Steve Albini explains how he and Butch Vig come from “the same school” of production
One of the most famous stories associated with Nirvana is that frontman Kurt Cobain came to loathe Butch Vig’s slick production on their era-defining 1991 album, Nevermind. Wanting to go back to basics for its follow-up In Utero, the band enlisted the eminent producer and former Big Black leader Steve Albini.
Albini would accept the job, but only after writing the trio a now-storied letter, wherein he set out his terms and conditions before signing on. This manifesto included the fantastically punk section wherein he asserted he would be remunerated for his efforts “like a plumber”, with a one-time sum that the band deemed fitting of the quality of his production.
What materialised on In Utero was a much darker, more punishing and rawer sonic palette than its predecessor. As the styles of the two albums are quite distinct, in the typical narrative of Nirvana, there has been a contrast established between the work of Vig and Albini. However, During a recent interview alongside the band’s surviving members, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, on Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, the In Utero producer outlined how he and Butch Vig actually came from “the same school” of production.
Albini said: “There seems to be setting up a kind of compare and contrast between me and Butch Vig, and I should point out that Butch Vig’s production aesthetic and his approach as an engineer was formed in precisely the same way that mine was. Doing budget records for dead broke bands in a short amount of time, trying to be as efficient as possible with not just the time, but with the materials, and you know, ‘You’re hitting your snare drum head so hard we’re gonna have to buy a new snare drum head. So, like, let me put some gaffer on there or something so that we don’t split the snare drum head’. His aesthetic and his techniques are very much in the same school as mine.”
Recalling the almost dualistic existence of him and Vig in those days, he continued: “I have a tonne of respect for Butch. I felt a kind of friendly competition with him before he started making big famous records; before he made records with bands like Nirvana, he and I were making records with a lot of the same bands, like kindred bands; they would do one record with me and one record with Butch. Like, you know, he would do a Killdozer record and a Die Kreuzen record, then I would do a Killdozer record and a Die Kreuzen record; it was like the same clientele, the same peer group, the same circles.”
However, Albini would then reveal his misgivings about Vig’s work on the era-defining Nevermind. He recalled that when he and Nirvana first got into the studio to start working on In Utero, the band’s frontman, Kurt Cobain, played a cassette of the rough mix of the 1991 album through the speakers to get familiar with the room’s general sound. According to Albini, these were the tracks in their natural form, without any “fanciful mixing”.
Albini said that he thought those versions of the Nevermind songs sounded “fuckin’ fantastic”, yet he did not feel the same about the finished album. He conceded, with an apology to Novoselic and Grohl, that it “didn’t bring to mind” any of the records that Vig had previously worked on that established his reputation.
Watch the interview below.
