Today, April 5th, is a very dark day in Seattle music history. Former Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain died on this day back in 1994. Then, eight years later, former Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley died on this day in 2002. Years later, Chris Cornell also died, although that would be later in the springtime, in 2017. More recently, Mark Lanegan of the Screaming Trees and numerous other musical projects also died, just a few weeks ago as I write this, in fact. Yes, the Seattle music scene seems to have had a darkness to it, which was confirmed tragically with each of these deaths, even many years later.
Sometimes, news stories have an immediate and profound impact, and you remember where you were when you heard about it. That was how people described the JFK assassination throughout my childhood, and I wondered what a huge, inescapable news story like that would feel like to live through. Then, of course, I found out for myself, along with everyone else, on September 11th.
There were other huge news stories that were enormous, and where the countries involved surely also remember where they were when the news broke. The Chernobyl tragedy, for example. The Berlin Wall falling,, which was a more positive story.. Or Nelson Mandela being released from prison, which was another positive one, although those tend to be few and far between. The massive tsunami in 2004, or the Japanese one in 2011, which included Fukushima. There were news stories like that in recent memory in this country as well, such as for the invasion of Iraq, or the election of Donald Trump, neither of which were good news, for this country or for the world in general.
Well, sometimes, other kids of stories have a profound impact on you, as well, and touch your life in a different way. It is not always the life-altering implications of a 9/11, or a huge storm like Sandy or Katrina, or when you realized that Donald J. Trump, of all people, was going to be the next president.
One such instance for me came on this day 28 years ago, when my mom told me that grunge/punk rocker Kurt Cobain had killed himself. I remember feeling stunned, as if someone had slapped me in the face, hard.
I was kind of late to the whole Seattle grunge thing, and had assumed - wrongly - that those guys out there were the same old same old. Boy, was I wrong! It would take me a while to finally learn that, but by the spring of 1993, I had fully embraced the whole so-called "Seattle sound," which in fact, did not actually exist. Those bands were the first to tell you that there was no such thing as the "Seattle sound."
Still, it cannot be overlooked that all of these great bands were suddenly coming from one relatively small corner of the country, and were changing the direction of music. When I really started fully embracing it, by spring of 1993, I remember feeling that it seemed fitting, because it felt like a whole new era, with new possibilities. Unfortunately, that was - again - a mistaken impression on my part. True, some things were new. The United States finally had a Democrat in office, for the first time in my lifetime that I could remember (I was too young to remember Jimmy Carter, unfortunately). And there were all sorts of new bands that were coming out and doing incredibly interesting things, and it was hard to ignore the explosion of creativity. Plus, I myself had begun college, and had joined the Environmental Club, which was great, but while also provided me with the mistaken illusion that there was a whole new conscience that younger people were awakening to.
The Seattle bands seemed to reinforce that. One of the things that attracted me to them was the strange, unorthodox way that they dressed. Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder wearing shorts and boots together, for example (something that would become all too common later in the decade, and lose all originality in the process). And those strange hats and ways of dressing, particularly by Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament. But they had a political and cultural conscience, as well, and that really appealed to me. Suddenly, some of the macho bands that I had been into felt a bit outdated and almost Neanderthal-like, such as Metallica. Up to the end of 1992, I thought Metallica would always mean something special to me. By the summer of 1993, Metallica was already fading fast for me, on almost every level.
Now, I said that I was late to the whole "Seattle sound" thing, but that is not entirely true. You see, I was still unfortunately resisting Seattle bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains in 1992, but had fully embraced Nirvana by then. It was hard not to. After all, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was everywhere, and impossible to ignore. I can still remember the first time that I heard that song, sometime late in 1991. It came on the radio - yes, we listened to radio even in our homes back then - and I was blown away. I remember thinking, "Who are these guys?"
But I missed the name, and regretted it. Then, some months later, that same band came on Saturday Night Live, and I found out. The band was Nirvana, and the lead singer was a strange looking guy. His name was Kurt Cobain, and he had this bizarre reddish hair, although that was deceptive, because that was a one time thing. These guys were so good, even my father was impressed. Shortly after that memorable live television performance, that song was everywhere, and so was Nirvana more generally.
