Inside Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ Pool Party, 25 Years Later
"The record label didn't consider this a very successful shoot," photographer Kirk Weddle says of the underwater photos he took of Nirvana to complement the cover he shot for Nevermind. "When I had shot the album cover, I was like the golden child. But with these, they were like, 'We hate 'em.'" He subsequently stuffed them away in a closet for years.
Although the initial experience soured Weddle on the shoot, he's since come around to the photos, which he took between the band's tour dates at around 10 a.m. on October 28th, 1991, a very cold day in Los Angeles. "Maybe 10, 15 years ago I got a few of them out and they looked pretty good," he says. Now, as Nevermind turns 25 this month, he's fully embraced the shoot and has teamed with the Austin, Texas–based Modern Rocks Gallery for a showcase of some of the 200 photos he took that day, including some never-before-seen alternate shots.
When Weddle looks back on the shoot today, he's still struck by how difficult it was. He'd had to bolt a rented drum kit to a ladder so they could flip it upside down in the water. It was his first time meeting the band members, and they were exhausted – Kurt Cobain even took a nap. Meanwhile, the water was cold enough that the photographer donned a wetsuit. "The guys were like, 'Wow, we've got to swim in this?'" he says with a laugh. "Kurt is not a really water-oriented guy. He was like, 'Wow, this is a drag.' But everybody was pretty good sports about it."
Here, he recalls how he coaxed Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl into the pool and shares never-before-seen outtakes, including one image from the Nevermind cover shoot itself.
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‘Nevermind’ the Baby, Here’s the Stand-In
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle That is from the album cover shoot. That's a rescue diver holding the doll so I could frame and practice the shoot. You don't want to do that with the kid, 'cause you only get one shot with him. Once we got it lit and framed up, we brought in the baby and dunked him in the water.
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Drum Lessons
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle The instruments were props. I rented them. I'm surprised I was able to rent those and take them in the water and return them. We took a ladder and put a platform on it, and nailed the drum kit to that then we flipped that over in the water. Then we got the guys with the guitar and the bass floating around. Originally, I wanted the drummer drumming upside-down. But that's hard to do. Getting all the guys together was difficult.
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Meeting the Band
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle That was the first time I met them. I had seen them one time in concert, and I didn't even really know who they were. But I had a buddy of mine – this guy Maynard, who ended up being the lead singer in Tool – who said, "These guys are good. You should go check 'em out." And I was like, "All right." I didn't know their music, and I didn't put that much effort into it. I came in late, like, "Oh, I got free tickets, I'll go see these guys. I don't know who they are." I was mostly just checking out the women in the crowd. I never crossed paths with the band again after the shoot. I always wanted to and never have.
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Diver Down
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle I wore a wetsuit. Now, I won't wear a wetsuit if the model's not wearing a wetsuit. But yeah, they were jealous of my wetsuit. Later, Dave started wearing my wetsuit, and then he kept my wetsuit. He had the same build as me.
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No Skinny-Dipping
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle We had no wardrobe so they wore whatever they had. I was like, "I'm gonna do them naked." And their management or somebody was like, "No. We're not doing them naked." And I was like, "All right." [Laughs]. I wish I'd asked the guys in the water, you know, "Let's just strip down." That would've been great. But I didn't have the wherewithal at the time to do that.
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Kurt Cobain
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle He seemed like the nicest, sweetest guy. He was kind of shy and withdrawn, but he just seemed like a really kind person. He wasn't standoffish, he wasn't one of those guys like, "Hey, don't make eye contact with me" – that kind of thing. He didn't have an entourage; he was straightforward. But he was just a quiet, reserved guy. Very mellow. I had to convince him and beg him to do the shoot.
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Krist Novoselic
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle Krist was a little bit of a handful. He was like, "Do you got a bottle of Jack Daniel's for me?" I'm like, "Man, you know, I have some Jim Beam." He's like, "Nope. I want Jack Daniel's." All right. So we had to send somebody out to get that. But he was good, he hung in there.
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Dave Grohl
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle Dave, he's like a player. You can tell that guy's got it going on. He was, like, super cool in the water. He would do anything. He had it together.
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Jamming Underwater
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle They were intrigued a little bit with the instruments in the water. Then we had to choreograph it all together and get it going. It's hard to get three guys underwater at the same time, looking kind of good. So we did a lot of practice and a lot of trial and error and finally banged it out.
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Off the Deep End
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle We did the shoot at a little funky pool over in this little apartment building in North Hollywood. It was an abandoned apartment building that they turned into a little scuba pool. And that was another thing: The band didn't like the pool but they didn't have a budget so we got a cheap-o pool. The cover shoot was at a really nice, Olympic-sized pool. We toyed with the idea of shooting down there, but I just didn't want to shoot a band at a public pool. I needed a little privacy.
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Wrap Party
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle The people clapping are from Nirvana's management. I don't know their names anymore. The guy on the left, he's the art director, Robert Fisher. It was his concept and he's the concept guy for the album cover itself. I'm not sure why they didn't like the shoot. But that was long before digital and you couldn't shoot Polaroids underwater. They were looking at it from the outside; they weren't part of it. It would have been nice to know "They have to look beautiful" or "Kurt's hair has to be perfect." I didn't get any of that before.
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Pruning
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle Dave Grohl was probably in the water two hours. He was in the water the most. And I would probably say Kurt and Krist did about an hour in the water total.
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Kurt Cobain Naps
Image Credit: Kirk Weddle Kurt was so tired he went to sleep as soon as he got to the shoot, and nobody wanted to wake him up. So I was like, "All right, we'll just shoot him asleep for a while." We covered him up with a bathrobe, put a guitar next to him [laughs]. He was out for a long time, like 90 minutes.
Nirvana's Krist Novoselic discusses the 3 American Questions campaign. Watch here.