The moment Kurt Cobain decided to work with Steve Albini: “This shall be our snare sound”
From a young age, Kurt Cobain was fascinated by the power of music. At first, he fell for the pop sensibilities of classic rock groups like The Beatles, The Monkees and Electric Light Orchestra and began to learn simple songs on the piano from age four. Over time, however, a young Cobain began to welcome countercultural literature into his life and began to take an interest in the guitar.
Cobain’s rebellious side developed significantly after his parents divorced when he was nine years old. At school, Cobain managed to find trouble frequently but eventually found a sense of belonging when he met fellow student Roger “Buzz” Osborne, the future frontman of Melvins, in electronics class, who introduced him to the wonders of punk rock and hardcore music.
From this point forward, Cobain immersed himself in heavy guitar music. His first gig was allegedly a 1983 billing with Sammy Hagar and Quarterflash at the Seattle Center Coliseum. By the mid-1980s, Cobain was barmy about contemporary bands like Wipers and Black Flag and legendary bands like Buzzcocks and The Stooges.
Another contemporary band Cobain was particularly enamoured with was Big Black, the first significant project of legendary audio engineer Steve Albini. He founded the band in 1981 during his student years and enjoyed underground success with two studio albums, Atomizer and Songs About Fucking, before calling it quits in 1987.
Speaking to the NME in a past interview, Albini recalled his final live show with Big Black, during which he met an enthusiastic pre-fame Cobain. “When my band Big Black did a farewell tour years before the In Utero sessions, the final show was in some industrial space in Seattle. It was in a weird building with a makeshift stage,” he said. “It was a cool gig, and at the end, we smashed up all of our gear. I distinctively recall some kid asking me if he could take a piece of my guitar off the stage and me saying, ‘Go ahead, it’s garbage now’.”
Following his formative stint fronting Big Black, Albini began a successful career as a recording engineer and producer, famously working on Pixies’ debut album Surfer Rosa and The Breeders’ Pod. Throughout the late 1980s and ’90s, Cobain became successful in his own right as the frontman of Nirvana and soared to global acclaim in 1991 with Nevermind.
When working on the highly-anticipated follow-up to Nevermind, In Utero, Cobain wanted to develop Nirvana’s sound with a more dynamic spread of music. To shape his ambitious vision, he tapped up Albini. “Kurt was a fan of Albini,” bassist Krist Novoselic once told American Songwriter. “I remember being in a tour van in 1989, and Kurt was listening to Pixies [Surfer Rosa]. He raised his finger and said, ‘This shall be our snare sound!’ He wanted to do it with Steve for a long time.”
When listing his fifty favourite albums to date in the early 1990s, Cobain listed Surfer Rosa in second place, just behind The Stooges’ Raw Power. Influences from both of these seminal classics can be heard in In Utero, especially the former, thanks to Albini’s input. “There’s that whole thing where you get famous, and you have to transition into it. It was hard for everyone, but Kurt got all the attention, being up front there,” Novoselic continued, noting the band’s work on their third album. “I don’t comment on the lyrics as they’re open for interpretation, but you can listen and make up your own mind. ‘Radio Friendly Unit Shifter’ was a smart-ass statement that Kurt made, and really says it all.”
It was only during the In Utero sessions that Albini finally realised who the kid was who he encountered during his final Big Black show in Seattle. “Many years later, when we were working on In Utero at the studio in Minnesota, Kurt showed me this little piece of this guitar that he had saved,” Albini continued in his NME interview. “He had brought it with him after all those years. He had been that kid.”