Here's the funny thing: lyrics mean a lot to me. That was a large part of the reason I got into some of the bands that I got into some of the bands that I got into, including Metallica (it's complicated), the Dead Kennedys (who had disbanded before I really got into them), Anthrax, and Voivod, to name a few. That was what attracted me to some of the grunge bands, particularly Pearl Jam. Later, I would gain a huge appreciation for the more subtle approach lyrically taken by Chris Cornell, and I should just make a small note here that his suicide hit me very hard, as well. At least as hard as Cobain's did, but I already wrote about that on this blog shortly after it happened.
In the case of Cobain and Nirvana, I could not even really tell what the lyrics were about. Yet, somehow, the music spoke to me. It was angry, to be sure, and it had a lot of energy. But those were two things that I could definitely relate to back then, and quite a bit, at that. While the lyrics were a bit strange, the feeling was definitely not. And Cobain was far from a mindless rock star like, say, Axel Rose, who was all about himself and the dollar bills that he felt made him stand out. Cobain had something to say, and this was expressed in his music, even if it was not immediately obvious when you studied his lyrics.
So, before I embraced all of the Seattle bands, I embraced Nirvana. They really spoke to me, and I think that they might have been my favorite band, or pretty close to it, sometime late in 1992 and early in 1993. I know I would have loved to see them in concert with Kurt Cobain, although I never did. I would see them - once - many years later, with Paul McCartney, but that was entirely different.
Still, the music remains. I embraced them long before the other Seattle bands, even though all of those Seattle bands would come to mean a lot to me. They seemed to represent something new, something different and, perhaps most importantly, the potential for a new world, a new way of thinking. It did not come to pass, regrettably, although I feel that it should have. Young people should have been more aware and more active, and they should not merely embrace bands like that simply because they are the next big thing. Unfortunately, that was the case with the Seattle bands, a fact that hardly pleased the two biggest Seattle bands, Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
The Seattle bands I came to fully embrace, and more than just the big, obvious four, either. I came to like other Seattle bands, like Mudhoney and the Screaming Trees. But the first was Nirvana, going back to my high school days.
When Kurt Cobain died, from his own hands, I was stunned. It was not just the music aspect, but rather, I myself had been struggling with contemplating suicide. A high school classmate had killed himself during my senior year, and he was the first person that I knew who had done that. It kind of opened up a can of worms for me in that regard, a kind of thinking that if he could do it, so could I.
So, Cobain's suicide hit me especially hard, on several different fronts. And although I personally overcame that suicidal phase, I recognize that music was an important part in helping me cope with a lot of that, and that includes Nirvana.
Kurt Cobain took his own life. Up to that point, the Seattle music scene seemed to be at it's peak. Cobain's suicide kind of signaled the beginning of the end of that, however. Within a couple of years, it felt that the scene was already mostly dead, as other bands and music scenes had emerged to cast the remaining Seattle bands mostly in the shadow. Then, Soundgarden broke up a few years later. A few years after that, Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley also died (ironically, also on this date, April 5th, in 2002), although the cause of death there was overdose. Many years later, of course, came the death by suicide of Chris Cornell, who I was only beginning to fully appreciate now as a full-grown adult (at least, officially), with a kid of my own.
I grew up with these guys, and their music. And it would not have been possible, necessarily, without the explosion of Nirvana in 1991 and 1992.
He died by his own hand in 1994, and it really is a crying shame. He was missed immediately, and is still missed.
RIP, Kurt Cobain, who died 27 years ago on this date.
RIP, also, to Layne Staley, the voice of Alice in Chains throughout the nineties, and one of the most iconic names and faces and voices of when Seattle ruled the airwaves.
25 YEARS AGO + 17 YEARS AGO: NIRVANA’S KURT COBAIN + ALICE IN CHAINS’ LAYNE STALEY DIE ON APRIL 5 JON WIEDERHORNApril 5, 2019:
25 YEARS AGO + 17 YEARS AGO: NIRVANA’S KURT COBAIN + ALICE IN CHAINS’ LAYNE STALEY DIE ON APRIL 5 JON WIEDERHORNApril 5, 2019:
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