The Legacy

Arctic Monkeys had to resist covering Nirvana tracks when recording at a studio once used by the group. The British group recorded their latest album Suck It And See at Sound City - the Californian studio where Nirvana made their iconic Nevermind album - and frontman Alex Turner admits it was hard for them not to keep themselves covering tracks by the legendary grunge band.

He said: "Nevermind was the big draw when we were choosing the studio, but also it had been recommended by Josh Homme, because he's recorded loads in there too. There's this engineer who is still there [from the Nevermind days], a serious guy, who we respected. We had to really try and not break out into messing around with any Nirvana covers. "Polly" or "Drain You"." The singer and guitarist resisted his urges, as a similar situation - which saw him launch into a version of one of Jimi Hendrix's hits when recording at his Electric Lady Studios in New York - was met with a frosty reception. He added to NME magazine: "I remember when we recorded in Electric Lady, I started playing "Purple Haze", and everybody was, 'Ah, come on, f***ing leave it out.' So this time, I thought maybe not." Alex added that if his group ever decide to perform a Nirvana cover, it wouldn't be from 1991's Nevermind, which sold over 30 million copies worldwide.

The Times of India, September 2011

When I hear a song from Nevermind on the radio, it doesn't sound like an old song. Nirvana, 20yrs after Nevermind, sounds like it could be a band coming out right now. It sounds like it could be a band coming out 20 yrs from now."

GQ June 2011

I was living in my Chevy Beretta around the time Nevermind was released. I was 29, my life had fallen apart -- I was going through a divorce, losing my home and my cat. It was the background music for the drama unfolding in my world. In '92, my album Some Gave All came out and was the No. 1 album for 17 weeks in a row. There was a lot of attention all of a sudden. One night, my circus pulls into town somewhere out West, I believe Arizona, and Nirvana's trucks were coming out of the place they'd played. Somewhere in the bowels of one of those buildings, a guy walked up to me and said, "Congratulations, you pissed the whole world off." I looked at Kurt and said, "Thank you." We just chitchatted. A few months later, backstage at the Billboard Music Awards, we crossed paths again, and this time it was a really strong handshake, like, "My friend, I didn't know we'd ever cross paths again." I saw Miley's cover of "Teen Spirit" in South America. The crowd just went crazy. And I thought, "How beautiful, man," because I do believe Kurt's spirit is very much still on this earth, through his fans and his music. I did have a very surreal moment watching my little girl do their song, realizing, "Wow, these kids are singing along to this in English, every word. And I'm sure that Kurt loves it."

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Pavement

Up until Nevermind, Pavement and other bands of that ilk were always very much sneaking up on people, building their reputations through zines and college radio and touring. After Nevermind, people started aggressively hunting down bands like ours or small bands that had only been in existence for a few months. I do think that album was special enough to trigger the response it got, but who knows -- if it wasn't that, would it have been a different album? A guy like Kurt Cobain becoming one of the most recognizable people in popular culture within a six- to 12-month period -- it boggles the mind. Of course, now we have Lady Gaga, people with entire staffs constantly manipulating situations to create a monster-type famous person, but that wasn't the case with Nirvana. They made "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and within 30 days, they were that big. It's kind of fucked up. It can't happen again. It won't happen again.

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Cole Alexander, Black Lips

When Slash came out in the '80s, it was like, I can't be a rock star. But when Nirvana came out, it was like, wait, I can do this.

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Corin Tucker, Sleater-Kinney

Everyone was playing it, every cafe, every restaurant, it was everywhere. Suddenly, our music scene wasn't this subtle private thing. Our estimation was that they'd be as big as Sonic Youth. That was as big as we could imagine at the time. I have a ten-year-old boy, and Nirvana will come on and he's like,"Who is this?" It's interesting to watch that happen to a person; it's exactly how I felt when I first heard them. And I saw them play the community building at my school.

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Damian Abraham, Fucked Up

I was a big Guns N' Roses fan and made the jump to Pink Floyd to Sonic Youth and skipped Nirvana. I went back and discovered Nevermind around the time In Utero came out and was blown away. A lot of people decried it as being a sellout -- the production is too polished, and so on -- but there is an aggression that still comes through. If you look at the music in the punk world, a lot of it was sunny, happy, shiny pop-type punk, whereas this was a dyspeptic band that sang about serial killers.

Former Manager 

In hindsight, the most striking thing about the period when Nirvana recorded Nevermind was how normal things were compared to what was to come. They had enough money from the Geffen deal that they didn't have to worry about eating or having a roof over their heads, but not enough to buy anything expensive. They had enough validation from the reception to Bleach to have creative control and confidence but not a hint of the fame that the album would soon create for them. The problems that came up were small and easily handled. When the album was nearing completion, Kurt had told me in a tone of quiet determination that Nirvana could be as big as the Pixies. That was ambitious because the Pixies were a bit bigger than Sonic Youth, and Sonic Youth were the godparents of the scene that Nirvana was part of. In my own mind, the furthest goalpost imaginable was to match Jane's Addiction, who had some hard-rock fans that had eluded other punk bands.Then suddenly "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was on the radio and there were waiting lists (waiting lists!) of people at indie stores who had reserved the album. I wasn't sure how to digest this, so I asked Mark Kates, the head of alternative promotion at Geffen, if this was normal for big cult bands, and he replied with his eyes popping out, "I've never seen anything like this in my life." The next day, my partner told me that a friend of his had been at a Guns N' Roses show in New York when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was played over the PA, and the huge macho crowd cheered. That was when we realized that it was going to be bigger than anything that anyone involved had dreamed of.

