum and so it made sense. I don’t know
if I ever had that realizati on. I was just kind of rolling with it. Like, OK, this is a lot of fun.
Let’s play this show and do it.

Hughes: Can you tell us about the collaborati ve process? I’m really interested in that. I
know you guys were really hard working. Like you emphasized earlier, “We practi ced.”

Novoselic: We practi ced. Typically what happened is Kurt would sock himself away and he’d
just write these songs. So he’d have like a riff and a melody. Maybe another part. And then
he would bust it out and we would just play it over and over again and try diff erent things. I’d
try diff erent bass riff s and suggest something new – that we should do this or do that. He’d
suggest something and Chad would
have some ideas … Dave would have
ideas. So we would just kind of talk
about it. And a lot of ti mes it would just
kind of fl ow too.

Hughes: So it’s a cross between a
jam session and really developing a
particular song?

Novoselic: Right. We’d have jam sessions and tunes would just come out of the jam
session.

Hughes: Just be sort of putzing around and all of a sudden somebody would hear a hook
and you’d come in on the bass?

Novoselic: Yeah, yeah, or, you know, do a change.

Hughes: So you guys were all prett y talented by-ear musicians, but would you tape this
stuff so then you could memorize it and learn it.

Novoselic: Someti mes there would be a boom box or something. But no, because there’s
really not a lot of tapes of that, so we never really taped it.

Hughes: And you said earlier that you would develop a repertoire of a lot of really good
songs. So here are three guys in a band, and we know that a drummer’s role is really
crucial, but how did you memorize these things from one day to another? A lot of these
songs weren’t played the same, they were works in progress, is that the way they worked?

Novoselic: Yeah, we’d just memorize them. I was lucky to have a good memory for music.
And we’d play a lot, like every day or every other day, and so you’d keep your chops up.
And the new riff s or ideas were fresh in our memory. We’d just kick them around. Like the
song would come together fast or take a while for it to come together. Some ideas would
come to fruiti on or they would just kind of fi zzle out. Or we’d have a song and play it for a
while and then just lose interest in it.

Hughes: In Goldberg’s book he says that the word “geniuses” is over used, but he said
Kurt Cobain in his view was a pure genius. And you said something yesterday about his
creati vity. Can you tell us about that?

Novoselic: Yes, he was a genius … as far as the way he just made completely original
expression. And he transiti oned through mediums. It seemed (to happen) very easily. Like
if you look at his painti ngs they’re very good. He can do like drawings and sketches.

Hughes: The painti ngs are typical of the music he was doing.

Novoselic: You can kind of see the same Kurt – just kind of weird, kind of a litt le bent.

Hughes: Like all that stuff he was collecti ng too.

Novoselic: He was collecti ng things, he was just an arti st. He was compelled to express
himself. It wasn’t any kind of a front or a pose or an identi ty, like, “Hey, I’m an arti st. This is
what I do.” He just did it, and he did it for his own sake, maybe just to entertain himself. I
don’t know.

Hughes: You know whole forests have fallen to writi ng about this issue about why Kurt
was the way he was. And you’ve talked really candidly about the fact that you were a
“maladjusted” kid or were working through stuff . So do you think that that his parents’
divorce was really the searing event that infl uenced his creati vity?

Novoselic: I don’t know. I really don’t.

Hughes: Did he talk about that a lot? Was it really palpable … you could see it coming out
in these lyrics?

Novoselic: I wouldn’t point out any single relati onship. I would just say that he had
experiences that, how do I put it? He got burned. He just got burned, and he got cynical.
And I don’t know – “once bitt en, twice shy.” I’m not blaming anybody or anything. It
happens to a lot of people. It’s happened to me.

Hughes: Sure, it happened to me too.

Novoselic: You get burned and for whatever reason – intenti onal, unintenti onally – that’s
just human relati onships. He was very insightf ul, though, and intuiti ve, and very, really
smart. It’s an amazing thing about humanity too, like, maybe Kurt was exasperated by
humanity itself. Exasperated, that weight of, “Oh, how do I fi t in this world?”

