27: Kurt Cobain (8 page)

On a more domestic level, on Sunday, 2 May 1993, police and an ambulance were called to Kurt and Courtney's rented Seattle house, following reports of a drug overdose on the premises. Kurt had come home smacked up, and when challenged by Courtney, he had retreated to a locked bedroom.

Kurt had taken to disappearing off into Seattle's druggy hinterlands, specifically Aurora Avenue, with its drug connections, hookers and seedy motels: Kurt loved to check into the Marco Polo Inn, where he would hole up doing heroin. ‘There were many overdoses and near-death situations, as many as a dozen during 1993 alone,' wrote Charles R. Cross.
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Yet on the part of Courtney, there were serious and strenuous efforts being made in the spring and summer of 1993 to get clean. She was attending Narcotics Anonymous, drinking only fruit juice, and taking advice from a psychic. Later, however, there would be relapses. Yet her husband was increasingly withdrawn, in a state of acute depression. The junkie's world is one of secrecy and sneakiness, not exactly conducive to positive character development, and one in which addicts are prone to fits of status anxiety and oneupmanship. It was during those months that Kurt declared he was going to get into crack, a drug neither he nor Courtney had previously abused.

On 1 June 1993, Courtney staged – in the jargon of dependency therapy – an ‘intervention' at the house, in which friends would express their concern, urge Kurt to sort himself out, and offer assistance to do this. His friend Nils Bernstein was there, as well as his mother Wendy and Krist. ‘You could see in Kurt's face that he was thinking, “Nothing in your life relates to anything in my life,”' remembered Nils. In front of them, on the wall with a red marker, Kurt scrawled, ‘None of you will ever know my true intent'.
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A month later, on 1 July, Hole played one of their first shows in months, at the Off Ramp in Seattle. Kurt was there, very evidently off his head on something – he had to be helped to walk. Brian Willis of the
NME
went back to the house with Courtney. Kurt – who by now seemed to have come down from his drug intake – was at home. However he kept out of the way as Courtney played Willis
In Utero
– the first time a member of the press had heard the record.

As dawn broke Kurt brought them hot chocolate and muffins.

This is what Brian Willis wrote: ‘For someone who's been through so much shit in the past two years, whose name's being dragged through acrimony once again, who's about to release a record the whole rock world's desperate to hear and be faced with astonishing attention and pressure, Kurt Cobain's a remarkably contented man.'

In Utero
was released on 14 September 1993. If anything, it was an even greater record than
Nevermind
. The album entered the US album charts at number 1, selling 180,000 copies in the first week – even though the US super chains Wal-Mart and Kmart refused to stock it. This was in response to the song ‘Rape Me', which was actually an anti-rape, life-affirming song, as much about Kurt's imagined treatment by the media as sexual brutality. ‘One of the reasons I signed to a major label,' said Kurt, ‘was so people would be able to buy our records at Kmart. In some towns, that's the only place kids can buy records.'

Although Kurt had declared at the beginning of 1993 that he wouldn't tour to support his new album, his arm appeared to have been twisted. Could the lure of money have played a part in this? Kurt's income for 1993 was already estimated to be over $2 million, but with touring he could come close to making double that figure.

On 18 October 1993 a 41-date tour of US arena-size venues – the longest ever Nirvana tour – kicked off at the Arizona State Fair in Phoenix. It was the first time Nirvana had played an arena tour, and they had augmented their sound accordingly. Brought in on guitar was Pat Smear, who in 1976 had started the Germs, releasing ‘Forming/Sexboy' in 1977, considered the first LA punk record. Mixed race, Pat had great positive energy, and was very funny. Also onstage with the band was cellist Lori Goldston, a classically trained musician from Seattle.

During the tour there was increasing distance not only between Kurt and the rest of the band, but evidently also between Kurt and the accompanying Courtney. Kurt hated the celebrity world of which she seemed increasingly enamoured. There was also a rift with his management, especially with John Silva, who now referred to Kurt as ‘the junkie'. Two tour buses were used – one for Kurt and Pat Smear – which also meant Courtney, and one for the rest of the group. Kurt was drinking little on this tour. But others noted how isolated he seemed.