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All of that success happened so quickly. The funny thing is that Nirvana were still playing places that held 700 to 800 people by the time we had a gold record. We were still touring in a van when we had a Platinum record. I was still living in my friend's back room by the time we'd sold ten million records. It wasn't some crazy VH1/MC Hammer overnight bling success -- I think we were all in shock after it happened. I went to Benihana with a credit card like, "Oh my God, this thing works!"

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Eddie Vedder

It was summertime in 
Seattle, and our record Ten was coming out in about a week. There were a few copies of Nevermind floating around on cassette before the record was out, and I remember hearing it on a Walkman, walking by myself on a rare nice day when the clouds broke for the first time in months. Just hearing that tape with the white label, it had an impact. It felt like a change. I remember in April, there were a bunch of people outside this place called the O.K. Hotel. I went up -- I knew the guy who poured coffee there -- and I was able to go in and see one of the first shows they played for the record. Later that summer, Fugazi were playing in the Mojave Desert. We drove in this little Toyota with Nevermind playing. You could just listen to that thing on repeat, it never dipped.

Flea, Red Hot Chili Peppers 

Nevermind and Blood Sugar Sex Magik came out the same day -- I remember being so excited because I felt like we had made our great record. I would put on the radio and keep listening to hear "Give It Away," but I kept hearing this Nirvana song and was like, "God, that's a great fucking song. But are they going to play "Give It Away"?" And then they turned out to be the greatest band in the world.

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Girl Talk

Nevermind was the pivotal album in my life. It came out right before middle school, which is the perfect time to reject the world and be alienated from your peers. My sister was pushing for me to just get the single of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." She said, "You're not going to like any of the other songs." I went to a party and everyone was supposed to bring a cassette to listen to. Most people were bumping Metallica and Guns N' Roses, and I brought Nevermind. I was actually a little embarrassed at first -- was this too weird? I thought people might make fun of me, but they didn't, and it became everyone's favorite thing. I played a show in St. Louis recently, and these kids invited us back to their apartment. Everyone was playing a bunch of new bands, so I got on YouTube and played "Drain You." My friends were, like, "Yes! This is what we needed to hear at five in the morning." The younger people were, like, "Yeah, cool." They were feeling it, but it's different if you lived through it.

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Henry Rollins

Nirvana arguably knocked that door down, and then old geezers like me coat-tailed. All of a sudden I get to be on Lollapalooza and a 
major label and I've got a real budget and a real press person. I can go out and do those 160 shows a year and knock my guts out and there's some wallop behind it because someone's actually helping me. Whenever I'd be in the same room with Kurt, he'd look at me, look down, and get nervous and move away from me. I have that effect. But I asked Courtney, "What's up with your boyfriend? How come he won't come over and talk to me?" She said, "Oh, he's high and he's scared of you because you're Mr. Straight-Edge and he digs you, but you freak him out." That music remains timeless. You might borrow your dad's Nirvana CD -- so another generation is looking back on it, going, "Well, the 
old man kind of had it right. This doesn't suck." That music sticks for a reason. It wasn't bullshit.

Jeff Tweedy, Wilco

When Nevermind came out, somebody gave us a cassette and we thought it sounded so slick -- like a Whitney Houston record. I think Kurt Cobain was a 
really great pop songwriter. But you have to understand, Uncle Tupelo [my band at the time] hated everything that wasn’t a field recording from Appalachia, anything that wasn’t raw and amateur-sounding. I liked a lot of the music that influenced Nevermind: the Replacements, punk rock from the ’80s. Whenever I hear it now, I think it sounds great. But it really was produced compared to other records at the time. For a band that had an image of being super punk rock and dangerous, from our perspective, it was like, “That’s the opposite!”

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Jennie Boddy, former Sub Pop publicist

I moved to Seattle in 1989, starting at Sub Pop just as it was getting off the ground, or at least getting the singles out from under [co-owner] Bruce Pavitt's bed and into an office building. Europe had discovered Seattle and we rode the crest of the wave of U.K. magazines loving bands like Tad, Mudhoney, and Nirvana. Already in 1990 the hype seemed overblown: Sub Pop had already gone from making T-shirts that said world domination to ones reading which part of we have no money don't you understand. As publicist for the bands, I knew no one could see my eye-rolling through the phone, so I had to tell journalists that doing a story on "the Seattle scene" was so unoriginal and was so not a story. Nirvana mythologized Sonic Youth's profile; that was the pinnacle of success to them. Kurt loved Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, and K Records. He loved uncool shit too, like Abba and the Knack. And what's cool is, he couldn't give one shit if it was cool. I mean, 
really, it's hard to be cool while wearing one of my dresses. Soon Nirvana had sold four million albums. Via the deal with DGC Records, they kept the lights on at Sub Pop instead of Mudhoney. MTV came to town, and instead of taking VJ Tabitha Soren to meet cute young Seaweed fans, I took her to see Earth -- one of Kurt's favorite bands -- and her ears just about exploded and she got mad. Upon leaving, she looked past me at one of her three assistants and told them to give me an MTV shirt. Grunge made the runways. I didn't roll my eyes as much then because it 
got so ridiculous it was hilarious. Oh, and all I'll say about the Hole song "Jennifer's Body" is that I knew it was coming before it got released. It's a pretty good song.

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Deer Tick/Deervana

We were obsessive Nirvana fans as teenagers, I knew the entire catalog on guitar when I was 16. We'd hang out, smoke a bowl, put on a Nirvana bootleg. A friend asked us to play a Nirvana tribute set for a birthday party, then 
our manager asked us to do it for South by Southwest and we thought it would be funny. We got a lot of offers after that, but turned almost everything down. We also did a surprise [Deervana] set at Bonnaroo, but that was just so we could get better passes. It was supposed to be a joke, but it got too much attention and I felt stupid. We're not gonna take people's money so they can hear Nirvana songs. I'll miss jumping into the drum set and people stage-diving -- I wish they'd do that during Deer Tick shows. I just think they wish they had the chance to see Nirvana live -- I know I do -- and their music can make you do crazy shit when you're surrounded by other people listening to it. But we've got our own music careers to worry about. We'll always throw Nirvana covers in our set, but no more full sets; we don't want to become a tribute act or something. Deervana's broken up.