Hughes: So this energy that he got from playing on stage, that must have been a real—

Novoselic: He would always kind of like turn around. He’d say something and then he’d
contradict himself like moments later, and then he’d catch it a lot of ti mes and just look at
me and laugh. So, OK, here it is, he’s exasperated with humanity, like, “Oh god, this world
just drives me nuts. I don’t fi t in.” But he’d sit and watch television for hours! He had the
remote control on the VCR and he would just like watch the most ridiculous thing and he
would just compile them. And so I go and I look at these tapes and I’m like, “Why did you
record Lee Press-On Nails?” Or, just the most kitsch stuff … Maybe he was mocking it. So
why did he put all his ti me into—I don’t know maybe he felt bett er about the world. I don’t
know why he did it. … He’d watch television for hours. …. I watch television for fi ve minutes
and I just can’t.

Hughes: Someone said it’s “chewing gum for the eyes.”

Novoselic: I’m just like, “Why should we watch television when we could go drink beer or
wine?” Or, I don’t know, talk about something, whatever. So I had my own things that I
did. I don’t know, maybe we were both checking out in our way.

Hughes: So at this legendary fi rst gig outside of Raymond in March of ’87 was the band
really Nirvana then?

Novoselic: I don’t know what we were.

Hughes: People on the Internet who are into all this Nirvana minuti ae say the band was
called Skid Row.

Novoselic: You know, it was just an excuse to go to a party and get out…

Hughes: On YouTube there’s this vignett e of that night, like eight minutes. And there’s a
picture of Krist Novoselic with his shirt off . Is that authenti c stuff ?

Novoselic: I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.

Hughes: Really? You can do it on YouTube, there it is. It sounds like you in the
background. You’re saying “ Shelli,” at one ti me. It’s prett y interesti ng.

Novoselic: Hahahah.

Hughes: Charlie Cross, (author of Heavier than Heaven, a Cobain biography) tells this
story about at the end of the fi rst gig you’re standing on a VW van urinati ng on the cars of
guests.

Novoselic: No, that never happened.

Hughes: It never happened?

Novoselic: No, things just get so, you know, the myth is everything and nobody knows
what the reality was.

Hughes: What is the best thing you have ever read about the band and yourself? Is
Heavier Than Heaven a good book?

Novoselic: You know I don’t read Nirvana books. I just don’t want to. I went through it
already. Why should I go back? I don’t watch fi lms, documentaries. I ask people to read
them for me … I’ll ask, “What do you think?” And glean some things. But why would I want
to go back and read all that? I don’t know. I only have so much ti me.

Hughes: That’s so Dylanesque.

Novoselic: Is it? Well it’s … just practi cal. It’s like, “Why would I want to go back and read
that?”

Hughes: You’re thinking, “I was there”?
Novoselic: I was there, for bett er, for worse. I have great memories. I have some not-sogreat
memories. But that’s just life. And again, just being nostalgic … I don’t want to go
back when I could be doing things on the future, moving forward, trying to make things
happen.

Hughes: Do you ever think this classic thing we all ask ourselves “There but for fortune?”
What do you think you would be doing at the age of 43 if all this had just been a bust and
you never sold any records and never been in Nirvana?

Novoselic: I would probably be living in Western Washington somewhere. And I would
own a home and be working on a trade. Somewhere I’d have my trade, which probably
would have been painti ng factories, doing commercial painti ng or something. And I would
be like precinct committ ee offi cer or something, or acti ve in the Grange or whatever. … I’d
be at the Polish Club for a meeti ng or the Grange Hall. I would have a job. Because I’ve had
so much success with Nirvana, I don’t even need to go to work every day. But I wouldn’t
have this microscope. I think that that would have been the diff erence; I wouldn’t have
been part of this phenomenon.

Hughes: Someti mes when you think back does it seem like it’s just amazing – you blink,
and “Where did the years go? What the hell happened?”

Novoselic: Everybody does that, I’m sure. Where do the years go? But you’ve got to have
as much fun as possible, as long as you’re compelled to do things. And I’m not bitt er, and
I’m not as cynical as I used to be. I’m just more, I guess, realisti c.

