How Black Sabbath turned Kurt Cobain on to heavy music: “I was instantly a fan”
In many ways, Kurt Cobain was a victim of his own path. He didn’t want to be a frontman in the traditional sense, but he wanted to enjoy and be a part of rock all the same. As he put it, “I just wanted to be back there but be a rock ‘n’ roll star at the same time.”
This might be a strange desire for someone with such a heavy interest in music, especially from a young age, but it makes complete sense when you consider all the reasons Cobain got into the art in the first place. He wasn’t your usual Mick Jagger-esque figure who dreamed of one day adorning the stage the same way Elvis Presley or Little Richard had; he was an outcast, a fragile dreamer who wanted to express himself in ways he couldn’t in the “real” world.
He loved music because it provided him with that outlet – he wasn’t seeking the attention that came with success, nor was he going after the same things others did to get a taste of fame (he once said he didn’t like Led Zeppelin because their lyrics were too derogatory and vulgar). He wanted to be able to write songs in his own way without mincing his words; without holding back on the pain and anger he’d suffered all his life.
And so, the grunge revolution was born out of this kind of rawness, providing space for those who didn’t want to pander to the polished sides of rock where lyrics were butchered repeatedly to get to something audiences would like – instead, it was about laying your would and mind bare like an unedited diary entry, an unveiling of your deepest, darkest secrets, desires and experiences, and the presentation of those like you’re exhausted you have to live through it once again.
But much of this was rooted elsewhere, in the pioneers of other versions of such open honesty, where it centred around just the right amount of accessibility and headiness that it all amalgamated somewhere in the middle, in the haze of devil horn gestures and anthemic explosions. Sound familiar? The legends of metal themselves, Black Sabbath, had a lot to say when it came to ripping up the industry with a new fervour that made everyone else wonder what the hell they’d been doing up until that point.
Cobain had been listening to his share of legends until he discovered Sabbath, like The Beatles, who taught him a lot about rhythms and keeping it simple while maintaining bite. Sabbath, on the other hand, introduced a more primal instinct with music that changed the way Cobain looked at his own music later on, the kind that made him loosen the reins on perfectionism or the desire to have things a certain way, and let feeling and emotion lead the way.
“I got to hear Black Sabbath,” he once recalled. “The harder stuff that they wouldn’t have played in Aberdeen or on the radio. I was instantly a rock ‘n’ roll fan; a harder rock ‘n’ roll fan. But ever since I heard my first Beatles record, I wanted to play drums. I wanted to have the adoration of John Lennon and the anonymity of Ringo Starr. I didn’t want to be a frontman.”
Embracing the sounds of countless other bands is ultimately what made Nirvana so revolutionary; it wasn’t about taking one sound and making it their own, or trying to do something so original that it fell flat without an audience. It was about being a fan of music and being the architect of your own world, writing about your own experiences and bringing them to life with the embellishments of others. Nirvana worked because it was everything – all-seeing in its ability to shine with a familiarity that you couldn’t pinpoint because it was so dense.
As Cobain concluded: “All in all, I think we sound like The Knack and the Bay City Rollers being molested by Black Flag and Black Sabbath.”