On 21 October, the
In Utero
tour reached Kansas City. Kurt was driven over to meet his hero and fellow junkie William S. Burroughs, who lived in nearby Lawrence. Afterwards, Burroughs said the subject of drugs never came up once. He spent much of their time together extolling to Kurt the virtues of Leadbelly, the blues legend.

At Inglewood Forum on 30 December 1993, as Krist started singing the Kinks' ‘You Really Got Me', Kurt left the stage and returned with a drill, which he drove into his guitar before picking it up and spinning it over his head with the drill still attached. Meanwhile, ‘big hair' rocker Eddie van Halen turned up drunk backstage, wanting to join them in their set on guitar. ‘No, you can't,' said Kurt.

The next day, New Year's Eve, Nirvana were shown on an MTV special,
Live and Loud
. Also on the bill were Pearl Jam, the Breeders and Cypress Hill. The show had been pre-recorded on 13 December at Pier 48 in Seattle, a ferry terminal. It was an event riven by tensions, with Kurt seeming out of it – as did many people in the audience and backstage. Meanwhile, in real time on New Year's Eve, Nirvana were playing the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

After dates in Vancouver, the
In Utero
tour wound up on 7 and 8 January at Seattle's Center Arena. This would be the last time Nirvana played in the United States.

They would soon be on the road again. The
In Utero
tour was heading for Europe, with thirty-eight shows in sixteen countries. The Lollapalooza travelling US festival had made an offer to Nirvana of $7 million to headline that summer's shows. Everyone involved felt they couldn't refuse, except for Kurt. Despite his objections, Lollapalooza was placed on Nirvana's schedule for that summer.

By now work had been completed on the house he and Courtney had bought at 171 Lake Washington Boulevard in the Denny-Blaine district of Seattle (a neighbour was REM's Peter Buck); although the house was scarcely furnished, they moved in; bewildered by the size of his new five-bedroom home, Kurt created a space for himself in the walk-in wardrobe room off the main bedroom; he also became fond of hanging out in a conservatory over the garage at the rear of the property.

During January Courtney was touring overseas with Hole: just as well as Kurt's drug use – heroin and cocaine now – had created a distance between him and his wife. Ostensibly living on his own at the house, during the month off before the European tour started, Kurt spent much of the time on Aurora Avenue, doing heroin
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.

But from 28 to 30 January Nirvana returned to the recording studio, for what would be their final time recording together. Kurt did not bother to show up on the first two days, arriving late on the third day. The only completed tune that emerged from the sessions was ‘You Know You're Right', with lyrics that were a pointed attack on what he considered to be the misery of his life with Courtney. ‘I have never failed to fail', the final line, were words that seemed like an acute summation of Kurt Cobain's low self-esteem. That this was the last line Kurt Cobain would ever put down on tape imbues them with an extraordinary resonance.

Nirvana flew to Paris on 2 February 1994 for an appearance on a French television show. The tour proper opened in Cascais in the Portugese Algarve on 6 February. The opening act for the first shows were the re-formed Buzzcocks, stalwarts of 1976 Manchester punk rock, a personal choice of Kurt.

Following a date in Madrid, the tour's second night, Kurt called Courtney, in tears. She was in Los Angeles, staying at the Chateau Marmont, the epitome of LA decadence. Although friends would assure him that it was not the case, there were rumours that Courtney had resumed her fling with Billy Corgan, and also that she had been seeing Evan Dando of the Lemonheads. An intended stay of two days at the Chateau turned into weeks, and Courtney was three weeks late when she arrived in London, supposedly to join the
In Utero
tour. On arriving, she was meant to immediately board a flight to Rome, but Courtney decided instead to spend time in the English capital.

In mid-February, the tour was in Paris. Kurt did a photo session for a French magazine: one of the shots was of Kurt with the barrel of a rifle in his mouth.

Seven days later, Kurt Cobain turned twenty-seven. He spent the day depressed, as he had been throughout the tour.

After the second of two nights in Milan, he told Krist that he wanted to cancel the rest of the dates. As the next show was in Ljubljana in Slovenia, and relatives would be travelling there from neighbouring Croatia, Krist demurred. Kurt agreed to carry on.

On 1 March in Munich before the final show of that leg of the tour – a further pair of German dates would be cancelled – Kurt spoke on the phone to Courtney. The ensuing row drove him to phone his lawyer to say he wanted to initiate divorce proceedings. Deeply pained, Kurt was aware that this would set in motion for Frances precisely the trauma he had undergone as a child and from which he had never
recovered.

