In limbo: When Nirvana pranked Gene Simmons
In Stuart Braithwaite’s book Spaceships Over Glasgow, he describes the first time he saw Nirvana perform live at Reading Festival. It was before the band had released their hit album, Nevermind, but they packed such a punch and were so unrelenting in the music they made that it was clear to Braithwaite just how much of an impact the band would have—and he was right.
Shortly after that gig, they released their hit album Nevermind and after that came In Utero. Rather than being fatigued following such a success, the band went into the recording process ready to go, excited by the prospect of making more music together and with a new member of the team, Steve Albini, helping out on production.
As they reminisced about the creative process that went into making In Utero, Dave Grohl recalled that the recording process took about 14 days, but his drumming sections were done within the first three or four. With so many days with nothing to do, different band members found various ways to entertain themselves, which meant playing with lighter fluid and setting multiple items on fire, and an activity that took up the bulk of their time: prank phone calls.
Their mere mention is enough to get the band giggling, as Albini recalls the day he rang back Gene Simmons pretending to be Kurt Cobain. “Gene Simmons had reached out to their management because there was a Kiss tribute album being put together because they were the biggest band in the world… Gene Simmons cannot fathom that anyone on Earth is not a massive Kiss fan.”
Albini continues: “The word comes down that Gene Simmons is desperate to get Nirvana on this album. The appeal comes from management though, ‘We got this call from Gene Simmons, he’s really hot to have you guys on the album, do you wanna call him back?’” Albini laughs as he remembers Kurt’s reluctance to pick up the phone, “Kurt was like, ‘I don’t wanna talk to fucking Gene Simmons’, and I was like, ‘I’ll do it’.”
With that, in a moment of boredom and allowing counterproductive intrusive thoughts to win, the band gathered around as Albini, who was hired to produce their album, called Gene Simmons and pretended to be Kurt Cobain. “I called him back, and I pretended to be Kurt, and I parried the whole thing away by saying that I wasn’t making all of the decisions because of a reliability problem…” he laughs, “Kurt is sitting right next to me, listening to me do an impression of him.”
People often think of the creative process as a magical moment, but there are many gaps between the recording process where boredom takes over. When that happens, it’s up to the bands to deal with it, and in Nirvana’s case, that meant giving Gene Simmons a call.