Hughes: Talking to you now it’s hard to imagine, that even back then, you were cynical.
When you hear your voice in some Nirvana outt akes, interviews and stuff , you’ve never had
what sounds like a cynical voice.

Novoselic: Oh, I’ve been really cynical. … But I’m not cynical any more. I can be skepti cal,
but it’s (too) easy to be cynical. You know why I’m not cynical? Because being cynical is
cool now; it’s like the hip thing to do. I’m not going to go on this message board and write
something cynical and smartass under a pseudonym. I’m going to go there, put my name
down, and then write something that hopefully says something. Because it’s so easy to be
cynical and a smartass. I’ve been a cynical smartass for too long in my life. I don’t want to
do it any more. (Chuckles)

Hughes: About eight years ago, Buzz Osborne told Jeff Burlingame, who was then the arts
and entertainment editor of The Daily World, that “ Nirvana changed the shape of music all
over the world, and if it wasn’t for the Melvins they never would have existed. Remember,
no Melvins, no Nirvana.”

Novoselic: Ahahahahahaha! And he went like this, “Ah, ah, I can’t believe it, ah.” (Putti ng
hands over his face, mimicking Osborne)

Hughes: But it’s true?

Novoselic: Yes, it’s true, I mean absolutely. Absolutely. Buzz gets a lot of credit. I give Buzz
tons of credit, and he should get it.

Hughes: A perfect segue to Dave Grohl, Nirvana’s drummer when you made it big. Tell us
about Dave Grohl and what he brought to that band.

Novoselic: Dave Grohl is a phenomenal drummer, and a phenomenal musician. We just
had a good rap going, we played together well.

Hughes: How did Dave get into the act with Nirvana? There are diff erent versions of that
story … that he was sort of out of one band and …

Novoselic: Yeah, he was with Scream, this great D.C. punk band. They were on tour in
California and their bass player, Skeeter, quit, went back to D.C. They were stuck broke in
Los Angeles. … They were living somewhere in like the Valley and they weren’t paying the
rent and the landlord came and took the front door off the house to just get them out of
there.

Hughes: That’s subtle.

Novoselic: And, Dave really had nowhere to go, so he just left . He came up here. We
started playing together, and the rest is history.

Hughes: So that fi rst ti me that he sat in was it like, wow!?

Novoselic: It totally made sense, yeah.

Hughes: I mean is it sort of like Ringo joining the Beatles?

Novoselic: Probably, that’s when everything came together. It was right. And Dave had a
big kick drum. He was a John Bonham fan, Dale Crover fan. See it goes back to the Melvins.

Hughes: It does, doesn’t it?

Novoselic: And (we were) a trio. It’s the same format. The Melvins were a trio.

Hughes: Not only that, but he’s just a really good guy, isn’t he? I mean in terms of the
chemistry with the band.

Novoselic: Oh absolutely, yeah. He’s easy to get along with – fun, talented. Dave’s a hard
worker.

Hughes: So you get Dave in the band and all of a sudden when you start doing these
collaborati ons the stuff just kicked it up a notch? You’ve got this amazing, “force of nature”
drummer in there?

Novoselic: We just have this drummer who has a lot of energy, a lot of vitality, and that’s
what drives the band.

Hughes: So, do you stay in touch with Dave?

Novoselic: Oh yes, all the ti me. I just saw him a few months ago.

Hughes: The popular noti on is that right aft er Kurt’s death when you were sorti ng
everything out that the Foo Fighters came into being and you sort of balked at that.
Novoselic: I didn’t balk at it at all. No, Dave just went and did his own thing, and I did my
thing.

Hughes: So there’s yet another place to set the record straight. The noti on is that you said
to Dave, “I don’t want to do that because it’s like a second string of Nirvana.”

Novoselic: I don’t think so. I think everybody was dealing with things. … I was dealing with
things in my way. And then Dave put a band together.

Hughes: What do you think of that band – the Foo Fighters?

