For now, Kurt Cobain and his new wife, Courtney Love, live in an apartment in Los Angeles' modest Fairfax District. The living room holds little besides a Fender Twin Reverb amplifier, a stringless guitar, a makeshift Buddhist shrine and the couple's collection of naked plastic dolls.

Scores of CDs and tapes are strewn around the stereo — obscurities such as Calamity Jane, Cosmic Psychos and Billy Childish, as well as Cheap Trick and the Beatles. "Norwegian Wood" drifts down the hall to the dimly lit bedroom, where Cobain lies flat on his back in pajamas, a red-painted big toenail peeking out the other end of the blanket and a couple of teddy bears lying beside him for company. The surprisingly fragrant L.A. night seeps through the window screen.

He's been suffering from a longstanding and painful stomach condition — perhaps an ulcer — aggravated by stress and, apparently, his screaming singing style. Having eaten virtually nothing for over two weeks, Cobain, 25, is strikingly gaunt and frail, far from the stubbly doughboy who smirked out from a photo inside Nevermind. It's hard to believe this is the same guy who smashes guitars and wails with such violence — until you notice his blazing blue eyes and the faded pink and purple streaks in his hair.

Cobain had abruptly canceled an earlier interview, partly because of the anti-Nirvana letters that recently dominated Rolling Stone's Correspondence page and partly because the magazine borrowed the title of the band's hit single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for a headline on the recent "Beverly Hills, 90210" cover.

Then he came around. "There are a lot of things about Rolling Stone that I've never agreed with," says Cobain in a gentle growl one or two steps up from a whisper. "But it's just so old school to fight amongst your peers or people that are dealing with rock & roll, whether or not they're dealing with it in the same context that you would like to. There are a lot of political articles in there that I've been thankful for, so it's really stupid to attack something that you're not 100 percent opposed to. If there's a glimmer of hope in anything, you should support it.

"I don't blame the average 17-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout," Cobain adds. "I understand that. Maybe when they grow up a little bit, they'll realize there's more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously."

All I need is a break, and my stress will be over with," says Cobain. "I'm going to get healthy and start over."

He's certainly earned a break after playing nearly 100 dates on four continents in five months, never staying in one place long enough for a doctor to tend to his stomach problem. And he and his band mates, bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl, have had to cope with the peculiar position of being the world's first triple-platinum punk-rock band.