Behind "Cobain Unseen": Charles R. Cross on Kurt's Private Archives

While researching his Kurt Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven, journalist Charles R. Cross came across the nearly 100 boxes of the rocker's belongings that had been moved into a secure storage facility. "When I went and saw that stuff, I called up Courtney and I said 'Jesus fucking Christ, I cannot believe this art and how amazing all this stuff is.' " Cross' new book, Cobain Unseen mines that archive for artwork, photographs and journal entries that have been locked away since the Nirvana leader's death. Rolling Stone spoke to Cross about the project, and what it revealed about its mysterious subject. (See a gallery of images from the book here.)

I'm familiar with a lot of Nirvana photos, but I've actually never seen a lot of the photos in Cobain Unseen.
I had seen Kurt's archives and it would take a lot to surprise me, at this point, but I was surprised by some of the stuff. We were working on this book when we found out that there were undeveloped rolls of film that Kurt had shot at least 15 years ago — and they were still sitting around the archive collection, and no one had ever developed them.