Hi, my name's Dave Grohl, and I feel, um, I feel good about being Conan's friend. I feel like a qualified good. Yeah, I'm still unsure. Hello, I'm Krist Novoselic, and I feel jazzy about being Conan O’Brien's friend. Yes, see? No pause, no anxiety. Just joy, sir. My name is Steve Albini, and I feel, uh, anxiety about being Conan O’Brien's friend. You can feel that it's palpable. And not uncommon, I'm sure. I can tell that we are going to be friends.
Hey, welcome to Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend. Of course, usually there's a lot of nonsensical bibble babble at the top of the podcast.
Today, there really isn't time for that. This is a very special episode. Recently, I had this very cool opportunity to fly to Chicago and sit down and chat with Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, along with producer, audio engineer Steve Albini, so that we could talk about the making of the classic album in utero, which came out 30 years ago in September 1993.
I remember this time very well, because I was launching my late-night show, and the in-utero music was really the soundtrack to that crazy time in my life. So, uh, really cool that my guest today sat with me, and we chatted about this very important record.
We covered a lot of ground, including what it was like to deal with the pressures of suddenly being the number one rock band in the world, how they could follow up the unexpected massive success of their album Nevermind, and Dave and Chris also shared some memories of their friend and bandmate, Nirvana's creative leader, Kurt Cobain. So, let's listen in.
This is an honor. Thank you very much for gathering here. It's the 30th anniversary of in utero, and my first question for the three of you was, does it feel like 30 years? There's the time component, it's temporal, right? And when I look back, I think there's somebody who's missing here, who's a person that should be here right now, and Kurt Cobain's not here. And so, just basing that, and looking back at that time, I mean, it was great time to make the record.
I had a good time, and we were really productive, and that was like the glue that kept the band together, was just we really like to play together, and we played well together. I didn't understand that. Okay, this is absolute bullshit, and all of this is staying in. Chris, not a such watch. What the fuck were you talking about? Can't keep his phone. Okay, growl your neck. What's on you right now? Sorry, I didn't understand that.
Hey Siri, answer Conan's question. Hey Siri, why did Hal kill the crew in 2001? It feels like just yesterday that we recorded. The great of Siri had a really good, perky answer. So yes, you were saying for you were really interrupted by a computer. I should have just had the AI spewed out. So, I mean, we could tell stories about the record, like how we made it. It was a good time. I mean, we were in this house, and Granite Falls, Minnesota.
Cannon Falls. Cannon Falls. Cannon Falls. I don't think I think you. I stand Siri. Isn't Granite Falls where Rocky and Bullwink are from? Probably. We'll pursue that in the Saturday later. And Boris. Yeah. Anyway, I remember I have a very clear memory of this album coming out, because I had... There's I think a three day difference between when in utero drops, and when I start my late night television show. Oh wow.
The music on the album, because I was such a huge fan, being such a background music to the terror and the weirdness of me starting a late night show from complete obscurity in 1993. So... That's similar to the Nirvana experience, I would imagine, that you know, at the time we were... When the band became popular in 1991, we were so young. Yeah. I think I was 21 or 22, and you might have been 25 or something, but we were... Yes, your kids. ...over kids.
Yeah. And so, you know, 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 to four years. And then, three kids that were basically living or touring out of a van, to them becoming a huge band, and then in utero becoming the sort of uncomfortable soundtrack to that sort of transition.
By 1992, 1993, we were living in a different world than we were just 16 months before, you know. I was thinking about it today, and I was thinking the only way that you can understand the making of in utero is to understand where you were at that time. The only way to understand that is to start with, nevermind, which had its Geffen records modest expectations by the record label. I think they were going to be very happy if you sold 250,000 units. They printed 50,000 units of the CDs. 50,000.
Thinking that should do it, and if we have to make more, we will, I talked to someone who was working at Geffen at the time, they said when nevermind hit and started to blow up, and then really blow up. At one point, they had to stop making and manufacturing all of the other CDs for the other artists on their label and turn them all over to making nevermind. Which sounds like something that just doesn't happen. It was completely unprecedented.
And so that's the good news, but with that comes all kinds of bullshit. You mentioned time, Conan, and so personally, that was 30 years ago, but that time, when nevermind released, and then Kurt died, what happened in that span of time feels like it was 10 years. Yeah. It was so much ghost. There was so much intense. Yeah. For me, it took my entire childhood to prepare me for adolescence.
And then it took my entire adolescence and young adulthood, prepare me for being gainfully employed and independent as a person. So you have a long runway for the major stages in your life. And Nirvana went from being couch surfers to being the biggest band ever in the world in a span of about 18 months, something like that.
Like, I can't fathom the kind of whiplash in every part of your life. Like you go from having normal relationships with normal people who see you as another normal person to every time you walk in a room, everybody's mouth just drops open and you're like this instantly you're the center of attention.
And everyone has expectations and questions and demands and they want to attach themselves to you. Like everything changes just from being a normal schmuck to being this intensely public figure on whom other people have laid incredible expectations.
And on whom other people are like literally dependent, their careers are dependent on your behavior and your whims. And so now they feel like they have to marshal that they have to like participate in how you are as a person because of their self interest. Like uniquely perversely capitalist notion. And suddenly you guys are responsible for an industry. And the thing that occurs to me is that fame, money, success is great news for a lot of artists in the business and a lot of music artists.
If you come from the punk world and you are religious adherence to the punk ethos, which you guys were in Kurt was success is tricky because there's so many artists if they make a lot of money go out get a Bentley, you know, Jesus, the Beatles were very comfortable going out and getting a Rolls Royce and paying you that or paying 90% taxes. Right. Right. Okay. Well, that's a good point. I hadn't thought of that. And we're going to do a second one we get into taxation.
But what I wanted to point out was there's a whole culture of yay we made it and we throw money around there's almost a shame and a trap that set if you're part of the punk ethos isn't there. So I want to this is something that I have run into over and over and over again is people outside the music scene people who are not band members not musicians not part of the culture of punk at all as
are not. And so I'm not describing to punk's this notion that success is bad and this notion that if you are successful you are somehow bad and evil and that it is that we don't want people to become successful. I have never experienced that genuinely for anybody in any anyone in the in the punk scene that wasn't purely a jealousy expert an expression of jealousy right on the whole
and the Nirvana fans wanted Nirvana to become successful and self sustaining and be loved. So I just wanted to clear the air and say like there was no animosity toward Nirvana Nirvana. No, I'm talking about the band itself. So you know before we made the record never mind we were pretty much living in squalor right. So I was living with Kurt in this tiny little apartment and they were just corned arg sticks and cigarettes all over the place and it was like.
