Kurt Donald Cobain
(February 20, 1967 - April 5, 1994) U.S.A.
Musician, singer
Kurt was born to Donald and Wendy Cobain in Aberdeen. His father of Irish and French descent, and his mother Irish, German and English. Kurt's parents divorced when he was eight, an event which he later said had a profound impact on his life. His mother noted that his personality changed dramatically, with Kurt becoming more withdrawn. After a year spent living with his mother following the divorce, Kurt moved to Montesano, Washington to live with his father, but after a few years his youthful rebellion became too overwhelming for his father and he was shuffled between friends and family.
For his 14th birthday, Kurt's uncle gave him the option of a guitar or a bicycle as a gift; Kurt chose the guitar. He started learning a few covers, and soon began working on his own songs.
At school, Kurt took little interest in sports. Instead, he focused on his art courses. He often drew during classes, including objects associated with human anatomy. Kurt was friends with a gay student at his school, sometimes suffering bullying from homophobic students who concluded that Cobain was gay. In one of his personal journals, Kurt wrote, "I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes." As a teenager growing up in small-town Washington, Kurt eventually found escape through the thriving Pacific Northwest punk scene, going to punk rock shows in Seattle.
In the middle of 10th grade, Kurt moved back in with his mother in Aberdeen. In high school, Kurt rarely found anyone with whom he could play music. While hanging out at the Melvins practice space, he met Krist Novoselic, a fellow devotee of punk rock. A few years later, Kurt tried to convince Novoselic to form a band with him by lending him a copy of a home demo recorded by Kurt's earlier band, Fecal Matter. After months of asking, Novoselic finally agreed to join Kurt, forming the beginnings of Nirvana.
Two weeks before graduation, he dropped out of high school after realizing that he did not have enough credits to graduate. His mother gave him a choice: get a job or leave. After a week or so, Kurt found his clothes and other belongings packed away in boxes. Forced out of his mother's home, Kurt often stayed at friends' houses and sneaked into his mother's basement occasionally. Kurt later claimed that when he could not find anywhere else to stay, he lived under a bridge over the Wishkah River, an experience that inspired the Nevermind track "Something in the Way." However, Krist Novoselic said, "He hung out there, but you couldn't live on those muddy banks, with the tides coming up and down. That was his own revisionism."
Kurt struggled to reconcile the massive success of Nirvana with his underground roots. He also felt persecuted by the media, comparing himself to Frances Farmer. Then he harbored resentment for people who claimed to be fans of the band but who completely missed the band's politics. A vocal opponent of sexism and homophobia, Kurt was proud that Nirvana had played at a gay rights benefit supporting No on Nine in Oregon in 1992 and had been involved in Rock for Choice from the campaign inception by L7. An article from his posthumously released Journals declares that social liberation could be made possible only through the eradication of sexism.
Courtney Love first saw Kurt Cobain perform in 1989 at a show in Portland, Oregon; the pair talked briefly after the show and Love developed a crush on him. According to journalist Everett True, the pair were formally introduced at an L7 and Butthole Surfers concert in Los Angeles in May 1991. In the weeks that followed, after learning from Dave Grohl that she and Kurt shared mutual crushes, Love began pursuing Kurt. After a few weeks of on-again, off-again courtship in the fall of 1991, the two found themselves together on a regular basis, often bonding through drug use.
Throughout most of his life, Kurt suffered from chronic bronchitis and intense physical pain due to an undiagnosed chronic stomach condition. This last condition was especially debilitating to him emotionally, and he spent years trying to find its cause. However, none of the doctors he consulted were able to pinpoint the specific cause, guessing that it was either a result of Kurt's childhood scoliosis or related to the stresses of performing.
 His first drug experience was with marijuana in 1980 at age 13, and regulary used the drug during adulthood. Kurt also had a period of consuming "notable" amounts of LSD. Kurt's first experience with heroin occurred sometime in 1986, administered to him by a local drug dealer in Tacoma, Washington, who had previously been supplying him with Percodan. Kurt used heroin sporadically for several years, but, by the end of 1990, his use developed into a full-fledged addiction.
