21 October, 2022 12:48 pm
One of the stories that always accompany the account of the beginnings of Nirvana is how the voice of Kurt Cobain He surprised everyone from the first moment he showed the musician that was under his youthful and disheveled appearance, ending up becoming the legend of rock, and of grunge in particular, which he continues to be even so many years after his death. What is not so well known is that in the beginning he had difficulties to sing and play at the same time, something that the no less legendary producer Jack Endino has recalled during a recent meeting around the myths of grunge.
Nirvana’s bassist Krist Novoselic, Kim Thail of sound garden and the so-called “godfather of grunge”, the aforementioned producer, met at the interview with Rick Beato in which Endino recalled how two icons like Cobain and Chris Cornell they did not appear out of nowhere with those unmistakable voices: “Most of the iconic bands in Seattle didn’t start out amazing from the start. Kurt had a really hard time singing and playing at the same time when they started. At Nirvana’s first gigs, he was kind of mumbling. It took him a couple cycles of songwriting realizing he had to simplify his strumming so he could sing more powerfully. I went through the same thing myself. And, you know, Chris Cornell realized he couldn’t “be a drummer and do this.” Chris, when he started he was a bit shrill. The early Soundgarden were very shrill and his voice was very raw. All of these singers didn’t suddenly appear as amazing singers. They had to find it and develop it.”
The producer works as ‘Bleach’ either ‘Incesticide’ of Nirvanathe seed ‘Screaming Life’ from Soundgarden or ‘Skunkworks’ of Bruce Dickinson among many others, he highlights the importance of having a good singer compared to the usual disdain of some bands when deciding who will be the vocalist: “As a studio rat for many, many years, and also playing in bands for many, many years, the only thing that distinguishes a good, noteworthy demo for me when I receive it is: Is there a good singer? Or is it a mediocre indie rock singer? Because there are a lot of bands with good music, good lyrics, good sound, but the voice is secondary. It’s like: “Well, someone in the band has to sing. Who is it going to be? Okay, I guess I’ll do it. You know, somebody volunteers. The voice is always like, ‘somebody has to do it.’ It’s always a nice surprise when somebody suddenly finds out they’re good at it.”
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The difficulties of Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) to sing and play the guitar at the same time at the beginning: “In the first concerts it was like he murmured” – MariskalRock.com