The moment Dave Grohl tried to save Kurt Cobain: “I don’t think you should die!”
In 1994, Kurt Cobain had the world at his feet, but the only problem was that he didn’t want it.
Cobain was never cut out to be as famous as he became. The entire premise of the Seattle grunge movement was built upon a deep sense of anti-establishment, a desire to create something devoid of the widespread commercialism that was saturating modern art. As the pioneer of that movement, he wanted to create a career that existed in the shadows and not the spotlight, but the cruel nature of his own success shoved him into the latter, without any desire to be there.
The success of Nirvana soon became overwhelming. After years of on-and-off drug struggles, ‘94 saw the total collapse of Cobain’s willpower and well-being. In the middle of Nirvana’s European tour, he overdosed on pills and alcohol in Rome, resulting in his relapsing into a heroin addiction that sparked the beginning of the end.
But the darker twist of the tale was that Cobain’s overdose in Rome was actually believed to be his first suicide attempt. It was reported that in one hand lay a pile of American dollars and the other, a suicide note that read, “Like Hamlet, I have to choose between life and death. I choose death”.
Cobain’s bandmates sprang into action, desperately doing what they could to steer their frontman back on track, but as time has moved on, Dave Grohl has reflected on the experience differently, admitting that there was a subtle sense of knowing that Cobain’s time would soon be cut short.
“It was so chaotic and crazy. I mean, there are certain people in your life that you just know they’re not gonna make it,” he explained, “So in the back of your mind, you emotionally prepare yourself for something like that to happen, not that it makes it easier, but so that when it does happen your world won’t collapse completely.”
That nagging sense of dread was seemingly confirmed with Cobain’s overdose. News quickly spread that he had actually passed away, only to be quickly contradicted by reports of his stable recovery. With nowhere left to turn and only the truth to find, Grohl rang Cobain up himself to not only check he was OK, but offer a last-ditch effort to save him.
“We talked on the phone,” Grohl recalled, “I didn’t tell him that someone had told me that he’d died, but I told him that I was terrified and so worried. And he was really apologetic, like, ‘So sorry, I was partying and drinking and I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing’. And I said, ‘Listen, I don’t think you should die!’ And then…well, then, you know what happened.”
One month later, Cobain tragically committed suicide, and one of the most innovate yet torturous music careers came to a dramatic end. Grohl and Krist Novoselic were left to process the conflict, wondering if there was, in fact, more they could do, or whether his passing was inevitable as it seemed.