Kevin Barnes, Of Montreal

That was kind of a strange record. When it first came out, I loved it. I thought it was amazing, but it was just so weird when these football players and cheerleaders liked it, too. You had to share the party with people you didn't like. On some level, it was frustrating that these terrible people co-opted the music. But now, it's really beautiful because it broke down walls. It wasn't us versus them anymore. People became less uptight. They weren't as bullying or weren't as stupid. All these dudes who were more butch and uptight started smoking pot more. Instead of "Let's beat that faggot up," it was like, "Let's hang with that guy."

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Mark Ronson

I guess because I'd already been into Mother Love Bone and Soundgarden and bands like that, I knew about Nirvana. It didn't hit me like a ton of bricks. In hindsight, it was just a collection of incredible guitar pop songs sung by a beautiful, tormented man. You look at the mythology of it all, but at the end of the day, it's the songs. If they didn't have those brilliant songs, we wouldn't be talking about them right now.

Meghan O'Rourke, author, The Long Goodbye

The first time I saw the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video, its sepia tones made it seem already a memory of my own youth -- the way I would one day remember what it was like to be 15 in 1991, suffused in a rage and knowingness about sex, hypocrisy, entertainment, cruelty. Even on that first listen, the song carried with it a strange nostalgia. And the strange thing about the 20th anniversary of Nevermind is realizing that the album did capture what it was like to be floating through adolescence in the fading sun of the early '90s. When I think about those years, I often think about the way Cobain embodied damage and longing in "Polly" or "Rape Me," songs I'd never heard the likes of before. The sound was disenchanted yet not exactly ironic; weary yet oddly celebratory. The album aspired almost to the operatic, but in a modern way. During that year, I first listened to Nevermind feeling it was ours, feeling it had captured a moment. I self-consciously wondered if part of me just wanted to have that feeling about a band -- the way my parents had had about the Stones or Dylan. We were the belated generation; rock'n'roll wasn't just music, it was the music that was supposed to signify a riotous charge (yet rarely did). Today, I realize that my questioning was shaped by the music itself: What made Nevermind iconic had a lot to do with Cobain's own self-consciousness. By the time I was in college, listening to indie rock, having put away my flannel shirts, it seemed the world had gotten a little more fey and a lot more ironic. But when Cobain killed himself in the spring of 1994, we all left our dorm rooms and went out to the lawn and someone played Nevermind from the window loud enough that it reverberated among the gothic stones as we sang along.

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Sound Of Guns Drummer

I was too young to be going to the clubs around the time Nevermind was released, but I remember my older brother bringing home a CD one night and said 'check this new band out. They've been playing this in The Krazy House (a local rock club) and people have been going insane too it'. As soon as I heard the intro to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" blast out of the stereo, my whole perception of the way music should be was turned upside down. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and there was no way back. This was it. Music would never be the same again for me. Then when I did manage to sneak out to the Krazy House one night, I was standing on the dance floor when it came on. In a split second I was thrown into a mosh pit and nearly broke my nose on the back of some guys head. It was total chaos but I loved it. There was no denying the energy, the power and THAT voice. The drummer wasn't bad either!

Patrick Carney, the Black Keys

Nevermind was the first modern-rock record that I became obsessed with. I was in sixth grade and my brother had the cassette. I was just getting into Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix at the time. I remember seeing Nirvana on Saturday Night Live and it blowing my mind. By the time In Utero came out, everyone had gotten into Nirvana, and all the kids who had never been exposed to that kind of music were ready for that sound. Basically, it's our generation's equivalent of AC/DC's Back 
in Black.

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Actor-Comedian

Nevermind first hovered into view, for me, in the bleak, early months of 1992. And it didn't drop-kick my head anywhere new or change my landscape -- I did that myself, in my daily situation, moving to San Francisco to further pursue comedy. But what it did do, subconsciously, hearing it as ambient music on long road trips or in dive bars after my shows, was reassure me I was making the right choice. Because Cobain and Co. didn't make being young and confused and dumped-on sound fun -- in fact, they assured you your situation righteously sucked. But they also showed you that you could take your rage and frustration and make them loud, and at least annoy other people until you worked your shit out. The sonic portal they opened led me to a bleak, beautiful musical landscape populated by Tad and Alice in Chains and the Velvet Underground and the Pixies and Killing Joke and all of these other bands I'd missed while Roxette was being blasted into my skull at every strip-mall comedy club I was floundering in. And hovering over this lurching, postadolescent landscape, like a sullen angel, was Juliana Hatfield, who sang, on her song "Nirvana": "Now I've got Nirvana in my head / I'm so glad I'm not dead..." Me too!

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Peter Buck, R.E.M

Nirvana played in Athens [Georgia] about a month after Nevermind came out, and I had them stay at my house; they didn't have anywhere else to go. It's hard to believe that in the year 
Nevermind was released, they weren't the biggest band in the world -- that was still about three months away. 
At the time, they played a club and then came over and got drunk. I played 
45s. It wasn't any different from 
when the Young Fresh Fellows stayed at my house.

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Talib Kweli

There are certain pieces of work that are damn near perfect: Bob Marley's Talkin' Blues, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, and Nirvana's Nevermind. The hardcore music scene that Nirvana came out of, when I was in high school, the lyrical sentiment and style of dress and politics all gelled with hip-hop. I know this because the white kids in my school were dressing like me and I was dressing like them. And that whole thing converged when rap kids really embraced Nirvana. You could play that record in any hip-hop club right now.