It was awesome. Fucking disgusting. Yes. I would have done anything to had to have my own apartment you know like and to be able to do that. Through making music. I know that the transition happened really quickly but it didn't happen you didn't just wind up with a million dollars in your mailbox the next day. Right. It went from being like a pretty and went up to $15 a day. Like oh my god. That means I can get two packs of cigarettes or whatever. And then you know went from.
Possibly get better like. Exactly. That's how my gosh for staying in a motel you know I'm sharing a room with Kurt or whatever but it's not someone's floor and then just small things and then from September to December of 1991 is when everything really blew up. And I didn't feel conflicted or any guilt or shame in knowing like oh I just I just paid off my mother's house. Yeah. Or I bought my mother a car or now I can afford to you know buy a new pair of shoes or whatever it was I didn't.
I think the reason why I I personally didn't feel so conflicted about everything was because I knew that the band hadn't done anything outside of our our true selves to get there we just did the thing that we did and then it happened and so.
That was just my experience after and then I and then I got to I got to move in with another friend and have a house and I remember it's funny to talk about the Bentley remember that fucking weird Yugoslavian car that you bought did you own a you go no what was it didn't you get some car didn't you buy some car that was like this tiny thing oh the Renault Dalfine.
That's what I gave it to me. Oh right. Wait that's it. That was your rock star moment is someone gave you a Renault Dalfine which I was like like a shoe more than a car. I really fit in it. I got it running pretty good. But yeah, I mean of course we didn't go straight to the Bentley's and stuff like that. But I mean it I I was very happy to have finally been able to really support myself as a musician. Now they're doing a thing that I love to do.
There is and this is what's getting us towards in utero is there is a lot of stuff that comes with being the number one rock band suddenly there's all this tabloid noise in curtain court and his life that's creating a lot of drama. And then the other thing that starts to creep in is a dissatisfaction with never mind being too slick.
Now what is that does that what does that come from you have to ask him about that ask her. Okay, and he will see and go into the we were talking about just like the pressure being the sudden fame. And then Kurt had he got more attention because he was out front. Yeah. Okay, so then he felt more pressure. Okay, then yeah, he started to do heroin and that he left drugs.
And there's a price for that and that complicated things a lot. Remember Dave and I went to go see him in the rehab. He was in a rehab and we're going how you doing it was good so good to see him and he was doing all right. And he goes you know that Steve Jones came to visit me and he didn't have to do that. I mean that was really nice. It's from the sex pistols. And we're like what's he like? He was wearing Birkenstocks. Talk about a fucking sellout.
But now for the sex pistols is wearing Birkenstocks. Yeah, but he went to the rehab to see he didn't have to do that. And it was nice that he that was a nice. So you know just dealing with that stuff. I mean, there's that nonsense. But were you guys because I know Kurt was very vocal about thinking that never mind. Yes, huge hit, but he thought the production was too slick. And that is something that he said at the time he may have changed his mind about that later on.
Had he lived it must have been like 1989, 1990. We were cruising in this van and I think we're listening to surf a Rosa and then Kurt was sitting there in the chair and he raises his finger. It makes a decree because this shall be our snare sound.
So the pixies. So that made by yours truly. And then he and then that's the there you go that we ended up in working with Steve. So that is you know what I think I think as you were talking earlier and about feeling uncomfortable with this new world of Nirvana fame and stuff like that.
I think that when things did become huge that we all sort of kind of retreated and sort of clung to the things that we felt most attached to whether it was weird old cars or going back to Virginia or whatever it may have been for Kurt. But always musically I think that whether it was Kurt feeling like never mind may have been over to produce or to over produced or something we had always listened to records that Steve had made.
I remember when I first moved in with Kurt, I think he only had like four records. It was like we will hit it. He had a Mark Lannigan record. There was surfer Rosa. There's a breeder's pod and a Jesus' record record. And that was just the sound that we felt most that we love. And I think we probably wanted to work with Steve before we made never mind but we wound up making it with butch.
Who should be said is no slange. Butch, butch, butch, as the producer on Nevermind. And you know what you're bringing up is that kind of in the background all along there was this sound that Steve Albini was getting with the pixies with the breeders that spoke to you guys. And so my question for you guys is what is that sound? Okay, it's the snare. Is it the recording of the drums or is it something bigger than that?
It's the collective sound of all of those things where not one seems to be kind of in front of the other. To me, it always sounds really centered where it's like the vocal isn't jumping ahead of everything else or things are like writing up and down. And so it sounds like the sound of a group in a space and really just natural, you know, I mean, I think who was it that talked about distance in recording the distance. Yeah, but like how dips distance kind of. Yeah, I'm a great step. Right.
And so if you listen to a lot of the drum sounds with Steve stuff, there is sort of this sense of distance in a way that gives the sound more depth. That's what I think. And and correct me if I'm wrong, but but Steve, it felt like you're what you were going for and what you were about was you wanted the band to sound like the band.
And then I came to sound like this is how they sound when they're in a room and they're together and something real is happening. You want you don't want all that separation. You don't want double tracking. You don't want a lot of fall or all nonsense.
Well, there is a I mean, there seems to be said setting up as a kind of a compare and contrast between me and butch Vig. And I should point out that butch Vig's production aesthetic and his like approach as an engineer was like formed and precisely the same way that mine was doing.
Budget records for dead broke bands in a short amount of time like trying to be as efficient as possible with with not just with the time but with the materials and like you're hitting your snare drum head so hard we're going to have to buy a new snare drum head. So like let me let me put some gaffer on there or something to keep so that we don't split the snare drum head that like his aesthetic and his techniques are very much in the same school as mine.
The thing that I remember most about the Nirvana butch connection is that when we got to the studio to start work on the in you know album Kurt had a cassette of the rough mix that butch had given him of the nevermind sessions that wasn't the finished album that was in the stores it was the cassette of of the tracks that butch had done without any like fanciful mixing with that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, just like these are the tracks and he played that to get familiar with the sound of the studio he played it through the speakers and I thought it sounded fucking fantastic. Do you guys know what I'm do you remember that I thought it sounded fucking great and I don't remember forgive me I don't remember hearing the the nevermind album and thinking this sounds fucking great.
It didn't bring to mind any of the records that butch had done that I was familiar with that were the records that made his reputation and probably made Nirvana want to work with him in the first place so to be fair to just go back to that time nevermind is out there there the biggest band in the world they're looking to make their follow up album.
At that time what did you were you a fan were you a fan of Nirvana I wasn't super familiar with Nirvana I had heard like the ubiquitous stuff that everyone that was being played on the radio and all the clubs. And like every gig you would go to as you were loading in the sound guy would put nevermind on to crank the PA and balance the PA.
