ANCORA NIRVANA ?

Photo by Anton Corbijn
Following their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, Nirvana’s Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic performed with guest vocalists Joan Jett, Kim Gordon, St. Vincent’s Annie Clark, and Lorde. Later, they performed at St. Vitus Bar in Brooklyn with a variety of special guests. Now, in an interview with Rolling Stone, Grohl and Novoselic have given a behind-the-scenes look at their night.
In the interview, they revealed that they initially asked PJ Harvey to appear, but she couldn’t make it. “Kurt loved PJ Harvey,” said Grohl. “We had always imagined playing our song ‘Milk It’ from In Utero with her.”
They said they reached out to a few unnamed “A-list male rock stars”, but nobody wanted to do it. Grohl said they eventually firmly decided that it should only be female vocalists.
“We thought, ‘Wait, it has to be all women,'” he says. “‘Don’t even ask anyone else. If we can fill the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance with these incredible women singing Nirvana songs, then we’ll have achieved our own revolution.’ It also added a whole other dimension to the show. It added substance and depth, so it didn’t turn into a eulogy. It was more about the future.”
“Joan Jett, who formed the Runaways, changed rock & roll for women,” says Grohl. “Kim Gordon, from Sonic Youth, was this beacon of light in the predominantly macho, male underground punk rock scene. St. Vincent is a wicked musician that’s pushing boundaries now. And Lorde has an incredible future ahead of her as a writer, performer and vocalist.”
Novoselic revealed that in order to re-learn his parts, he had to pick up a Nirvana tab book. As they kept rehearsing, it became emotional. “Then it hit me and I got kind of somber. I was like, ‘Oh my God. I’m playing these songs again.'”
Here’s what Grohl said about their first rehearsals:
“The first time we played together, it was like seeing a ghost,” he says. “The second time, it was a little more reserved. And the last time we played it was like that fucking Demi Moore/Patrick Swayze pottery wheel scene from Ghost. We usually got the song by the third take. It started to sound like Nirvana. Our road crew and some friends were in the room when we launched into ‘Scentless Apprentice’ for the first time. There were jaws on the floor.”
“I hadn’t played in that band in 20 years,” he continues. “Hearing what it sounded like when we played ‘Scentless Apprentice’ legitimized it for me. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be in a room full of Nirvana. That first day back really legitimized it. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s right! We sounded like this, and that’s why people paid attention.”
Both men were asked whether or not something like this could happen again. Novoselic said, “That’s a good question. I mean, there’s Foo Fighters and Dave has some other projects going on. And I have some commitments. But you never say never now. We did it. I sure won’t say no. Maybe we can even do some new music one day.”
Grohl didn’t seem so optimistic. “We haven’t even talked about it. We looked at that evening as a night that may never happen again. That’s what made it so powerful and beautiful and meaningful. And it may never happen again, so we made the most of it. And it was fucking great.”
Read the entire Rolling Stone article here.
Novoselic also wrote about the experience on his blog. “I feel we conjured the spirit of the band, and we could not have done that alone. This, for me, is a bittersweet notion as we all miss Kurt so much. But considering we were inducted, the show had to go on.”
Watch Grohl, Novoselic, and Pat Smear perform “Lithium” with Annie Clark: