«I never listened to the records again Nirvana from the day Kurt Cobain he died on April 5, 1994. The suffering is too much. It may seem naive or paradoxical to those who don’t frequent music, or to those who haven’t lived through that period, but that day it’s as if the light of hope had gone out – and forever -. What hope? That of a better world where the revolution did not start from something political, at least not in the canonical sense, but from something personal, indeed, visceral. Something that the guitar and the scream of Kurt Cobain in smells like Teen Spirit he was able to activate in all those who did not recognize themselves in a life of competition, of obedience to traditional values, to clichés. The hope that art could change things.”
Danny Goldberg worked with Kurt Cobain from 1990 to 1994. At the time he was already a famous manager, raised in the school of people who made the history of music such as Peter Grantthe legendary manager of Led ZeppelinAnd Albert Grossmanthat of Bob Dylan.
His book, Serving the Servantis perhaps the most important on Kurt, written by those who saw him more than anyone else in those years. We had met in Italy in 2019 for a public interview at the Turin Motor Show and a correspondence was born. Today he is 73 years old and lives in New York.
MUSIC
Thurston Moore: “Where were Cobain’s friends at the time?”
Luca Valtorta
20 July 2016
How did your first meeting with Kurt happen?
«It was thanks to Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, a band from the “alternative” scene who asked us to represent them after signing with the DGC label. Sonic Youth were loved and respected by everyone else because they were considered somewhat of the fathers of the scene.”
What struck you about Nirvana?
«Only when I saw them live did I really realize how great and different they were from everyone else».
Where did the name Nirvana come from?
«It’s part of a complicated process typical of punk culture in which all clichés are faced with apparent cynicism; even those of the hippie culture, where at a certain point the authenticity of the spiritual search ended up being lost but, at the same time, it is as if, despite the disillusionment, an idea of beauty still remained behind it. And I believe that it was precisely this complexity made up of opposites that made Nirvana different from all the other artists on the scene.”
After all, Kurt didn’t want to confine himself to any type of definition, not even that of “grunge”.
“He hated that word. He didn’t want to be put together with others. Those that came from punk were a language and a culture that he respected and honoured: he always spoke about different artists who inspired him and of whom he himself was a fan but he didn’t want to be pigeonholed in any way.”
«Kurt had also been abused. I don’t know the exact nature of this abuse, but he also had a very difficult childhood. Different people respond differently to a difficult childhood: some emerge destroyed, others manage to channel it towards creativity.”
What was Kurt like in everyday life?
«Kurt, as we know, had problems with heroin and when he was high he was quiet and sleepy, much like anyone else who was high. But when he wasn’t a very sweet person. Sweet is a strange term to use for a punk artist, but that’s what pretty much everyone I contacted in making this book told me. Everyone loved him. He had a great sense of humor and could be very thoughtful of people. He was also a loving father and a wonderful friend, but there was a family legacy of depression, and he was prone to addictions: the combination killed him.”
And in his relationship with her?
«When you are a manager, artists often complain to you: you can become the focus of their frustrations. It was never like this with Kurt. I don’t know how he acted around other people, and I know he was a drug addict and had some dark moments, but to me he was one of the most loving and caring people I’ve ever known. But when he was unhappy there was nothing to do, there was a dark cloud around him that was impossible to cross.”