So I had heard the album many times sort of second hand right I wasn't a student of Nirvana if I'd ever seen him play live I'm certain I would have become a fan. So the decision is made we would like see well being to produce this record and most people I think anyone else on the planet in that position would have said please please please please please and you write this letter when you find out that they're interested and this letter is not a please hire me letter.
It's a great letter so but it is it is a I'll do it but here are my conditions will let which is really which is in first of all this is like a theorem. Yeah yeah it is I mean it really is a it's a bit of a screed about what you believe and I will do this if you do it on my terms and if you're willing to do it and then you shockingly say I'm not taking points on this record.
I don't want to do that you said I want to be paid like a plumber just give me some money upfront but you thought it was immoral to get points in the record. Yeah I mean the the way that record producers and recording people are compensated in at that time in particular was a trick of accounting that shifted the cost away from the label and toward the band made the band ultimately responsible for whatever the producer got paid.
And it didn't come out of the general proceeds of the record the way it would in an independent labels contract for example it came specifically out of the money that would otherwise have gone to the band like literally every dollar I would be paid would mean that was a dollar that Dave didn't get or
curtain get I mean that's just the way that that's the way the accounting works and those kinds of deals and I think that's ethically untannable I don't I and I I'll admit that I think less of people who opt to do things that way I think it's on its face it's absurd like I work on a record for a few days and then for the rest of your fucking life you have to keep paying me like you get me a chip off of every nickel that you are like you to talk to my agent and my manager if you would.
Speaking about this letter specifically the letter is sort of acquired a notoriety of its own because it was included in the read some of the reissue materials and it was sort of for the first time the general public got to read this correspondence right what happened was that I had several phone conversations with Kurt about the prospect of me working on a record and we talked all of this stuff
through like so some of the things in there that sound kind of flippant or sound like I'm being kind of brusque that's based on a conversational awareness between me and Kurt were you guys united that yep Steve Steve is the guy and were united were you united in this new direction
you know you know it's funny we were in between I guess it might have been 1992 when we went down to Brazil we had that week off in Brazil we we're playing this festival is called the Hollywood Rock Festival in Rio and some Apollo so there are two shows one we can in Rio one is part and then we had a whole week off in between and we had nothing to do so we found this studio that I think belong to the record company
is working company now they can this is nice old need board in here you're not doing anything so we set up our gear and just started fucking around maybe for two or three days and I think maybe
Kurt had some riffs and some things here in there a lot of it was just jamming but it was it was great because it was just the three of us in this room with nothing but time to fuck around and no one to tell us what to do or how to do it and I think that that was kind of the beginning of the vibe coming to record with Steve like there was it was really a
long way room there was barrett's basement with his laundry room in my house and my basement yeah and there was a lot of washer and dryer there and we set up and we just we did these like improvisation songs again I think that a lot of this was meant as some sort of returned us feeling like we still own ourselves or we own we're still the same people we're still the same band and we're not to be changed by all the other crazy bullshits
and we felt most comfortable doing it like that it's funny I haven't been in the food fighters now for so long when I think about being in Irvana it was just when we got in a room to play music it was so fucking simple there was all of that other complication just disappeared literally like put my drums in the back of my car go to Chris house and go to the basement and put it in there and start playing even though people consider us to be this giant band we still functioned as we always had when it came to making music
so I think that's I think the Brazil stuff is really that's where I started to get a vibe or a feel of what was going to happen when we went to record the Steve those are considered like demos you know the magic was the three of you guys working together and not being really interfered with that much and so you have this weird trip to South America
where accidentally you get to reconnect with that yeah which is pretty amazing and then you think okay we think we we think we know the guy who can do this and that takes us to the studio where you record this which is 50 miles south of Minneapolis yeah I had been there a couple of times already but also I have a question yeah this studio is called Packardium Studio it was amazing with the house is beautiful it was like a Frank Lloyd Wright looking thing I have indoor
springing the Brady bunch house like the Brady bunch house but flank kind of flank right light I'm am I crazy or was this place owned by some kid that inherited a bunch of money from his rich family because his rich family was the family that invented that smoked brown plastic desk organizer desk organizer yes the story you're relaying is 100% true
no one could make that up I thought Steve made it up until it's me so I want to set the picture for people because one of you I don't know who it was described it as a gulag meaning you go I think it was you was reading Soljian it's and like he's walking to the gulag and he can hear the snow crunch beneath this boots yeah beneath his boots and he's and it it's like you know as an ancient Soviet detention center but a lot of it makes sense
with an indoor swimming pool with an indoor swimming pool which a lot of gulags had to be fair the nicer gulags had it but Steve it's almost like you were offering them a sensory deprivation tank saying well come to this middle of nowhere you were booked because your huge stars number one band in the world you're booked as the Simon Richie group there was a general concern about Kurt having a relapse so they didn't want him to be in an urban setting
that had another layer of concern which is that like I shouldn't even tell them that Nirvana is coming to their studio because even if only one person tells one person that one person is going to tell for sure one person and that one person is for sure going to tell 100 people and before you know it there's going to be a fucking news truck and a bunch of teenagers outside this studio no matter where it is
and we got away with it for kind of a long time like it was like think the end of the first week some local kid showed up at the front door because he saw Kurt at the supermarket or something on the snowmobile yeah but we got away with it like the the studio didn't know that Nirvana was coming to record at their studio I booked it under my name I had done a bunch of sessions there like I said
and I told him yeah it's good the Simon Richie group it's a country in western outfit and a lot of things were sort of tactical like Kurt didn't have to be handled with with mittens like it wasn't like he was like on the verge of relapse every second it was just anyone that's in recovery they're an addict right
to the point of you're in this very remote location and at the end of your letter you say PS if a record takes more than a week to make somebody's fucking up so your ethos was I want to get this band in a room and let them play and I will place the mics I will do it I will do my job but I want to really capture this band live and that experience of seeing
Nirvana show up and play for you you know live so how did you feel when you first saw them play what I wanted was for them to go into a studio and behave normally you don't have to just sit there in a room by yourself playing to a click track you get to play with your band around you like always you know we don't have to replace everything with a microscope and tweezers you can just play like a band right you know
behave normally have the normal experience that is the thing that got you animated about music and about the first place yeah exactly you guys had had some downtime and the impression I get from everything I've read and everyone I've talked to is that you came into the in utero experience ready to go with a real sense of purpose and playing really fucking well is that does that feel right to accurate description I think so
