SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 2014 Kurt Cobain remembered, 20 years after his death

urt Cobain changed Win Butler’s world. Billie Joe Armstrong thought the KNirvana frontman was his generation’s John Lennon and Paul McCartney. And Beck thinks he owes a debt of gratitude to the singer-guitarist for opening the world’s ears to a thriving, but little-heard underground scene. It’s been two decades since Cobain took his own life on April 5, 1994, at age 27, yet he remains an important cultural touch- stone for those he influenced and entertained in his short-lived career. The Associated Press spoke with a handful of musicians about their In this 1993 file photo, lead singer of memories of Cobain as the anniversary of his Nirvana Kurt Cobain is photographed. suicide approached. Some knew him, some watched him from afar. All were touched in they’re smoking cigarettes in the back and some way profound and unforgettable. they didn’t have money for nice clothes, all Beck experienced Nirvana long before the sudden those kids socially were in a weird everyone else. He ran into the band three way on the same level as everyone else,” years before Nirvana’s “Nevermind” changed Butler said. “I was sort of like a weird kid who pop music. He had never heard of the band, didn’t know where I fit in or whatever and just the opening act on a three-band bill, the top to have that kind of voice be that big in cul- draws now lost to memory. “I have a memory ture, I feel like that was a magical period of This Dec 13, 1993 file photo shows Kurt Cobain of the Seattle band Nirvana performing alternative music where we had Jane’s of them coming out and he had his middle in Seattle, Wash. — AP photos finger up, was giving his middle finger to the Addiction and R.E.M. and Nirvana, it was like audience,” he said. “ ... I’d seen a lot of punk popular when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” ripped generation as Lennon and McCartney were to seeing these kind of freaks from all the differ- shows and I’d seen a lot of bands when I was the fabric of pop music was already there. theirs. “You know, the guy just wrote beauti- ent cities of North America and you’re like, oh younger where the shows were pretty aggres- “And I can tell you, any situation I’ve been in ful songs,” Armstrong said. “When someone wow.” sive or confrontational, but there was some- and many of my peers I’ve seen coming up, goes that honestly straight to the core of who thing completely different about this. I playing for audiences who’ve never heard of they are, what they’re feeling, and was able to ‘Sleeps With Angels’ remember he had a smile on his face, there you, you don’t get people’s attention at all,” kind of put it out there, I don’t know, man, it’s Butler still takes cues from Cobain and was a kind of playfulness, but it was also a lit- he said. “Usually they’re talking or going to amazing. Nirvana. After winning the 2010 Grammy tle menacing, and I remember the minute the bathroom in those kinds of situations, but Award for album of the year, Butler and his they started playing, the entire audience they had the audience from the first note. Last rock ‘n’ roll revolution band delivered a completely unexpected fol- erupted in a way I hadn’t seen before.” Even if they had never become successful, I I remember hearing it when ‘Nevermind’ low-up album last year that ignored the lure of would still remember that. It made a big came out and just thinking, we’ve finally got pop possibilities - much like Nirvana did when ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ impression. I remember at the time thinking, our Beatles, this era finally got our Beatles, it recorded the band’s final album, the polariz- Everything that would make the band ‘What is this? Something’s going on here,’ and and ever since then it’s never happened ing “In Utero,” in 1993. I was a fan after that.” again. That’s what’s interesting. I was always “Imagine Nirvana having the biggest Billie Joe Armstrong remembers being out thinking maybe the next 10 years. OK, maybe record in the world and spending nine days on Green Day’s first tour in 1990 and encoun- the next 10 years, OK, maybe. ... That was truly and coming back with this super-raw album tering the band’s graffiti in a string of tiny the last rock ‘n’ roll revolution.” with pretty acoustic songs and crazy metal clubs out West. He’d heard of Nirvana Like Armstrong, Win Butler was moved songs,” Butler said. “I don’t know, just artisti- through its Sub Pop releases, including its when he first heard “Nevermind” in 1991. So cally ‘In Utero’ was a constant source of inspi- debut album, “Bleach,” but thought little of it was everyone in the Arcade Fire frontman’s ration. It stands the test of time so well, and at the time. A year later, Nirvana was known world growing up in Texas. “All the sudden ‘All Apologies’ is one of the most beautiful throughout the world. Cobain became some- the whole kind of social dynamic at my junior songs ever written, I think.” thing of a tortured poet laureate, a figure high changed where these kind of misfit kids Cobain enjoyed a kind of feedback loop Armstrong thinks was as important for his who maybe come from a broken home and with those he admired, and got the attention of Neil Young - a major touchstone for the grunge movement - before his death. Young has often chafed under the requirements of fame as well, and understands some of what Cobain was experiencing. The singer-song- writer was so moved by Cobain’s death, he recorded the album “Sleeps With Angels,” and still wonders what might have happened if he had been able to talk to Cobain before he died. “Well, you know, it’s a hard thing to deal with,” Young said. “I guess Kurt felt too much. I think it’s sad that he didn’t have anybody to talk to that could’ve talked to him and said, ‘I know what you’re going through, but it’s not too bad. It really isn’t bad. Just (expletive) blink and it will be gone. Everything will be all right. You’ve got a lot of other things to do. Why don’t you just take a break? Don’t worry about all these (exple- tive) who want you to do all this (expletive) you don’t want to do. Just stop doing every- thing. Tell them to get (expletive) and stay A woman looks at a photo of late singer away.’ That’s it. That’s what I would have told Kurt Cobain, as part of the exhibition ‘The him if I had the chance. And I almost got a Last Shooting’ on March 28, 2014 at the Graffiti seen under a bridge in Kurt Cobain Park in Aberdeen, Washington on April 1, chance, but it didn’t happen.” — AP Addict gallery in Paris. — AFP 2014, near the house where Cobain lived and committed suicide.