Prior to a performance at the New Music Seminar in New York City in July 1993, Kurt suffered a heroin overdose. Rather than calling for an ambulance, Love injected Cobain with illegally acquired Narcan to bring him out of his unconscious state. Kurt proceeded to perform with Nirvana, giving the public no indication that anything out of the ordinary had taken place.
Following a tour stop at Terminal Eins in Munich, Germany, on March 1, 1994, Kurt was diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis. He flew to Rome the next day for medical treatment, and was joined there by his wife on March 3. The next morning, Love awoke to find that Kurt had overdosed on a combination of champagne and Rohypnol (Love had a prescription for Rohypnol filled after arriving in Rome). Kurt was immediately rushed to the hospital, and spent the rest of the day unconscious. After five days in the hospital, Cobain was released and returned to Seattle. Love later stated that the incident was Kurt's first suicide attempt.
On March 18, Love phoned police to inform them that Kurt was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun. Police arrived and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills from Kurt, who insisted that he was not suicidal and had locked himself in the room to hide from Love. When questioned by police, Love said that Kurt had never mentioned that he was suicidal and that she had not seen him with a gun.
Kurt had agreed to undergo a detox program. He arrived at the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, California on March 30. The following night, Kurt walked outside to have a cigarette, then climbed over a six-foot-high fence to leave the facility. He took a taxi to Los Angeles Airport and flew back to Seattle. Over the course of April 2 and April 3, Kurt was spotted in various locations around Seattle, but most of his friends and family were unaware of his whereabouts. On April 3, Love contacted a private investigator, Tom Grant, and hired him to find Kurt. On April 7, amid rumors Nirvana was going to break up, the band pulled out of that year's Lollapalooza music festival.
On April 8, 1994, Kurt's body was discovered at his Lake Washington home by an electrician who had arrived to install a security system. Apart from a minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain's ear, the electrician reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Kurt was asleep until he saw the shotgun pointing at his chin. A suicide note was found that said, "I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing . . . for too many years now". A high concentration of heroin and traces of Valium were also found in his body. Kurt's body had been lying there for days; the coroner's report estimated Kurt to have died on April 5, 1994.
Here are snippets from his interview for The Advocate, February 1992:
"In his hometown of Aberdeen in rural Washington, he was branded a "faggot" from an early age. It was a title he eventually embraced and threw back in his tormentors' faces-just for the hell of it. In 1985 he was even arrested when he and friend Chris Novoselic spray painted HOMO SEX RULES on the side of a bank."
"Cobain closed his song "Stay Away" by howling "God is gay!" and Nirvana defiantly cavorted in dresses in the video of their hit single "In Bloom." Last year Nirvana traveled to Oregon to perform at a benefit opposing Measure 9, a statewide ordinance that would have amended the state constitution to prohibit protections for gays and lesbians. And when they appeard on Saturday Night Live, Cobain and Novoselic made a point of kissing on-camera."
"On the liner notes for Incesticide, he vented his frustration in a blunt statement to Nirvana fans: "If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us-leave us the fuck alone! Don't come to our shows and don't buy our records.""
AD: "You used to push people's buttons like that in high school, didn't you?
KC: Oh, absolutely. I used to pretend I was gay just to fuck with people. I've had the reputation of being a homosexual every since I was 14. It was really cool, because I found a couple of gay friends in Aberdeen - which is almost impossible. How I could ever come across a gay person in Aberdeen is amazing! But I had some really good friends that way. I got beat up a lot, of course, because of my association with them.
People just thought I was weird at first, just some fucked-up kid. But once I got the gay tag, it gave me the freedom to be able to be a freak and let people know that they should just stay away from me. Instead of having to explain to someone that they should just stay the fuck away from me - I'm gay, so I can't even be touched. It made for quite a few scary experiences in alleys walking home from school, though."
"I'm definitely gay in spirit, and I probably could be bisexual. But I'm married, and I'm more attracted to Courtney than I ever have been toward a person, so there's no point in trying to sow my oats at this point. [Laughs] If I wouldn't have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle."
Sources: excerpts from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and from The Advocate, February 1992
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