the first song we did was serve the servants and then we had met Steve and he set up and then I remember Steve just standing by the big stutter tape machine and you know just he hits record and he's got his arms crossed he's watching us and we knocked the song out in one take we're like oh that was the keeper literally the first thing recorded in the session is the first song on the album as recorded what's amazing is a lot of
songs were done in a take or two takes but there's a there's a thing that like so far none of the train spotters have mentioned this so I don't know if it's generally known but the song there's like a quiet bit of the song and then it kicks in to full Monty and we had done a sound check of the instruments before they did the take but the full Monty was Kurt kicked on an overdrive pedal which he hadn't used in the sound check so when the first loud bit comes in the guitars were
pinning on the tape machine like he was about 60 be hotter than proper for the session right so I immediately grabbed those channels and ratchet it them back so the first beat of the loud part the tape machine is slightly over driving and those channels are in the red and it's you know bad
engineering on my part but you know by the second or the third beat it was back to normal so but there is this moment there's this like slightly like you're a sport yeah you caught it cycle you know or a couch guide just like telling your guy turn that down or he took you know
but in a conventional in a conventional setting just the fact that we went over on that first beat just the fact that it was the first run through just the fact that there there was this potential scar would be enough to say all right well let's let's do it again let you know let let's
do it that was nice for first take let's try it again but everybody heard it on playback and I mentioned it I said you know there's an overload here on this first beat because I wasn't prepared for the overdrive and you know got it back got it in line but and everybody heard it on a playback was like yeah that's fine and so that's on the record now which is the sort of thing that you know when you're working in budget conditions and like sort of grubby studio sessions that shit happens all
the time and you just live with it but for a band of their stature and of their resources to be able to see let's go ahead and use the first take just because it sounds fine we're you know we're not that picky I think I thought that that was a remarkable display never mind I think was two months maybe to make and then you to row is never mind was like 12 days or 14 days was it 14 days I thought it was really quick the recording of it yeah recording of it but then
it's the mixing and everything that I mean I think soup to nuts we were you to row is two and a half weeks oh three weeks if we had been a little bit more efficient we could have been out the door in 12 days but I think we were done in 14 years of the thing so because we were looking for that kind of performance and we were looking for that kind of recording and most of the takes were maybe one or two takes or something we were
done with the drums and I think the basic tracks in what three days or three or four days three or four days so that left me with a good week of sitting around doing fucking nothing in that house like the shining watching those David attenborough video tapes like things like that wait why are you watching David attenborough because there's nothing else to do yeah and this is before streaming this is a different time yeah
fireplace I would start fires remember and I would do the fireplace very primordial primordial activities a man tending the fire is very shining it was very shining yeah okay you mentioned it so I can bring it up you say tending fires there was also some pyromaniac happening during the making of in in utero and I don't know if this was it is this was something that you guys picked up guys would play with
lighter fluid yeah let's talk about that let's do it clean it is a cleaning solvent there's a cleaning solvent that was used in the studio to clean the tape heads and clean clean equipment stuff it's a very pure alcohol that burns off so you can like you can put it on your hand and set your hand on fire like oh look I'm you know I'm a human torch fuck off fire whatever and so I brought some in we're
going to all doubts ourselves with it and you know you get bored with setting regular things on fire and then you start setting other people on fire and so you know what what what kind of things are you
setting on fire did you my ass you did I think you let a cigar off of my ass yeah that was while that was on fire was your any how long is your ass on fire for what's the amount of time well long enough long enough for a fresh to light a cigar so that's something that at least 10 seconds for someone
to take a picture yeah okay do you ever smell anything cooking just our hot tracks no I think that yeah I mean you know we're on the middle of nowhere with nothing to do no things thing you light things on fire we did there were also prank phone calls because Steve had this a realistic
like remember radio shock and it was a it was a microphone like you can stick on a phone the microphone part of the phone yeah I might have Steve have it the receiver part in that recorder you still have it I might have you have some of these recordings you can record
off the phone like on a cassette right yeah okay I've done some research and like mixing you should have gotten rid of these tapes you guys pranked Gene Simmons yeah I believe it was one of kiss fame was my favorite one who deserves who deserves pranking by the way my favorite
one I don't know if you remember spoken to Gene Simmons he's I have I love my favorite he says what I love the melvin's he does yeah he does just like Jackie Mason yeah he he was on my show once and all he did was sell merchandise and I kept trying to get him to tell interesting stories
and say we'll get to that in it's but first and then he'd go in and he'd say the kiss coffin and he had a kiss coffin that he was selling absolutely true I pretended to be Kurt calling Gene Simmons Gene Simmons had reached out to Kurt Gene Simmons had called their management because there was a
Kiss tribute album being put together and Nirvana the biggest band in the world were friends with the melvins and the melvins that a kiss cover and he assumed that Nirvana would want to do a kiss cover to be on it Gene Simmons cannot it fathom that anyone on earth is not a massive kiss fan
right I'm gonna say this a healthy ego and Gene if you're listening this is a good thing to have when I was like 12 years old to like maybe 14 I was a huge in a kiss yeah yeah and Gene was my favorite yeah and Nirvana had recorded a kiss on oh God I was a disaster what did you record we were drunk
okay well it's you drinks are needed to record a kiss song sometimes so the word comes down that Gene Simmons is desperate to get Nirvana on this album and Kurt is like I don't want to talk to fucking Gene Simmons and I said I'll do it so I called him I called him called him back and I pretended
to be Kurt and I parried the whole thing away by saying that I wasn't making all the decisions because I had a reliability problem so you're and are you talking directly to Gene yeah as Kurt and Gene thinks he's talking to Kurt yeah and Kurt is sitting right next to me listening to me do an
impression of him you do a really good good can we hear just a second if you talking to Gene Simmons I could see Kurt Giggling do you know do you know the wipers I really love the wipers do you know the wipers and then Gene Simmons comes back with I
don't know the wipers I don't know the wipers you call I love this one you call Evan Dando no even better Evan Dando there was someone in Evan Dando's tour party who was a friend of Nirvana and had the phone number for the studio and called from a hotel in Australia a direct call from a hotel
in Australia probably the most expensive fucking phone call that you could make right right builds to the to the room so Evan Dando's like footing the bill for the most expensive direct call on earth and what we did was we somehow we convinced that guy found Evan and convinced him that Madonna's
personal assistant had found had tracked him down yes at the hotel in Australia and wanted to talk to him that's it that's the whole that's the whole context so Evan Dando thinks he's on hold waiting for Madonna right and every few minutes I would get back on the phone and say she asked me to
place the call she's still busy can you can you wait a little bit longer and I had some absurd accent that I thought Madonna's assistant would have yes you know and and now Madonna has and then he's just like yeah of course yeah sure I'll wait yeah of course and so literal silence for minutes on
and on this and then the sound of him exasperatedly like telling everyone around him like I'm on hold for Madonna you know and he's paying for the whole thing sure because it was actually the call actually 700,000 dollar prank phone call yeah and then Australian dollars any veteran I think
