A throwback video clip of former Nirvana member Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic has surfaced on social media.
Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic leave Pearl Jam concert
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It has been noted that going from the underground to fame overnight is mind-melting for anyone. However, for the punk rockers in Nirvana it was even more disorienting, and life-changing than they could have ever imagined.
In an episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, the former late-night talker sat down with living Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic to discuss the effects of going from touring in a van to topping the charts.
O’Brien highlighted that there was just a three-day gap between when Nirvana’s second, and final, major label album, In Utero, dropped in September 1993 and the kick-off of his original late night talk show on NBC, Late Night With Conan O’Brien.
“I remembered the music on the album — because I was such a huge fan — being background music to the terror and the weirdness of me starting a late night show from complete obscurity,” says O’Brien, who is also joined by In Utero producer/engineer Steve Albini for the chat celebrating the album’s 30th anniversary.
“That’s similar to the Nirvana experience I would imagine,” says Grohl, who recalls that he was just 21 when the band suddenly became massive in 1991 upon the release of their axis-tilting major label debut, Nevermind; Novoselic was 25, Cobain was 24. “We were kids and so when you talk about the amount of time that’s gone by to me it’s not even so much about the years, 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 then becoming a huge band.”
Grohl stated that the divisive 1993 follow-up turned into the “uncomfortable soundtrack” to that transition from obscurity to intense scrutiny, with the band living in a totally “different world” during the sessions for that album than they were just 16 months earlier.
Novoselic said that Geffen Records had such modest expectations for Nevermind that it initially printed only 50,000 CD copies. O’Brien added that he spoke to someone who worked at the label at the time who noted that when the album with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as its lead single blew up Geffen had to stop printing copies of titles by all its other artists to go full-born on Nevermind.
The three-year period between when Nevermind dropped and singer Kurt Cobain‘s death by suicide in April 1994 felt like “10 years,” as per Novoselic. Albini put a button on the chaotic whirlwind by describing how Nirvana went from being “couch surfers to being the biggest band ever in the world” in 18 months.