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Kevin Whelan, the Wrens

My story is about me as a wee young lad interning at [name of record company redacted], cutting and gluing together press clippings about [name of big R&B star redacted], when from behind the door of the head of publicity (the door was closed because this person was always doing coke -- ah, the old days), I'd hear an advance copy of Nevermind being blasted. From my little intern cubbyhole, as the first chords of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" rang out, I believed I was hearing the music of rock gods.

Charles Bissell, the Wrens

My recollections are that in 1991, I was head of publicity at [redacted] and living as a woman. I remember blasting an advance copy of Nevermind to clear the coke crust from the speakers of my boombox-with-turntable. And my dweebish intern burst into my office, scaring the bejesus out of me, honestly, and said, "I believe that is the music of rock gods. I would like to form a band with you, beautiful work lady." Okay, more seriously: It is funny how monumental albums like that seem so inescapable at the time (Sgt. Pepper's, Thriller, etc.), especially to other musicians. It seems like for the next eight years, every rock singer wanted to sound like two people screaming -- including me, and I was terrible. It also felt like that was the first time I heard people talking about not just who produced or recorded something but who mixed it, à la Andy Wallace. And not just industry types, but fans. At the time, it seemed to me like a big battle in the loudness wars, of making records as loud as fuck, the better to "win" on radio. (Remember radio?) And funny now that the album sounds almost small compared to what came later.

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Tom Gabel, Against Me!

It didn't feel like anything I had ever heard. And that it's aged so well is a testament to the songwriting. Nothing about the lyrics really seems particular to that era. There aren't any contemporary references that make you feel like, "Oh, that's the '90s." Nevermind is the best Nirvana album, hands down. Anyone who says it's In Utero is lying. They're just trying to look cool.

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The Flaming Lips

I really did love that ensemble they had with the drummer before Dave Grohl -- that's no slag on Dave Grohl -- there was just an element from Bleach that we loved. We played a couple shows with them, maybe one in Seattle right around Bleach, and backstage the mood at these Sub Pop shows was, you know, everyone was having a great time celebrating themselves. And there was a feeling that Kurt couldn't let loose and be a dork, like, "Fuck, I wish I was having more fun than I am." Later on, you'd run into normal people who'd say, "I like Nirvana," and you're like, "Six months ago they were a cool, freaky Sub Pop group, and now Joe Sixpack at 7-Eleven is into Nirvana." It didn't seem as though punk rock was suddenly outselling the Eagles or something. Most of the underground music remained underground and some of the clichéd copy bands like Bush became popular. Them, STP, Candlebox -- who we played with -- all that seemed to be the focus of that momentum. Nevermind came out in '91, and by '96, people were saying, "Whatever that is, we're not part of it." That was probably the first time that happened, with us thinking, wrongly, that this is our music and the lunkheads will never know what we have here. It was great and phenomenal and weird and sad -- all of those things combined.

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Ray Toro, My Chemical Romance

I was a sophomore in high school, maybe a junior, when that came out, and you hadn't seen anything like that. That dude, he shredded his voice when he was singing.

Sleater-Kinney/Wild Flag

I was driving to school and 107.7 The End, which is still a radio station in Seattle -- never before had this happened and I'm sure never since -- played "Smells Like Teen Spirit" over and over. You could tell the weather had changed, the landscape had changed. I drove to school with a huge lump in my throat.

Brent Hinds, Mastodon

I was 16 years old and in a band called Kill Darling. My bandmate Johnny had Nevermind on cassette, and he was like, "I want you to listen to this! It's fucking good!" and we all sat around and listened to the whole thing before practice. Fast-forward 20 years later and I'm standing in Sound City, the place where they recorded the album, talking about music with Dave Grohl. Full circle. It didn't impact me immediately because my playing was so different from Kurt Cobain's. I loved what they were doing; I loved that they were doing it. But I didn't want to be a part of it at all. I never was in any way.

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Ben Lee

I saw Nirvana play at the Big Day Out in Sydney in 1992, shortly after Nevermind was released. I was a late bloomer, not yet having hit my growth spurt at 13, and easily one of the shortest people among the 5,000 or so. I remember a pretty girl in her 20s offering me a sip of her beer. Nevermind reminds me that it's okay to be different, and that when you least expect it, you can suddenly find that there are others out there that feel the same way. I left feeling inspired in a way I hadn't felt before, and the next day I did the thing that punk rock was always meant to make you do: I started a band.

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Geoff Rickly, Thursday

Most drummers write beats. Dave Grohl wrote riffs. When you're making a fill that people sing, that's super, 
super hard to do. He was just a master of it. The rest is dirty and fun; the drums on Nevermind are straight-up pop gold.

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Joel McHale, actor-comedian

I went to the University of Washington, and I remember people listening to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and going, "What the fuck is this?" It's like someone gave you speed for your ears. One of the reasons I loved Kurt Cobain so much is that he had a great sense of humor. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" -- just the name of the song is hilarious. I mean, "A mulatto / An albino / A mosquito / My libido / Yeah, hey, yeah" -- that's a lyric from one of the biggest songs of all time. And look at the cover of the album: It's a baby swimming after a dollar. That could be the cover of a comedy album.