was there a prank called any better at some point yeah and I don't remember why that one that was me as well I don't remember why we did that one because I don't there was no you guys weren't like fighting you're feuding no no no yeah so I do remember getting him on the phone
and telling him I pretended to be Tony Visconti remember that you're some by the way you're supposed to be the adult in the room I remember that you know you're the guy that's supposed to be you're in charge and you're lighting you're lighting artists on fire you and and and and prank calling so
but I'm producing David Dolly or something I can't remember what it was I can't remember the context but I was like yeah I'm here with the black crow's or something I had some bullshit band that I claimed that I was with and then I and they were playing me your record and I
I want to get you in the studio with a real band guys who can really play that's pretty good did he get mad I said or no yeah well you have these you're gonna get to put these out at time yeah I don't I genuinely don't remember the the banter but I do remember I think I thought
he handled it pretty deftly I think he acquitted himself well like talking on the phone to Tony Visconti a record producer who wanted to fire his band do you you say at one point you say he goes where where are you I'm in Manitoba do you know where that is and there's this long
pausicus no oh please put these out you'll get the releases I'll take I'll take care of the legal end of it just please release these one of the nice things about the studio it says residential like you're there the whole time you can you know get up there's nowhere to go right you can take you can
take a long walk I think in the woods yeah there's a great I mean there we also I don't know if we've really established that this was in February yeah yeah the dead of winter in the dead of winter icicles in the middle of fucking nowhere 20 foot icicles off the eaves of all the buildings
so even just a walk from the house to the studio which is what 100 yards yeah if that you risk prospect so there's really no getting out and doing anything you're all just kind of really contained in this beautiful house it was great but there's no little town to go to I mean there is
there's a like if you want to drive a few miles you can get into the little town of cannon falls but there's like a bar and like and antique shop and like a gas station that's it yeah I have really fun memories of being in that record to be honest like I really had fun yeah and I think
that we it sounded so good as we were doing it just within the room as we were playing and then we would listen to playback and I mean you you have to imagine like here's this guy who's made these albums that sound we just always wanted to sound like Nirvana making a Steve L. Beanie record
and it was a dream come true and as a drummer I mean you know to to get that Steve L. Beanie drum sound it's like it was it was a joy it was really what is that can I just ask without getting overly technical but what is how do you get that drum sound because I remember reading hammer the
gods years and years and years ago and they described how Jimmy Page had ideas about I'm going to get a sound from John bottoms drum by moving the and I remember it was a revelation to me that by moving the microphone you could get a different sound because I don't know shit let me just let me just
cut you off and bum you out by saying that everything that has ever been written about studio techniques and studio lore and all the fables of things that have happened in the studio on famous records every single thing in the popular culture that people have heard about happening in the
studio did not happen it's all bullshit there are a very very very small number of the story studio stories like oh they smeared cocaine on the tape you know like all this it's all bullshit it does you know that's all just completely like fabulous stuff that people write because they
they want to ascribe some sort of magic to the process there's no magic to it this is heartbreaking what about Jimmy Page really being the guy who played all those cool leads for the who in the early 60s for example I mean that's probably true Jimmy Page I heard so not everything's
bullshit okay is there a Santa but things like you know like like I think Dave can confirm that he set up a normal drum kit in a normal room and I put normal microphones all around it and then I didn't fuck with him like you know it's about not getting in the way and the like I suppose one
one thing that's kind of notable is the ambient sound in that room that room is really nice was a really nice acoustic sound and I'm fond of using the ambient sound in a room if the room is is nice the room we're sitting in right now is a lovely sounding room and the the sound of my voice
that going off the walls is much better than my actual voice right yeah I talked to you outside it was all but he he uses like vintage German microphones that are sweet and they have their own kind of sound personality yeah it's funny that you mentioned Jimmy Page because I actually interviewed
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page after they made the record with you so Robert Plant and Jimmy Page made a record with Albini and what 1998 or something 99 or something like it was wasn't that far after yours because it was like wasn't yeah like I was on everybody's shit list after I did your record
and then I did a bush record and a the page and plant record and that was it so they called me to interview them for this some magazine yeah and and I you were the connection they're like well you should interview these guys because you love Led Zeppelin and you've made a record with Steve
Albini and so I was terrified I don't know if I'd ever met them before and never interviewed anyone before and so we sat down and a tape and cameras rolling stuff and I knew that at some point I was we were going to talk about you okay I listened to the record we talked about the record but we were
going to and I asked why they chose you and I remember Jimmy Page saying that he felt very connected to a familiar with your recordings because it was somehow similar to what he was trying to achieve when making Led Zeppelin records same sort of ambience and stuff like that and we started talking
about microphones and talking about placement and equipment and shit like that and then Robert Prince stops us and he goes excuse me it's getting a bit technical isn't it I was actually dreading I was dreading this anecdote because you've never told me this anecdote and my my presumption was
the reason you never told me this anecdote was because they they were mean to me and that you didn't want to hurt my feelings no no no no no no they love you you're too sensitive you people always say that about you the well let's get to it because you said you're on some people's shit list after in in you to row you guys make this you have this experience you have this great experience you make this album it goes off to Geffen and then you find out I think it was in Kurt's words the grown-ups
don't like it they don't they it's too raw they're worried about it it's not what they're worried it's not radio friendly when did you start to hear about that I remember hearing that the initial reaction was you're fucking joking you're kidding right like I think that was maybe one of the record companies first reactions because I think you know when you make a record like never mind of course most of the people the record companies want a follow-up that's going to either do the same thing
post to mix never mind and we the recording went a little over and butch wanted some time to just rest his ears and just get away from it for a few days and then we went to Devonshire remember and then we started mixing it and it just wasn't they've label wasn't happy and then we stopped
mixing the record and we all went home and then we brought Andy Wallace in and that was just one of those compromises and labels just like you know so then we worked with Andy Wallace mixed never mind yeah and so then like well I like the record but we're we'd have this I talked
to Kurt about it we'd have these conversations Dave we're like oh well you know we are a big band and we do have a salvagation and we live in a fabulous house right and so maybe we just compromise like what is like the big what it's going to be the radio song see Kurt wrote a song called radio
friendly unit shifter which is totally cynical right and so like all right and then we knew we were big REM fans they were recording automatic for the people in Seattle and that was that was studio x at the time that was the best studio in Seattle so I would go down there and hang out
listen to the then make this record and listen to their mixes at the end of the night or their recordings and then that's how I got to new no um scott lid and then some I don't remember the details but then it was like well hop scott lit could mix a song or two and that's it that's
the so so so to me it feels a little bit like there's this again this thing I was trying to get to earlier with this push me pull you feel of we want to stay true to what we set out to do and we have this certain sound but we are the number one band in the world and we are competitive