Novoselic: Those guys are great. I’m a DJ at Coast Community Radio and I play Foo
Fighters’ songs all the ti me.

Hughes: Charlie Cross says one of the greatest myths in rock history is that Nirvana was
an overnight success. In truth the band did nine tours and played together for four years
before they became successful.

Novoselic: Absolutely.

Hughes: Grunt work, in the trenches.

Novoselic: It was grunt work. And there was a lot of ti me where there would be these
stories on the “ Seatt le scene,” in like 1990 and then they would never menti on Nirvana. We
were off the radar. Like, “How come you’re not menti oning us? What do we do?”

Hughes: You need a press agent.

Novoselic: We need a press agent or something like that.
Hughes: So, it’s Sept. 24, 1991 and they released “Nevermind.” And then in January it hits
number one. What was that like when that happened? You knew you had a hit album on
your hands prett y early in the going, right?

Novoselic: We were in Salem, Ore., when we got the news, at the big armory.

Hughes: And what was that like?

Novoselic: Things were coming really fast. … Hey, we have the number one record. And
we made it on the local news. I think that night I just went straight home and we made
local Seatt le media news, we made number one
record. It was a lot of fun. Again things were
just happening so fast so it was just part of the
whirlwind.

Hughes: When was it, in the wake of that, that
you saw any decent money for the fi rst ti me?

Novoselic: I bought a house. … Yeah, I bought a
house in Seatt le.

Hughes: By then you had really good management.
Danny Goldberg—

Novoselic: Yeah, Danny was there and John
Silva. … They were great.

Hughes: You hear so many stories about
rock musicians getti ng ripped off by their
management and all that.

Novoselic: No, not at all. Our management was
in California but our accountants were in Bellevue. And so we had that separati on there.
… It was really good. But that’s what Danny and John insisted on, “We don’t touch your
money.” And that way nobody can complain. I sti ll work with the same accountants today.

Hughes: Do you have any idea how many copies “Nevermind” has sold?

Novoselic: I think like fourteen million or something like that. Eleven, fourteen … oh what’s
a few…

Hughes: What’s a few million here and there?

Novoselic: But who knows how many have been downloaded. (laughs).

Hughes: Now tell us about the “Unplugged” concert. Was that a really neat experience?
Like Kurt’s grandfather, Leland Cobain, said recently, there’s a lot of us who really heard the
lyrics clearly for the fi rst ti me.

Novoselic: Well, we pulled it off . It all came together towards the end. In those last
rehearsals it came together. I remember playing with Kurt and Chris Kirkwood in the hotel
room and just going over the songs.

Hughes: It’s mesmerizing music.

Novoselic: We pulled it off .

Hughes: The accordion on there … was that something sort of impromptu that you
brought to the concert?

Novoselic: Yeah impromptu, just kind of trying to mix things up a litt le bit.

Hughes: Did you guys have some anxieti es that you’d be able to pull that off ?

Novoselic: Absolutely, oh yeah. I think one of my best memories is how happy Kurt was
aft erwards, that we pulled it off . Relief.

Hughes: Were you seeing signs … that Kurt was in emoti onal and physical distress?

Novoselic: I think that it was more general, like with each individual dealing with all the
fame and the stress. And then there were personal things and issues, and it all came
together for bett er or for worse. I’m sure that I showed signs of stress and physical things
too.

Hughes: What was the worst part of that, the hardest part of the fame quoti ent? Was it
having to tour, or people intruding on your lives?

Novoselic: I think it’s just the transiti on. It’s kind of a shocker. You become famous and
you need to get used to that, getti ng recognized, or the scruti ny and the att enti on, when
you were anonymous. And then all of a sudden you’re this celebrity. It took me a long
ti me to get used to the idea, even years aft er Nirvana ended. So I had the luxury of ti me
where I could adapt in my own (way).

Hughes: So back then were you reading stuff about the band – you don’t read it now, but
you read it then – and it really pissed you off , and you think “This is just rubbish!” Was that
part of the equati on?

Novoselic: Yeah, they’re just all opinions. … It’s all opinions.