Sloane Crosley, Author, I Was Told There'd Be Cake

My middle school was a den of thieves -- either of the traditional "Now you see it, now you don't" type or the slick "Hey, can I see that?" type. So I have a vivid memory of walking into the girls' locker room and seeing the cassette single of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" lying unattended on a bench. I picked it up to look at it and this crazy popular girl came out from a bathroom stall and snatched it back. She wore a massive gold hoop in one ear and was the first person I had ever met who rocked fishnets. In gym class. Were they crotchless? Sure, for the sake of my memory. She shoved the tape into her locker, asked, "What are you looking at?" in a way that did not leave room for an answer, and that was that. I kind of thought they would sound like Metallica. Or whatever the musical equivalent of Married…With Children would be. Until I tracked the album down. There may or may not have been bad journal writing in my bedroom with "Come as You Are" on in the background. Or "Polly." Oh God, "Polly." I liked the creepiness of it and the slowness and the way it validated whatever fake angst I had. There were other songs of varying genres I felt I owned. But Nevermind was the first entire album of my generation that didn't feel like it was on loan from the generation just before us.

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Lenny Kravitz

That's a great record, man. Great style, great songwriting -- really great songwriting. It's probably the best record to come out of the Seattle scene. It's one of my favorite records from that whole period. You just knew it was so fresh the first time you heard it. It still sounds fresh. You can think what you want about Kurt or grunge, but the songs are undeniable. That's why people still care.

Ray Davies

When it came out, I 
thought it was the most significant American rock'n'roll album since the Doors. Twenty years on 
and it is still fresh.

Owen Pallett

I used to go to the weight room in ninth grade and put on Nevermind and pump iron. Then Kurt died and the music lost its anabolic effects -- I lost a lot of weight in '94. Good songs, though. And I never would've gotten into the Melvins, the Meat Puppets, or Shellac were it not for Nirvana.

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Amy Lee, Evanescence

I remember Nirvana and Björk entered my brain at the same time, and I was completely overwhelmed. Before that, it was all classical music for me. That record changed my life; it opened me up to a whole new world. I've never met anyone who doesn't love that album.

Yelawolf

Nirvana were important for me -- them, Digable Planets, and Goodie Mob, that's what we listened to every day. They were one of the few bands that crossed over into the hood. I was living in Nashville at the time, skateboarding and shit, and we'd be bused to downtwn Nashville to keep the schools integrated. They were raw and real, and they instilled that it was okay to be rock n'roll again. It wasn't for a while.

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Marnie Stern

Somehow I never listened to Nirvana until last year! Which is even 
stranger because I grew up when they were popular. But I really, really like that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" song. 
The chorus makes you want to win, win, WIN!

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The afternoon we tried to track “Lithium,” we had done a few passes, and for whatever reason Dave kept speeding up and it didn’t feel good. Like halfway through the fourth take Kurt says, “Stop! Stop!” He started playing “Endless, Nameless,” and I just kept the tape rolling. Kurt was singing so hard I thought he was gonna kill somebody. The veins in his neck were bulging out, he just was pouring sweat, strangling his vocal chords, and at the end of song, he started smashing his guitar. I was in the control room and didn’t even know what to say. I went out and asked, “Are you okay?” He just got up and walked in the other room, and Krist sort of looked at me like, Whoa!

I’ve never seen so much rage in someone in the studio that came out that instantaneously. It was scary to watch him play that song. I’m not kidding.

Excerpted from EVERYBODY LOVES OUR TOWN: An Oral History Of Grunge. Copyright © 2011 by Mark Yarm. Reprinted by Permission of Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. http://grungebook.tumblr.com/

Nirvana drum tech; Laundry Room Studio owner/operator

When they were recording Nevermind in L.A., I fl ew out and stayed with them for a week. I remember they were trying to fi gure out that song “Stay Away.” The original lyric was “pay to play,” and they didn’t like that. And I suggested “stay away.” Not that they would remember that. After listening to playbacks of most of the stuff, I told Kurt, “Man, this is amazing. You’re going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone within a year.” Oh, I totally believed it, and I was totally right.

Excerpted from EVERYBODY LOVES OUR TOWN: An Oral History Of Grunge. Copyright © 2011 by Mark Yarm. Reprinted by Permission of Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. http://grungebook.tumblr.com/

Soundgarden Bassist

First time I heard anything off of Nevermind, I thought, Wow, these guys are going for number one. We heard some songs that somebody snuck out of the studio down to our studio. Chris is in the other room mixing “Slaves & Bulldozers.” Matt and Kim are in this room listening to Nevermind. I think it was the song “Come as You Are.” And I stood in the hallway and I could hear my friends listening to my friends and watched my other friend work on a song that me and my friends had put together. So it was really intense.

Excerpted from EVERYBODY LOVES OUR TOWN: An Oral History Of Grunge. Copyright © 2011 by Mark Yarm. Reprinted by Permission of Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. http://grungebook.tumblr.com/

The Rocket newspaper managing editor

We had advance cassettes of both Nevermind and the Soundgarden record, Badmotorfinger, in The Rocket office. It was a good Soundgarden record, but there was something special about that Nirvana record. People would come in and go, “Can I make a copy?,” and it was probably three-to-one, four-to-one they wanted to borrow or copy the Nirvana tape over the Soundgarden tape.

Excerpted from EVERYBODY LOVES OUR TOWN: An Oral History Of Grunge. Copyright © 2011 by Mark Yarm. Reprinted by Permission of Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. http://grungebook.tumblr.com/

DGC Records Northwest promotion representative

Being in Seattle, there were advance copies of Nevermind around. People made copies for other people, and that whole summer and fall, you couldn’t go anywhere in Seattle without hearing it. You’d pull up at a stoplight and hear it from the car next to you. You’d be walking on the street and hear it blaring out of stores.