and we want to get some radio play we but like like for heart-shaped box remember Steve like that solo like I I didn't like the way that solo was and the way it was just it was so it was too intense really snarlie it was really snarlie and I'm like well you know this song is a really pretty song
and it's in a sad song in some ways and this I think I use the term like this sounds like you're just through this abortion on the floor that's what I said that also there's this abortion on the floor this is terrible and then you know and then we just talked we would discuss it you know and then
one thing lived to another and I don't know if yeah so you got the different solo I believe as someone who wasn't in Nirvana and didn't have these internal band conversations with them like my assessment of it was that they were managing their internal tensions and they're it's normal
after you finish a record to have some doubts about it and they're like you know like you know wander like should we do another take of this should you know should we try this I think Kurt added some backing vocals to a song that had otherwise was otherwise finished like the public
perception is that the record label insisted that they change things and Nirvana gave in on some stuff well they were leading on us and there you know that wasn't my ball right on it at all yeah my read on it was that Nirvana had decided that they were going to resolve these things on their own
and the record label was carping to the rest of you know and the management and everybody was they were carping about it but Nirvana was going to fucking handle it it wasn't up to them right and what I said then and what I've been saying ever since is the record that made it into the stores
is the record that Nirvana wanted everyone to hear well you know the funny thing is that after in utero it became kind of a predictable move for other bands that were in similar situations an unknown band goes into the studio unknown underground sort of like rock band goes into the studio
gets a record deal goes into the studio they're put into the studio with a producer they make an album that's produced and it does really well and then they feel kind of weird about it because maybe it didn't sound the way they wanted to sound maybe they got to popular whatever it was and then
they go into it make their second record they're like well now this is what we really sound like so weasered did it with their album Pinkerton which is a fucking amazing record first weasered record has much hits they become really popular then they go into make their second record Pinkerton
and that album it's kind of like they're in utero yeah another band like Bush you know Bush is a band that gets really popular it has this produced record then they decide no wait fuck that now that we're big we get to do the thing that we really want to do so we're gonna go in and make
an album that's raw and the way it sounds so I don't know if it was something that was happening before the end I'm sure it happened a million times before in utero but for people that came from the place that we came from being in the garage and being in the van and being in the clubs and
stuff like that I think maybe if a band felt uncomfortable with their immediate rise to fame that's the knee jerk reaction is to go in and make an album where they're like no no wait this is what we sound like I have to say I remember when I first heard the first track was Serve the Servants
and it is such a shot across the bow from the nevermind experience which I love nevermind and then I heard this and even today it feels a little bit like you're taking a brillo pad and you're scrubbing the patina of the song is teenager is paid off well now I'm bored and old yeah
so he's saying he goes now I'm bald and old then I shot him a dirty look really he changed the lyric yeah what a guy that's what friends are for that was nice of him though to change yeah really nice to change really true it was really nice
one of these is a record now the range of the songs is so for the difference between say a Serve the Servants and in all apologies or heart shaped box and you know radio friendly unit you know it's just it's not okay the milk it is just downright menacing and that's when you get
the full on Kurt Cobain just the way he does the vocals is just terrifying it's really spooky but then there's all that stuff that's so sweet too yeah it is yeah and even like even on like the songs that have like big dynamic like harsh bits when he was recording the vocals he always
had that little toy that little broken acoustic guitar and he was strumming along so like a lot of the songs in the verses there'll be this like sort of funky sounding acoustic guitar which was kind of a comfort thing for him what was the gets was it just a really a broken down string with
the six strings on it and then it wouldn't stay in tune so he tightened the cheap tuning pegs with like a screwdriver and then you'd have to use pliers to like tune it like they were so and I think it had like a crack in the top and stuff it was like a real yeah but it was a total piece of junk he was more comfortable singing if he was strumming along on this guitar so you hear this acoustic guitar under the vocals and a lot of these songs in the verses and it's not like he did
a session where he did the acoustic guitar over it up he was just strumming the acoustic guitar while he was singing as a as a comfort thing for himself and it stayed on the record because it didn't sound bad it sounded fine right and it was a casual and loose and informal thing but it made him more
comfortable and so when I think of his aesthetic I don't think of this harsh gnarly violent thing and when you listen like when you think about the way people describe that record at the time it's like oh it's this cathartic menacing terrorish you know terroristic kind of a thing and you
listen to it yeah and there are there are big you know angry powerful moments on it but it's like a lot of it I think is really sweet I remember when you came here in 2013 we did that alternate version of it and we're playing through this stuff and we're listening to it like we played the
masters for the like the first thing we did was play the masters of the original session and both of us were like man this sounds really great like you you know you're listening to it now with the 25 or 30 years of aesthetic that we've been exposed to since then what was the fucking big deal
like well what were people so hot about it just sounds like a really good record well I guess I mean to be fair I got to point out the reviews when the album came out universally almost without exception we're glowing I mean people really the critics whatever that means to you guys at the time
thought it was fabulous work bad reviews thing I wouldn't know never a bump in the road I hear an echo yes they do those fabled electrical audio acoustics is what you're hearing yeah no but it was appreciated when it came out and of course one of the difficulties is that
once Kurt died everybody had to go back and parse through in utero and read lyrics like their tea leaves leading you somewhere and that feels like a recipe for incredible bullshit and misunderstanding you can do it with sound garden lyrics too yeah it's strange when we were making the record we did all of the instrumental tracks first I don't know if Kurt sang any of the songs live it was all just the three of us doing the instrumental tracks first live in a room without really having ever
heard what Kurt was going to sing or even how he was going to sing it like his melodies and patterns that most of these things I just listened to them as instrumental so it was always exciting like a mystery knowing like oh he's in there singing this track today and wondering what it was going to
sound like when he was finished what of you know one of Kurt's amazing abilities was not just that he was a great lyricist but he had a really specific kind of signature melodic turn of phrase so he could he always braided really two simple lines together I think in a way that was almost unpredictable and he would go from like maybe a gentle voice to a scream or maybe a minor key to a major but he would do it in this way that was like really beautifully patterned which I always thought was
really cool and really simple ultimately at most everything that he did I thought was simple but really smart you know anyway so you would hear these things as they came back and you would hear for the first time his melodic idea but also the lyric and every time I would hear it for
the first time I think that's just that's just odd that's unusual it's a weird what a strange thing to say it's that mean but is the drummer of course I'm like shit did I slow down in the chorus now fuck my kick drum still but you know it's I still to this day if I listen to that record
I'll find things or I'll feel things that I didn't necessarily feel 25 years ago not just in light of everything that it happened but of course that you know everything that did happen can you know kind of screw the lens a little bit or distort maybe what it felt like before and what
