Krist Novoselic on Nevermind

On some early live bootlegs, you really hammered it.
But then Kurt went home and he hammered it. He kept working on it. Then he called me on the phone and said, "Listen to this song." He started singing it on the phone. You could hear the guitar. It was the "In Bloom" of Nevermind, more of a pop thing.

We were listening to things like the Smithereens then, and the Beatles. We had one tape we listened to in the van — this was before we recorded Bleach. On one side was the Smithereens. And on the other side was this heavy-metal band, Celtic Frost. That tape was always getting played, turned over and over again. I think back now and go, 'Yeah, maybe that was an influence.'"

Onstage, you were the talkative one, bantering with the crowd and chewing out the hecklers. Did you feel the need, as Kurt's friend, to be his defense against the stress and weirdness of being in a popular rock band?
We'd talk if things were bugging him. I'd go, "Oh, things will be all right." I had more of an outgoing personality. I had fun, talking with people on stage, drinking beers. But Kurt was really smart. He had his perception of the world. He knew how to deal with it. He knew how to be quiet. He had that Asian-wisdom thing — silence.

He could read people really good, too; way better than I could. Now that I'm older, I'm getting better at it. You see that a lot of people are vampires. You see their agendas. I never used to see that. But Kurt was able to see that. He could take care of himself.

His thing was, build your own world. Wherever he lived, he'd have all this stuff on the walls, drawings or music or things he had collected. There would be ten statues of Colonel Sanders, which was kind of weird. One place, he had wood paneling, and he found this old magazine from the 1960s, with this woman in an ad, stroking wood paneling. He put that on the wall.

When Nirvana signed with Geffen, the band went from punk's indie-label subculture into the money and madness of the corporate record business. Did you know what you were getting into?
We weren't even paying attention. I'd be the one who'd talk to the attorney: "How's the deal going?" Then, one day, we signed all the papers — and ordered sandwiches. We ate sandwiches and signed papers, and that was it.

We didn't know what we were getting into. We got all this money for an advance, and we spent it all on studios, videos and taxes. It was all gone; a lot of sips between the cup and the lips. But I remember we were adamant about creative control. We got that.

What do you remember about making Nevermind? Your producer, Butch Vig, says there was little screwing around.
We knew that studios cost money. We were paying for accommodations. We were there to work. And there were no dramas or external things going on. It was like we were free; it was our last moment of that kind of life, when we could just go in and play.