Excerpted from EVERYBODY LOVES OUR TOWN: An Oral History Of Grunge. Copyright © 2011 by Mark Yarm. Reprinted by Permission of Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. http://grungebook.tumblr.com/

Sub Pop Records cofounder

Bruce [Pavitt, Sub Pop cofounder] and I had gone to the Off Ramp and we ran into Susie Tennant, and she said, “Have you heard the new Nirvana record yet?” So we went into her car and she had a cassette tape and I remember listening to it—I was sitting in the backseat and Bruce and Susie were in the front seat—and it started off with a song that I remember hearing them play live. It was like crescendo after crescendo after crescendo. I mean it was orgasmic— probably more female orgasmic than male orgasmic— and, of course, it was “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Bruce and I just looked at each other and said, “This is going to be huge.”

Excerpted from EVERYBODY LOVES OUR TOWN: An Oral History Of Grunge. Copyright © 2011 by Mark Yarm. Reprinted by Permission of Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. http://grungebook.tumblr.com/

MTV director of music programming and talent relations

The “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video came in at the same time the new Guns N’ Roses video came in, and at this point I hadn’t worked at MTV for very long. I went to Abbey Konowitch, the head of the programming department at that point, and said, “Look, I love this place. I’m having a great time. That being said, this place doesn’t really represent my generation. We really aren’t playing videos from bands that I’m passionate about. We have something that’s come in that I’m extremely passionate about. I’m just saying to you that if we don’t play this, I don’t feel like there’s a place for me here.” I put my job on the line, basically. I believed in it that much.
 The video world-premiered on 120 Minutes. Within a week or two, we got it in heavy rotation, and within less than a month, the face of MTV had started to make a major transition.

Excerpted from EVERYBODY LOVES OUR TOWN: An Oral History Of Grunge. Copyright © 2011 by Mark Yarm. Reprinted by Permission of Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. http://grungebook.tumblr.com/

KNDD DJ

One of the landmark moments for me was going over to [Sub Pop publicist] Nils Bernstein’s house for a party when Nirvana first played Saturday Night Live. There were 15 or 20 people over there; I think Rusty Willoughby, Kurt Bloch, and maybe Dan Peters from Mudhoney were there. Everybody is drinking a shitload of beer, and there’s just an obnoxious, fun attitude in the room.

When Nirvana launched into their song, the room just got quiet, and when they were done and Saturday Night Live cut away to commercials, the room was still dead silent. It was like everybody in that roomful of drunk people realized at that moment how big it actually was. I’m getting chills even talking about it right now.

Excerpted from EVERYBODY LOVES OUR TOWN: An Oral History Of Grunge. Copyright © 2011 by Mark Yarm. Reprinted by Permission of Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. http://grungebook.tumblr.com/

Geffen Records/DGC head of alternative promotion

By the time the Michael Jackson thing happened [when Nirvana knocked him off the top of the Billboard album chart], we were ready for it. He represented the old business, which involved the ability to pay for chart positions. The Billboard chart, prior to the [May 1991] introduction of SoundScan, was comprised of store reports. Theoretically, the stores reported what they sold. However, that wasn’t always the case. There were companies that you could hire whose job it was to get the best possible store reports. This might not be fair to Michael Jackson or Epic Records, but it really was seen as a changing of the guard. We knew that what we had going on couldn’t be bought.

Excerpted from EVERYBODY LOVES OUR TOWN: An Oral History Of Grunge. Copyright © 2011 by Mark Yarm. Reprinted by Permission of Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. http://grungebook.tumblr.com/

Girl Talk

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

10.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

Nevermind made me want to start making music. It also made me want to discover new music. Nirvana led to Sonic Youth, which led to the Boredoms, which led to Merzbow, which led to my friends and I starting to fool around on electronics and start our first bands. Nirvana is my favorite band.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

The Black Lips

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

I was Age 13 when Nevermind came out.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

It made me realize that I could play music. I never could relate to those Big Hair spandex wearing guys… except for the chicks.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

The Antlers

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

I started watching MTV about a month before Kurt Cobain died, I was 8 or 9 at the time. I had just begun buying CDs and Nevermind was my second. I listened to it every day and learned to play all the songs on guitar. Over the next year I accumulated somewhere around 5 gigantic Nirvana Shirts, the first being the Nevermind shirt.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

Nevermind was the first album I heard that I felt a personal connection with, the first music where I realized that was even possible (and important) in music. Nevermind pointed me in that direction for the future of every album I would eventually feel attached to.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

Nicole Atkins & the Black Sea

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

I think I was 12. I remember finding a cassette single of it at Sam Goody and thinking how cool it was that the tape was white plastic instead of black. I remember bringing it to a birthday party and it completely changed the mood of everything.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

Nirvana taught me as a songwriter how to write a pop song but mix it with heavy noise and emotion. I also have a term i call “anti-cobain,” when referring to souless acts the music industry tries to push upon me and my musical friends.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

Givers

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

In freshman year of high school so I guess around 14.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

I remember being infatuated with them: Dave’s drumming, Kurt’s lyrics… It was all a haze of obsessive emotions. I thought—these guys are fearless. I want to have that kind of empowerment.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

Old Crow Medicine Show

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

Teenager.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

I was in high school just north of Seattle. I remember going over to a friend Mo’s house where he and Tim & Phil Hanseroth (of Brandi Carlile now) were having band practice and they played “Smells like Teen Spirit.” I thought they’d written it and was blown away, I’d never heard a song remotely like it. I got a copy of Nevermind dubbed on cassette the next day and wore it out, learned every song! I’d moved a lot as a kid and Seattle at that time felt like a bit of an unknown outpost to the rest of the country and this album seemed to bring it front and center. There was so much undefinable, raw, creative music in and around the city at that time from what I can remember and could explore of it at that age. It was strange, and vibrant, and suddenly it had dirtbag royalty. The fringe moved into the center and I recall it’s massive success gave a kind of validity and respect to all the thrift store, stoner, flannel, “ave. rat” existences. A defining anthem of the time of sorts. I also remember an increase in kids with thumbs holed green cardigans. I’d owned Bleach and had been listening to Mudhoney, Tad, the Melvins, etc… but Nevermind was an album that spoke so loud and clear sonically with it’s devil may care intangible lyrics and brilliant dynamics. It refined yet raw power.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

Grouplove

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

 I was 14 when I discovered Nevermind.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

The first time I heard Nirvana I remember being caught off guard by how much I related to their sound, and how exciting that was to experience. The pain in Kurt’s voice and the way they exploded into their choruses made my stomach drop. I was suddenly alive—so I taught myself the guitar by learning Nirvana songs and then started writing my own—screaming my head off in my bedroom. It felt so good to feel something so real for the first time in my life.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

The Lonely Forest

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

 I can still remember seeing the “smells like teen spirit” video for my first time in my grandmas basement on thanksgiving in ‘91. My cousins and I were immediately sucked in. We jumped off the coffee table threw pillows, etc… One of my fondest childhood memories.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

Nevermind was the first record that was not given to me by my parents. It truly felt like mine. For me Nirvana will always embody what is pure and innocent about music. Just doing it because it makes you feel better, minus all of the other bullshit. To this day Nirvana is still my favorite band. They’re the reason I bought a guitar.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

Kevin Devine & The Goddamn Band

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

12, 7th grade, October 1991.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

I don’t think I would have gotten involved with the kind of music I play now, or potentially with wanting to start a band at all, if it wasn’t for that record. It was the skeleton key.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

Girls Guns & Glory

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

Eleven.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

  I was obsessed with MTV at the time. Guns & Roses, and Motley Crue were my 2 favorite bands and I remember watching the Top 20 countdown and they featured “Smells like Teen Spirit” in the Buzz Bin. Within a few months Nirvana was so popular they were teaching the “Come as You Are” guitar lick in my junior high school music class. Since then I’ve owned at least 3 copies of Nevermind. Everytime I rediscover the album it’s shocking how many great songs are on there.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

CHAPPO

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

14 years old.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

I still think of Nevermind as a yardstick for what a really great album should be. Each song is a masterpiece unto itself but the album never sounds like a greatest hits compilation. It ebbs and flows through various moods and levels of intensity while maintaining a super high level of focus.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

WATERS

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

Age 9, rediscovered at Age 16.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

Nevermind was one of my very first CDs. I can still picture it in my little CD binder, along with Green Day’s Dookie, Weezer’s Blue Album, and some CD-Rs of Rancid and those Punk-O-Rama compilations. When I first got it, though, at age 9, it sort of faded into the background for me. I don’t think I really “got” it yet. I was attracted more to the brattiness of Billy Joe and Co. at that time, and couldn’t relate as well to to the intense emotional output of Nevermind. Later, when I was in high school, my pack of three friends and I all of a sudden became obsessed with Nirvana. I’m from a very small, and kind of cowboy-vibe town, so it wasn’t the most popular obsession, but that probably why we were so devoted. We started a band called Samsara (which is a pretty damn embarrassing play on the word “nirvana”), and watched the VHS of Live! Tonight! Sold Out! so much we wore it out completely. Nevermind was the album we’d always go back and forth on. We would love it, then hate it for a while, then love it again. But by the time we graduated, we had declared it, once and for all, The Greatest Album Of All Time. Throughout high school, though, it was the record that made me realize I HAD to play music. Thanks to that record, there was no other option.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

Fort Frances

What age did you first discover Nevermind? The ripe age of seven.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

  I guess I discovered Nevermind twice. My first experience with the record was in the second grade. My mom was a teacher at the community college in-town, and each day after school, I had to take the bus to wait for her to finish her class and take me home. I sat in the cafeteria which was always set on MTV, and at the time, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was in regular rotation. But, being far away from knowing anything about being a teenager, I didn’t get it at all. I remember wondering why those cheerleaders were a part of this loud rock song. Fast-forward six years later, and a friend introduced me to the band’s Unplugged session via a VHS recording he had in his basement. I still wasn’t really familiar with the band, but there is one gripping moment in the video that plunged me head-first into Nirvana world, and it’s always stuck with me.

Just after Kurt shrieks the last “shiver” of their cover of Lead Belly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”, his blue eyes burst wide open in this chilling split-second stare, and his lungs let out a sigh of desperation. It’s a very special glimpse into how Kurt really felt. There are all kinds of reports from the period shortly before his death of whether or not he was happy, but the performance of that song shows that his genius and the massive commercial success of the album had paired together to form a weight that the man simply would never be able to carry.

After watching the Unplugged session, I religiously studied Nevermind. Toward the end of high school, I got to perform “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on stage at this big show that included a ton of students singing songs from around the musical spectrum – everything from Motown-era stuff to Nirvana. I remember dissecting the words again and again. What did it mean? What was the significance of a mosquito? How did the lights being off make everything safer?

My attempts at attaching the meaning to it never mattered. I remember just aiming to recreate Kurt’s growl, which made understanding the words a challenge anyway. It was a huge moment for me – I was 17. There were at least 1,000 people in the crowd, and I was nervous as hell. And then, I got on stage and the meaning came to life for me – the angst, the frustration, the meaninglessness of the pressures to adhere to some kind of societal norm. That song that I had seen in that cafeteria years ago that I didn’t understand had finally come to life for me.

