Kurt Donald Cobain was born on the 20th of February 1967 to Wendy and Donald Cobain, in Hoqiaim which is located about 140 kilometres southwest of Seattle in the state of Washington. But Cobain soon moved to nearby Aberdeen, a depressing and dying logging town. When Kurt once tried to describe Aberdeen he sad. "It´s a small dull town, much like the one in Twin Peaks. Nothing ever happens. Many are depressive alcoholics. The number of suicides and mentally ill are many times higher in Aberdeen than the rest of the state of Washington." It was here, no doubt, were Cobain first learned how to hate life. Kurt Cobains father, J Donald Cobain was a mechanic and his mother Wendy worked as a secretary and waitress in a bar. Kurt had also a sister, Kim. They lived in a 2 storage house and belonged to the lower middle class.

Until Kurt was nine year old he only listened to the Beatles, and the Monkees, but in 1979 his father joined a record club and he started to listen to music like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Kiss. He also started to listen to British alternative rock like Sex Pistols and The Clash. Kurt also liked to talk to his fantasy friend Bodha. Kurt was hyperactive, so his doctor gave him a drug called Ritalin, which is a morphine based drug, to help him concentrate in school. The drug often kept him awake until 4 am in the morning so he was given sedatives to be able to get some sleep. In 1979, Cobain was faced with the suicide of a great-uncle. Five years later another uncle also committed suicide. There are rumours that other relatives also committed suicide, it was apparent that suicide went back a long way in Kurt´s family history.

Kurt had a happy childhood until he was seven, when his parents divorced, and by his own account Cobain said he never felt loved or secure again. His personality began to change and he became increasingly difficult, antisocial, withdrawn and unhappy after his parents divorce. Cobain also said that his parent´s traumatic split fueled a lot of the anguish in Nirvanas music. During the following years he moved around a lot between his two parents and other members of the family. Once he even found himself homeless and had to live under a bridge, which he describes in the song "something in the way." ("Underneath the bridge/the tarp has sprung a leak/And the animals I´ve trapped/Have all become my pets/And I´m living off of grass/ and the drippings from the ceiling/But it´s okay to eat fish cause they don´t have any feelings./Something in the Way…") But finally Kurt lived in the house of his mother, who had married again. On one occasion, after finding out that her husband had cheated on her, she pointed a gun at his head and threatened to kill him. Kurt watched as she attempted unsuccessfully to load the weapon. Finally, in frustration she marched into the night and threw all the firearms from the house into a river. The next day, after paying two kids to fish them out, Kurt sold the guns for pocket cash. He used the money to buy his first ampflifier. Kurt had a dream to become a rockstar. When Kurt was 14 he got his first guitar. The first songs he learned to play was "My best friend" and "Communication Breakdown" by the Clash and Led Zeppelin, Kurt started to write his first songs and tried to develop his own style instead of just playing covers. In 1982 Kurt discovered the local band The Melvins. He was suprised to find a great band like that in Seattle. Kurt went to all their gigs with about 30 people listening. Kurt worshipped them. At this time, this kind of music was very alternative.

Kurt did NOT like school, he felt lonely and lost. He couldn´t understand why nobody wanted to be with him. Kurt liked art, music and culture, but no one else did. "Everybody should be normal and like football and stuff like that", Kurt has later said. But Kurt wasn´t normal. He was sensitive and artistically talented, for example he was outstanding in drawing. He had an artistic inheritance; many of his relatives had occupied themselves with music. Kurt learned to play the piano bye ear when he was seven years old. But in school anyone who was different from the others got beaten up. Kurt got a lot of beating from the "normal" guys. A mark that shows how bad Kurt adapted to school life was that it doesn´t exist one single photograph on him in the school year book. Although his teacher in art, Bob Hunter still remembers how talented Kurt was; he was so good that he easily could have made a leaving as an artist or as a sculptor. Most of the girls liked Kurt and thought he was cute. But Kurt didn´t like them, he thought they were ugly and had strange attitude. "The cool" guys tried to hang out with Kurt to come closer to the girls, but Kurt hated the guts of those macho boys. Kurt felt more like a girl rather than a boy. He started to believe he was gay. And he found a few gay friends in school. But everybody didn´t like gays and this resulted in a few nasty fight in school. But he got even by spray painting "QUEER" on their pickup trucks.