Kurt was also ill, suffering from bronchitis and severe laryngitis. After the Munich gig, he and Pat Smear flew to Rome, Kurt checking in to room 541 at the swish Excelsior Hotel. Courtney, due to arrive with Frances, was late.

When she finally made it to Rome, Courtney discovered that Kurt had filled their room with red roses. He was making a big effort. Immediately he ordered champagne from room service, telling his wife how much he had missed her. Courtney's response was to take sleeping tablets and go to bed. Kurt was distressed.

That night Kurt took an overdose of sixty Rohypnol tablets. When Courtney woke at around 6 a.m. she found her husband lying on the floor, blood seeping from his nose. In his hand, on hotel stationery, was a three-page note to Courtney. He had written that she no longer loved him, and was unable to cope with the pain of ‘another' divorce. Courtney later burned the note.

Taken by ambulance to the Umberto 1 Polyclinic Hospital, Kurt had his stomach pumped out, and was put on a life-support machine. But he only fell deeper into unconsciousness.

CNN mistakenly announced his death. His management company released a statement saying that Kurt had ‘inadvertently overdosed on a mixture of prescription medicine and alcohol, while suffering from severe influenza and fatigue.' Few were fooled.

The next day, 5 March, twenty hours after he had fallen unconscious, Kurt awoke, and wrote a note: ‘Get this fucking catheter out.'

On the flight back to Seattle on 12 March, a day after the second leg of the
In Utero
European tour should have commenced, Kurt could be overheard by fellow passengers loudly demanding a Rohypnol from Courtney. She said she no longer had them.

Back at home in Seattle, there was palpable hostility between Kurt and Courtney. Kurt locked himself away in his bedroom, surrounded by guns. On 18 March, Courtney called the police, telling them Kurt's behaviour was suicidal. Kurt responded by saying he had locked himself in his room to keep Courtney away. The police took away Kurt's weapons: a Colt AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, a Beretta .380 and a pair of Taurus handguns, along with twenty-five boxes of ammunition and a bottle of unidentified pills.

On 18 March, furious at Courtney for her ceaseless haranguing of him over his drug usage, Kurt walked out of the house. There was evidence of serious hypocrisy on Courtney's part: ‘On one line Kurt rang me to get some speed,' recalled Dylan Carlson of this period, ‘and the other line goes and it's Courtney wanting me to get her some dope. And neither wants the other to know.'
[47]

Kurt and Dylan Carlson now disappeared for several days, heading for Aurora Avenue, and the Marco Polo motel. There, Kurt OD'd on heroin, another friend saving his life by walking him round the room. They also spent nights at the nearby Crest and the Seattle Inn. Kurt hung out in such Seattle bars as the new and hip Linda's Tavern on East Pine Street in Capitol Hill, and at friends' apartments.

After what had happened in Rome, Kurt seemed a changed man. Dylan, and also Krist, worried that his brain might have been affected. Dylan told Charles Cross that ‘after Rome, he seemed monochromatic.'
[48]

Behaving like a teenage runaway, his time away from home that March allowed Kurt a measure of relatively anonymous freedom, a chance to become who he used to be. But there was a financial problem. On the second day, Courtney managed to persuade his bank to cancel her husband's credit cards.

Kurt called Krist Novoselic, and his old friend came over to see him. Krist wanted to take Kurt up to a cabin in the country, where he could withdraw from drugs. But first they needed something to eat. Although Krist suggested an upscale eaterie, Kurt insisted on going to a specific Jack in the Box. When Krist realized that the fast-food restaurant was located next to the apartment of Kurt's dealer, he was furious. They had a stand-up row, and Kurt disappeared and went home.

But there a plot was afoot. An intervention had been planned for 21 March, which Kurt learned of after Krist spilt the beans. Instead, it was moved to 25 March. When it took place, Kurt was smacked up. It doesn't appear to have been a very rational encounter, with Courtney threatening Kurt that if he didn't stop doing drugs, she would divorce him, and his access to Frances would be limited.
[49]
Eventually, Courtney left the house for a flight to LA, where she herself was to undergo drug therapy, as she had promised during the intervention. She never saw Kurt again.