The fated American icon would have been forty-three next month. In memory of Nirvana’s tortured genius, here are ten more stories to add to his legend.
1. In his first year of school, Kurt Cobain was known as the inquisitive student with the Snoopy lunchbox, one of the only children bold enough to pose for a photo with a bear cub that was brought in for show-and-tell.
2. In middle school, Cobain began playing the drums in the school band, which was also his favourite class. The band director remembered him as being a fairly run-of-the-mill student - not particularly extraordinary as far as musical talent goes, but not the worst.
3. At age fourteen, Cobain announced to a schoolmate that he would be a superstar musician, get rich and famous, kill himself and go out in a blaze of glory like Jimi Hendrix (neither boy realised Hendrix’s death wasn’t suicide).
4. Suicide was a fact of life from early on in Cobain’s life. There were several within his family, and when Cobain was about thirteen, he and a schoolmate came across a corpse hanging from a tree after a kid hanged himself outside of the elementary school. Cobain and his classmates stared for thirty minutes before school officials sent them on their way.
5. In such a small town, Cobain had to be crafty about getting alcohol while underage, so he and his friends arranged a deal with a morbidly obese alcoholic. They wheeled the man to the store in a grocery cart and gave him money to buy them beer; in exchange, they paid for malt liquor for him.
6. One of Cobain’s favourite foods was Kraft-brand macaroni and cheese. Despite his request, caterers in Atlanta once created a macaroni shells, jack cheese and jalapeños meal, assuming it was close enough. It wasn’t - what the catering managers got instead was Courtney Love, demanding “What the fuck are jalapeños and jack cheese doing in this macaroni?” and then promptly dumping it in the trash.
7. Cobain jumped from job to job for a time after dropping out of high school, including one at a YMCA. One night, just for fun he and his friends tagged that particular YMCA. The next day at work, Cobain was assigned the task of washing it off. Poetic.
8. After the release of Nirvana’s first single, ‘Love Buzz’, Cobain gave a copy to the college radio station KCMU, and then remained tuned in to his car radio all day to hear it. When he didn’t immediately hear it, he pulled off the road, found a pay phone and requested it himself.
9. Despite partaking in his fair share of risky behaviours, Cobain could not be accused of being an unsafe driver. On Nirvana’s first tour in bassist Krist Novoselic’s van, everyone was put in a driving rotation except Cobain because everyone thought he drove too slowly. In fact, then-girlfriend Tracy recalls him driving “like a little old lady”.
10. The first time Love and Cobain slept together, she was surprised to discover that he wore zebra-print briefs for underwear. She informed him he should be wearing boxers, and, though slightly abashed, from that point on he did.
Words by Kat Patke