it feels like now I think it's a slippery slope it's easy to to look back at that stuff and yeah there's a thing that people don't give Kurt credit for enough which is that a lot of people think of his lyrical sensibility as just being a journal of his feelings right he was an artist and he
was incorporating stuff from you know other things other influences bands and records that he admired stuff that he'd read like literature there's a line in one of the songs I think it's most babies smell like butter is that you know what I'm talking about yeah and I was like what a
weird observation that you like smell a baby and like he just had a kid right and and and I found out that that was a a near direct quote from a book that he'd read about a guy who had this sort of sensory experience of the world that was abnormal and you know less apprentice yeah so
surprise is a track on the on in utero yeah and you know and then like he's he's from Seattle and Francis farmers a tragic figure local person to the Seattle area like a lot of lore involved in there were like there had been recently come to light a lot of the sort of manipulative stuff that
had been done to her during her career to try to manage her career like you can see that there parallels there where they're you know like he may have been feeling pressures from outside people trying to manage his artistic expression for their benefit and seeing a parallel between his
life and Francis farmers life and then using hers a figure it's such a great title for a song yeah and that image of leaving a blanket of ash burn all the assholes leave a blanket of ash on the ground but and also it felt like a little bit of a reaction to read somewhere once I think that
there was so many just one name songs that Kurt was really interested in like going the other way so what Francis farmer will have her revenge or the ghost of Francis for well we'll have her revenge on Seattle just as this or at the radio friendly you know shipping unit what that these
were attempts to say I'm reacting to this cute moment we're in where everything is just one and he was aware of that as a trope and he was playing and he played with it he had there was a one song he wanted to call gallons of rubbing alcohol roll through the strip that we had that
jam yeah we did that and he didn't want to be like like be dated or be put in like some kind of box or something so he also was just cryptic not allowed people to just invite people in to make their own interpretation of it then if you look at his other forms of expression like Steve said
like Kurt was an artist and he was he was a great painter he was a sculptor he would do comic books and he's more than happy to walk you through every panel about a comic he did like and and they were always just tragic figures the people and they were or just weird like riding spirit
apparition kind of everything was just kind of strange and dark and weird but and then still but very well done you know beautiful very you know it's done done very well so like that was when he was expressing himself musically is that you know in in utero's that's all over in utero you
know I can go anywhere in the world anywhere and see someone walking down the street in a nirvana t-shirt and I was I mean we're here in Chicago we were walking last night to go get a bite to eat saw someone in a nirvana t-shirt but I mean I could be in you know it could be on Guam and just
see someone really walk by in a nirvana t-shirt and what what always strikes me about these moments is that there's this massive projection that happens which is nirvana legend curt it all gets prismed out and it gets so huge and then I talked to you guys and he's your friend
that you knew in a mtly you guys were very close and it's all become so much bigger there are people out there that have opinions strong opinions about who he was and what he meant and what you guys meant and it must just seem surreal to you at times like no no no that was our that was
our friend there was three of us we were in this we were in a van together and it has now become this i'm back projection on the world my kids sometime will ask me say my daughter Harper now we're driving in the car not long ago six months ago and in nirvana son came on and we
don't listen to nirvana at home this nirvana song comes on she's singing along to the words and thinking wow that's weird i've never heard her listen to an nirvana song how does she know anirvana song and she says um sit dad how old were you when you made this song so god i think
it was like 22 maybe she goes oh uh how old was curt so i think it's maybe like 23 24 she goes what was he like and say well he was he was really nice it's kind of shy sometimes quiet but who's cool but she says well um he was shy was he shy around people that he knew or people that he didn't know and i said well they're kind of a little bit of of both and she said that's so strange that someone who feels shy like that they could write these songs and sing them for everyone
to hear and then stand on stage in front of a hundred thousand people and play them i thought that was so cool because i think she wasn't looking so much at that other thing yeah she was looking at the person right and you know after nirvana was over that that curtain got sort of like sort of
pulled away so it changed the way i thought about every other mythological rock star that i'd ever followed in my entire life and it really made me realize oh shit they were an actual human being we talked like they're playing cards or something like that but they're just people yeah can somebody
help me with this pronunciation of this term apotheosis yeah sounds right that's it okay yeah is that that soap that you get it apotheosis but you need soap to treat it and special medicated so it sounds like the name of a boutique that i cannot afford a single
poteo and skyrisee for that i don't know if that's and that's what it is so like basically the apotheosis what's this whole idea that something uh well okay so i had just this is just my own personal connection to a very public thing for you guys but there was a some back when they were a big deal
MTV awards kind of situation and because i was brand new on the scene you know here's this new guy we're sending him to the he's going to be sitting in like the second or third row and you guys got up and spoke because it was very shortly after Kurt had died and and the two of you went up on stage
and spoke and i remember just having this powerful feeling of they lost their friend you could just feel how wrong personal it all was in that moment people that are in bands are the fraternity that you feel like the compare the companionship of the people that you're intimate creative with
day to day basis is a really incredibly strong bond and it's also and you you know those people intimately we have the this box that we did and john silver did a really good job with that he's a music fan first and foremost and if you i'm not going to be selling my nirvana coffin or whatever
but it has like a live performances there's because this thing is packed i'm curious packed with like curious stories and backstage passes and john silver and silver artist management they put they put it all together and tons of other tracks that didn't make it onto in utero or
there's a bunch of live stuff on here see i'm wondering if it has the demos that we did you know in Brazil but there's like live in Rome live in loss angeles live in Seattle and they're board tapes and then they're we use technology to kind of clean to clean them up you can make a
multi-track now from a stereo did you guys have favorite live performances that just comes alive at this point pat smear had joined the band yeah yeah right now it was a huge like from the release of the album he was touring this is it was it was big because we had made the album and
current i talked about you know at one point there was a second guitarist in nirvana before i joined the band and he wanted to get another guitarist at this point he goes down to loss angeles he comes back he says i found our second guitar player i said really who's that it's the pat smear
from the germs and if anybody knows the germs they were very early on the punk rock band loss angeles perhaps the most dangerous and so i just thought like oh my god i can't believe that fucking guy still alive because he was in the germs and also in a site a sad sign on his darby crash
yeah he committed suicide yeah the singer of the germ germ anyways a pat comes up and i'm just expecting this big disgusting fat junkie and he's the most wonderful energetic brilliant beautiful together he really breathes this whole new life into the band the great thing too is i there's
a great anecdote that defines his contribution to the band in addition to being a great musician and there was a story of you guys playing a show and then there's a not a nice review about the show and it says you know the show was off and someone's reading the review oh i really get it not