Like many songwriters and performers, Nevermind‘s personal and musical impact came years after Kurt died for me, but it’s one that I am constantly reminded of – the ability to communicate feelings and thoughts through sometimes indiscernible words and the energy to transform a three-piece into a deafening roar are two of the reasons that I will always turn to this record and other Nirvana records for inspiration.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

Pelican

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

I was 13 years old watching MTV after school. I remember quite clearly seeing the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” when it came out – it really resonated with me how their sound cut through all the other crap on the network at that time – they even made Guns N’ Roses (my favorite band at the time) sound tepid by comparison.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

It’s really difficult to quantify. I quickly transitioned from being a Nirvana fan to being too punk to listen to grunge because it was “commercial”. Interestingly, what was key to that transition was the issue of Rolling Stone with Nirvana on the cover. There was a full page Fugazi live review in there that REALLY captured my imagination and before long I was stocking up on all their records, Minor Threat, other Dischord acts, etc. Those records jumpstarted my punk career, giving my horrendous guitar playing an outlet in the form of the multitude of punk bands I would go on to form during high school. It’s easy to imagine that without Nirvana acting as my personal gatekeeper to punk that I might have lost interest in playing guitar since I had no natural talent; perhaps I would not have gone on to throw away my college education making a psuedo-career out of my semi-professional band. All pure conjecture, of course.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

  I was 10 when it came out. My older brother had the cassette tape and I loved it. The raw sounds was a rush of adrenaline through the saccharine bullshit that was on the radio at the time. (and unfortunately still is) Just to paint the picture, although “rape me” is off In Utero, not Nevermind, I recall one of the first times I slow danced with a boy to be at a Bar Mitzvah was to this song. Nevertheless, Nevermind really connected with me. It’s sense of melody is stunning. The cover art and accompanying videos. It was the golden age of MTV and that generation finally had a hero. The imagery on the record is amazing. It’s a perfect record.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

It felt like my generation finally had it’s own music, and “Come As You Are” as the anthem (or “Smells Like Teen Spirit”). I grew up prior to that listening to the classic rock of my parents. With grunge, and more specifically, Nevermind, a generation was defined. My favorite songs off the record are “On A Plain” and “Something In The Way”. I love the MTV unplugged live versions of these songs as well, when they cover The Meat Puppets. I also discovered Leonard Cohen through the song “Pennyroyal Tea,” again not off Nevermind. Kurt Cobain committed suicide on my birthday when I was 12. It was something I will never forget and really affected me.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

How did Nevermind impact your life?

We know Kurt felt somewhat ashamed of the production on the record. Still, when I listen to it these days, aside from maybe a hair too much chorus effect on the guitars (but is there such a thing really?), all i hear is very loud guitars, even louder drums and some of the most oddly musical bass lines put to tape in the 90’s. I think what he was really embarrassed about was how perfect the record sounded. I love Dinosaur Jr.‘s You’re living All Over Me with near equal passion but those drums are flat and its overall mix is not as happening as Nevermind‘s. I mean, listen to the first few seconds of “On A Plain” to hear that instant before the wall of guitars enter. It’s huge. Loveless huge. It didn’t sound like an SST or SUB POP record. On Nevermind, Nirvana fought fire with fire. To spare a generation of kids from cock rock and power ballads, they slicked up their sound, doubled the vocals, tuned the drums and even used the vocal melody of “Teen Spirit” for the guitar solo. Nothing to be ashamed of…

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

Korallreven

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

It was the very first record I bought with my own money. I guess I was 8 or 9 and I got it in the most boring mall you can imagine in the small town in the Swedish countryside where I grew up. To be honest I kinda hate the iconization of rock records but when it comes to Nevermind it feels OK. I never fell for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (and it still feels like an anthem for dudes who loved and maybe still love Beavis & Butthead), but all the other tracks blew me away and it made me want to dress how I felt instead of what my mum had prepared for me.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

  There’s so much LIFE in there. Just so much FEELINGS. And FREEDOM. This, those feelings, is pretty much exactly where I wanna go with our music even though it never ever will sound like Nirvana. Oh, and I forgot their COURAGE. They dared to challenge themselves and to do that famous MTV Unplugged where Kurt Cobain-far away from the myth, the drugs, the grunge, the Courtney Love etc.—just showed what an incredible SONGWRITER he was.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

Hunting Club

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

First discovered Nevermind at the age of 11 thanks to some good friends’ recommendations.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

Nevermind had a truly amazing impact on me not only musically, but also personally. It’s truly the first album that made me enjoy and appreciate music beyond late 80’s and early 90’s hip-hop. It was the first guitar and live drum driven record that really resonated with me. This lead me to want to pick up the guitar for the first time, which eventually lead to me joining some friends in my first band at the age of 13. This has obviously lead to me continuing to play music and in bands to this day. Also, those friends I first played with back then are still some of my best friends to this day. I truly owe a lot of this to falling in love with Nirvana’s Nevermind.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

O.A.R.

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

As a teenager.

“The first record I ever bought was Nevermind and it defined my adolescence. It flipped a switch inside of me. I remember watching “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on MTV and thinking “this is what I want to be.” I took all of my dad’s flannel shirts, bought a pair of Doc Martens, and attempted several times, all failures mind you, to dye my hair with Kool-Aid. I mowed a lot of lawns and flipped about a million burgers to buy a Fender Mustang like Cobain, and with it, I learned every part of every song—-on bass and drums too. For me, Nirvana was three guys that could have lived down the street from me making music and literally turning popular music on its side. They unseated the “King of Pop!” What more can you say? Nirvana is my Beatles and I still want to be Dave Grohl when I grow up.”

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com

The Stepkids

What age did you first discover Nevermind?

I first fell in love with Nevermind at age 10.

How did Nevermind impact your life?

It was songwriting that was comparable to The Beatles, but for my generation. Plus the avant-garde element was really appealing… There were lots of big songs on that album, it feels like every song was a single just like a Beatles album.

Copyright © 2011 Pastemagazine.com