Hughes: So things were spiraling down. Were you really concerned about Kurt and the
travails that he was having? And saying to yourself, “God, I’ve got to call him up and say,
‘Look man, what can I do to help you? We need you’”?

Novoselic: Let me think how I want to phrase this. I made my feelings known very early
on. And I was outspoken about a few things, and if that was advice, or if it was, it wasn’t
heeded. And in a lot of ways I was saying things that weren’t very welcome, so that
strained things with the relati onship.

Hughes: Did you back off and say …

Novoselic: I couldn’t just say it over and over again. When you deal with those issues
people have to make their own realizati ons, hit rock bott om or whatever. Then they’re
going to turn things around. Well, obviously that didn’t happen. That rock bott om didn’t
happen. It’s up to the individual. It was really powerful. I think it’s a potent cocktail just
this fame, personal issues, personal histories. There was just a lot going on. And then
it was all distorted, of being so medicated or so, just being on a lot of drugs. And so
catastrophe happened.

Hughes: All of us when we lose somebody we’re real close to like that … did you beat
yourself up aft er that and think, “What could I have done?”

Novoselic: There’s anger. There’s regrets … I was angry. It’s just a waste. You know it was
the f***ing drugs. It’s prett y bad. All in 20-20 hindsight, you know. Kurt called me the
fi rst ti me he did heroin and he told me he did it. And I told him, “Don’t do it man. You’re
playing with dynamite.” And it was like, Will Shatt er, who was the bass player for Flipper,
he OD’d and died around that ti me. Andrew Wood died from heroin. There was this
person, peer, fellow Olympian, he died. He OD’d on heroin. I’ve never seen heroin, but
I’ve seen people on it. And people fool themselves with all kinds of things – gambling, sex,
denial, all kinds of things to get hung up on. There’s a whole romance about heroin.

Hughes: About that stomach ailment that he was cursed with?

Novoselic: It was weird. It was real, I mean it was real. I remember he would throw up so
much he couldn’t throw up any more. I took him to doctors, specialists.

Hughes: You would think that some of those specialists could have hit on something.

Novoselic: I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what, that’s a mystery. You’d think
they’d fi nd something. I think it was just the crap food. Here’s the deal, like, we don’t have
a lot of money, OK. So we go to like AM/PM, in Olympia. Right behind the lott ery offi ce
there was an AM/PM there. And it was like, OK at least I got a hot dog. We’re hungry,
right. He gets a f***ing ice-cream cone. And I’m like, “No wonder you stomach hurts. Why
are you eati ng ice cream?” And then he looks at me and gets all pissed off , like I’m telling
him what to do. But I’m the dude who drove him to the frickin’ hospital, or hanging out
with him while he’s puking his guts, and trying to help him. So it’s just like, you know, “Oh,
don’t do heroin.” And I’d get the same look. You know what I mean? So where the heck
am I going to go? What am I going to do? What can I say? “You eat this greasy hot dog
instead of the ice cream cone.”

Hughes: Dave coming into the band later and (having a) diff erent personality, did he try to
make headway too?

Novoselic: You’ve got to ask Dave that. I mean sure, I don’t know. I think there was a
diff erent dynamic between Kurt and I than there was between Dave and Kurt.

Hughes: So you wake up one day and you fi nd out that … your friend is dead.

Novoselic: Well it’s shocking when you think about what he did and how he did it. It’s
totally shocking. But then you kind of look back, and you know it’s like — I told this to
Charlie Cross – Ivan Denisovich, the Solzhenitsyn dude. He’s in a camp in Siberia. Ivan
Denisovich and a day in his life. He’s in this friggin’ gulag.

Hughes: Eati ng fi sh heads.

Novoselic: And then the day starts out, and he builds this brick wall, and he totally gets
into building this wall, and that’s his day. He puts some energy into the work, and he’s into
building this wall. It’s prett y meager but it’s just like he found some meaning in life. Who
knows what the Solzhenitsyn symbolism of the wall is, the psychological (warfare) years. I
don’t know. But that’s what I saw in it: This dude is fi nding some meaning in his life. And
then Ivan Denisovich is in this camp and there’s other people in the camp – this was in the
early ‘50s – people who the Russians picked up in the German concentrati on camps. So
there’s these Russians in a German concentrati on camp and then they get put on a train
and sent to Siberian gulag. Like, what a bad deal, right? So I’m reading this book in the
tour van, and I tell that to Kurt. And he’s like, “Ah, and they sti ll want to live?” He was
disgusted. And I’m like, “OK, whatever, Mr. Negati ve.” You know what I mean?

Hughes: I do.

Novoselic: And it’s like, OK, so how bad was your life? You had people who are alive
today, they were in Auschwitz or wherever, and they survived that. They were starved,
they were raped, they were beaten. Their loved ones and friends were murdered before
their eyes. That’s a prett y bad existence. But then they survived, and they got out of the
concentrati on camp, and they have the tatt oo on their arm, the number. But they build
lives for themselves. They got out, they survived. They’re sti ll alive today, and they’ve
had producti ve, meaningful lives. Well, did Kurt really have it that bad? So it kind of tells
you what was going on. (Thought processes) distorted from heroin, drug distorted, I don’t
know. And then the gulag analogy. It’s just personality or something.

Hughes: I think that’s really brilliantly put, Krist.

Novoselic: Thank you.

Hughes: So aft erwards, and for the next year aft er Kurt’s death, what did you do? Did you
just sort of sort things out?

Novoselic: What I did was I put another band together, Sweet 75 – another dysfuncti onal
band.

Hughes: Why was it dysfuncti onal?

Novoselic: It was a dysfuncti onal relati onship. Four bands, and four dysfuncti onal kind of
deals.

Hughes: But that fi rst band you were ever with did OK, didn’t it?

Novoselic: We did OK, but it was dysfuncti onal. I don’t want to be dysfuncti onal any more
so I’m proacti ve.
And then I got involved in local politi cs. And so, instead of just thrusti ng myself into music,
I did music and politi cs. And I kind of just did whatever I wanted to do. And I did music,
and I did politi cs, and I worked on my farmhouse. And then I got a pilot’s license and I fl y a
plane.

Hughes: Is that cool?

Novoselic: I love it.

Hughes: What is it about, is it all the classic things?

Novoselic: Yeah, it’s science; it’s adventure; it’s challenging; it’s a practi cal way of
transportati on.

Hughes: And you’re up there.

Novoselic: Yeah, you’re up there and you got to deal with it. It’s a challenge. So I do that.
And then I made a record with Jello Biafra, Kim Thayil and Gina Mainwal, the “No WTO
Combo.” I did Sweet 75 record, and I did some more Sweet 75 music aft er that record that
was never released, that I thought was prett y good. I played with Curt Kirkwood and Bud
Gaugh. We did Eyes Adrift . I made a record with Flipper. So I’m sti ll doing music. Aft er
that experience with the whole Nirvana thing I’ve just been doing what I want to do. I have
the luxury to do it, so I just do it.

Hughes: Are you on good terms with Courtney Love now. (Kurt Cobain’s widow) Is that a
good thing?

Novoselic: Yeah, it’s a good thing. It’s not bad terms. (laughs)

Hughes: There’s got to be a lot of Nirvana stuff in the can that could be released.

Novoselic: I don’t think so. What there is is video. There’s a lot of video. There’s not going
to be any new Nirvana records. “You Know You’re Right” was a big surprise with people. I
had that master tape stashed and I didn’t tell anybody. And it didn’t come out unti l – when
was it, 2000, 2001? – or whatever.

Hughes: You called me the other day and were talking about journalists leaving for other
areas of work and the issues like the Internet and protecti ng intellectual property. Young
Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times, said, “I feel we are raising a whole
generati on of readers to expect quality informati on for free.” And you immediately said,
that’s like people ripping off arti sts (by just downloading music) and where do you get the
money to make records and put ti res on the van?

Novoselic: It’s a real concern, yeah. So I guess you play live shows and you just got to
work harder. Yeah, it’s a real concern, people expect it (music for free). I think that whole
thing is just going to have to be a combinati on of a regulatory structure and technology,
that they’re going to have ways of regulati ng it.