people are getting pissed the opening night of the tour the new tour was at the Arizona state fair and it's the first night and so you know it takes a couple shows to get rolling and so it was Edna Gunderson from USA Today she's the way a name that will live in and know it yeah
and she gave us a mediocre review like why didn't she go like three or four shows into the tour then she would have caught us and that's what you get on this box set you get the band is at full but what happens is this review comes out and the story i heard is that the the review comes
out and everyone on the bus is like god damn it why did USA Today write this about us and pass it oh come on we sucked and everybody laughed meaning just sort of taking taking the piss out of the whole thing come on we were off we'll you know well also i love that who do you call to take over
the technical side of things in a guitar band the fucking guy from the germs yeah i can't think of a band i can't think of a band that is a a closer parallel to the kind of like uneasy feeling that you got from the weirdest moments of nirvana than the germs like they're they're their whole thing
had that same sort of yeah like familiar but slightly sleazy and slightly uncomfortable quality and and it was a sonic thing like the sound of Pat smear's guitar it sounded a little sour and a little you know a little creepy and it seemed like a like it was a natural as soon as i heard about it
it's a natural it was great so when we came out to do these shows i mean there were bigger shows and i mean really it was our first arena tour you know when did you like what did you like playing the arenas it felt strange at first i think i mean i was towards the end of 1991 we did an arena
tour opening up for the red hot chili peppers and um you know i was always afraid that that what we did that energy wouldn't translate in a bigger room yeah you know because we were used to playing places this big and put us in the corner there and the place explodes and it's amazing to try to
you know move that yeah to a bigger room be hard so um it felt weird all of a sudden there was like caterers yeah caterers and then the catering fired him because he made the wrong mac and cheese well no because he did it because he had really good food i thought it was really good and
current like corn dogs and macaroni and cheese and our baloney sandwiches so they were making actual macaroni with actual cheese and he never had that before and that was the last fucker's throw you know so it was just like you know was one of those things like uh and then well we did
a show we had a show it was a 90 minute show we had a stage set up we would do our acoustic breakdown part yeah it's like the same show every night play it was like 20 dollar tickets tickets were like 20 bucks because you could sell CDs and make money and then we had like working family prices
but then also the best part was we're like okay we're in arena band now cool the opening band is going to be the boredoms from Japan or the opening band is going to be fucking the butthole surfers so you've got all these kids that like just bought their nirvana t-shirt and they come to the
rock show to see their favorite band and they've got like bobcat gold tweet is the mc and then fuck it in the butthole surfers and the fuck is going on and bobcat gold tweet become the opener for you guys were real fans will your fans Kurt had meat bob that record yeah and then we just
still happen to be it was like in 1990 and I we were in like Michigan or Wisconsin a college radio station and bobcat was there and we said hey we know he didn't know who we were we nobody knew who we were like hey we you're you're on police academy like and he tells us right go say yeah
I met them and I said good luck with your little band as we said goodbye and then we just yeah I don't know we just got him sort of on our side like as as a comedian sure he was like kind of a cynical subversive fucking weirdo yeah yeah and so we liked him he got a battery view Rex
Reed gave him a battery view and he goes he was my favorite judge on the gong show well how do we sum this up it's been 30 years and it must feel good that this work stands the test of time well it does feel good we'll come back in the 50 year anniversary and see
what kind of what we have to offer yeah and it's great that people are are interested in that we have the opportunity to do this and to like add it's there's vinyl and there's live shows so you can he won't be tracked or have a cookie put on your consciousness and you can just put the
the tone arm down on a piece of vinyl and listen to Nirvana live in Rome or Los Angeles or Seattle and you can be it'll it can capture imagination you're invited to come to come inside that world and experience that show so you know I'm just happy to to have the opportunity and you said that
there's no you don't play Nirvana at home now I'm just going to be an exception do you think no I mean the cool thing about being a musician for a long time making a bunch of records is that you eventually start measuring your life not in like increments of time or whatever it's like
albums that you've made so if you ask me about a particular record a screen record or a Fufa I just record whatever I'll immediately know what year it was made and I remember almost everything about where I was and who I was at that time so when I think like 30 years ago what the fuck and
what's that even mean 30 years but if you say 1993 everything comes back and then when you listen to it to me it's almost like these they're sort of like sonic snapshots like in a photo album or something so when I when I hear the music it brings back a lot of personal vivid memories
of just stupid shit like I remember that jacket that I had or that stupid hat I bought in North Carolina or the sock full of mashed potatoes that fucking Steve put in my yeah yeah Steve put it in snuck and that other hole I felt bad when I got ripped off I know I was so sad but
things like that but then also you know again you know I I refer to my children a lot because they're discovering music in the same way that well differently than we did then but sort of emotionally in the same way that we did at the age and you know to see their reaction to this music now is
really fucking cool actually we did this one good we did this uh this uh charity benefit thing once that uh art of a leasing him thing that we did oh long time ago and uh we got asked to play this thing in Los Angeles but we couldn't make it and then the person who was putting on this show
said well why don't you just play acoustic I'm like fuck I don't want to do that so I thought you know what maybe I'll call Chris and Pat and see if maybe Joan Jettel come up and we can do some neuroma songs or maybe someone else is there whatever so um we were thinking about people to sing
and then I don't know who brought it up but some maybe it was you that said does violet want to sing a song or maybe it was Pat my daughter violet and um I saw this do you see it I think there was yeah there was footage of it yeah yeah and so I I was like well I'll ask her and I said hey
Vi um she's a incredible singer I'm like and she really likes Nirvana at the time I think she was maybe 14 probably 14 14 year old girl I said you want to sing Nirvana song she's like yeah absolutely and I said which one of all of them not just this record of all of them and she picks
heart shape box and my first reaction was what have I done to my kid to fuck them up so bad that this is that this is the song they want to sing but um but seriously I was I was very uh proud yeah and what I realized is kids these days there's like this window in between the ages of like
maybe 10 and 13 or 11 and 14 or something like that where almost every kid goes through a Nirvana phase and it's for a reason and I think it has less to do with the sound um I think it has more to do with what it means because I think it means the same thing today to those kids as it did
when we released it so that to me is the coolest thing and selling a lot of t-shirts yeah uh gentlemen it has been an honor seriously you're great artists and you also have a lot of integrity and you've stood the test of time and so getting to hang out with people like you is a big deal
to me and I really appreciate it so uh Steve Chris Dave thank you very much for doing this and uh I was really looking forward to this one and you did not disappoint thanks man thank you very much I'm happy to be your friend well I got you there yeah well less than the anxiety considerably
I feel jazzy still effervescent you look effervescent Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien Sonom of Sessian and Matt Goryley produced by me Matt Goryley executive produced by Adam Sachs, Nick Liao and Jeff Ross at team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Ear Wolf theme song by the white stripes incidental music by Jimmy Vivino take it away Jimmy our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples engineering by Eduardo Perez
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