Hughes: Well is there a questi on you wish I had been smart enough to ask that you
wanted to answer?

Novoselic: No. It’s all good. It’s 3 o’clock. School’s out.

Hughes: I want to thank you.

Novoselic: Thank you.

Hughes: It was enormous fun, I tell you.
End of Interview

Research by John Hughes and Lori Larson
Transcripti on by Lori Larson
Interviews by John Hughes

Intendevo proprio la parte iniziale della seconda intervista:

Interview II
Krist Novoselic
October 15, 2008
Hughes: I was really impressed by the whole Grange ritual last night, and the fact that you were
really seriously involved – that this wasn’t anything that you got into on a whim. How long have
you been doing that?
Novoselic: I’ve been doing it since 2003,
so fi ve years. I came to a meeti ng just an
observer and I saw them doing the ritual. It
was very interesti ng, and I was taken aback
a litt le bit because it’s very unconventi onal
by modern standards. So I looked into it
and found out the history of ritual and how
the Grange got started. I learned that that
type of acti vity was more common in the 19th century.
Hughes: The ritual that you sti ll use here at the Grays River Grange?
Novoselic: Yeah, early 20th century. And as somebody who’s interested in politi cs and
parti cipati on, I recognized the Grange as an insti tuti on and a leader on the west end in
Wahkiakum County, and it was a good venue to get involved. In the modern world, people
think of secret societi es and they … they think of conspiracy theories or some kind of plot
to control the world, but it wasn’t like that at all. There was a very practi cal reason why the
Grange had closed meeti ngs … and that the ritual was secret because it was people coming
together, and they needed to have that level of protecti on. … They could potenti ally get
infi ltrated by railroad monopolies, or brokers, carpetbaggers – people like that. So the farmers,
through free associati on, the right of associati on, private associati on, came together. To
come to a meeti ng you needed to demonstrate that you were initi ated, so you could speak in
confi dence without somebody infi ltrati ng a meeti ng and working against the group’s interest.
So it’s a real practi cal thing. As society changed and the world changed, then that whole secret
aspect of the ritual really wasn’t practi cal any more. So at the Grays River Grange, I joke that we’re Orthodox Grangers because we keep the old traditi ons going. And if you listen (carefully)
the ritual is like lessons and it’s basically just about agriculture and about nature. Like when the
master is sworn in for a new term, part of the oath is that “Nature always looks forward and
never looks back.” Which is a really good way to look at things, especially someone like myself.
This is a contradicti on because I’m ti red of nostalgia, but we’re doing this 19th century ritual
because it’s important to kind of keep that line going. It’s like our predecessors built this hall for
us, and our predecessors built this organizati on for us, so in a lot of ways we keep that going. It’s
endearing, and it’s quaint. Some people think it’s too religious, or it’s not religious enough, or
it’s the wrong religion. And it doesn’t even necessarily have to be about religion. At all.
Hughes: I thought it was touching to say goodbye to someone you lost in a ritual.
Novoselic: Yeah, exactly. That was a special part. That was because our Grange sister passed
away. We had a special ceremony to remember her … So we drape the charter …
Hughes: I think you’ve really hit it on a metaphor of seasons, in agriculture, always moving
forward. So tell me what appeals to you about the Grange and what you’ve found out about the Grange and politi cs.

ecc...

una "religione" in cui si venerano divinità floreali, basata sulle stagioni.

Prendendo alla lettere le parole di Krist ' non ci sarà mai più un nuovo disco dei Nirvana', rimarrebbero soltanto le ristampe dei dischi in versione deluxe (originale + demo), come praticamente stanno facendo tutti. A rimanere sempre ottimisti.

la putt...è un libro sta intervista grazie rixx

bella la parte dove sostiene che kurt in pratica non sapeva suonare la chitarra ad eccezione delle sue canzoni e qualche pezzo dei CCR (questo spiega perche nell'unplugged ha chiamato i fratelli Kirckwood... )