Meanwhile punk rock was thriving and punk rock sounded like Cobain felt; desperate, angry and raw. Kurt has later said, "in on stage music was all that was important to me." He dropped out of high school in 1985 and was booted from his mothers house and bounced from one friend´s couch to the back seat of the next friend´s car. In 1984 a new fan had discovered The Melvins, Krist Novoselic. Kurt had for a long time tried to start a band together with Krist who thought it would be a good idea. Krist had Croatian parents and was born near Los Angeles in a town called Compton. When he was 15 his father got a new job and they moved to Aberdeen, where his mother also started to work. None in school liked the same music music as Krist; Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Devo and Black Flag accept Cobain. Kurt talked with Krist about forming a band. Krist said that he also wanted that. They started a band called Ed,Ted and Fred. Krist played the guitar and Kurt played the drums. They recruited a bass player called Steve, and Kurt had finally manage to gather a band. They played a few gigs together in Aberdeen but when Steve was hit by a tree he lost a couple of fingers and could not continue to play. Kurt and Krist started to play with a couple of guys from Melvins (Matt Lukin). Kurt was now convinced music was what he wanted to do. Sometimes here Kurt sold his guitar and started to abuse LSD, but Matt manage to calm him down. Kurt renamed the band first to "Stiff Woddies" then "Skid Row", later "Fecal Matter" before "Nirvana" became to be in 1986.

Nirvana was an uneasy alliance between Cobain, the bassist Krist Novoselic and the eventually drummer and multi-instrumentalist Dave Grohl. By 1988 Nirvana were performing shows and had demo tapes going around. In 1989 Nirvana recorded their rough edged first album "Bleach" for local Seatlle independent label Sub-Pop. In Britain Nirvana received a lot of recognition and 1991 their contract was bought out by Geffen, they signed to the mega-label, the first non mainstream band to do so. Two and a half years after Nirvana´s first C.D "Bleach" was released they released "Nevermind", a series of different, crunching, screaming songs that along with it´s first single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would propel Nirvana to mainstream stardom.

"Smell Like Teen Spirit" became Nirvana´s most highly acclaimed and instantly recognisable song. Not many people can dechiper it´s exact lyrics but Cobain used a seductive hookline to hook the listener. "Nevermind" went on to sell ten millions copies and make a reported $550 million (US) leaving Nirvana overnight millionaires. Cobain was shocked at the reception of his highly personal and passionate music repeatedly telling reporters that none of the band ever, ever expected anything like this. It quickly became obvious that the obsessively sickly and sensitive 24 year old was not going to cope well with the rock´n roll lifestyle. "If there was a rock star 101 course, I´d really have like to take it," Cobain once observed. Cobain fell into heroin in the early 90´s, he said he used it as a shield against the rigorous demands of touring and to stop the pain of stomach ulcers or an irritated bowel. Trough the touring and pressure Cobain continued to write his very personal acutely focused lyrics. Cobain was distressed to find out that what he wrote and how it was interpreted could quite often be miles apart. He was shocked when he found out that Polly a heavily ironic anti-rape song had been used as background music in a real gang-rape. He later appealed to fans on the Incesticide liner notes "If any of you don´t like gays or woman or blacks, please leave them the fuck alone." It was to no avail, Cobain found that as an overnight millionaire musician control was something he had very little of. Cobain also worried that his band had sold out, that it was attracting the wrong kind of fans (i.e the type they used to beat him up.)

In February 1992 Cobain skipped off to Hawaii to marry the already pregnant Courtney Love. Later in the year Nirvana released "Incesticide" and in August Cobain had hospital treatment for heroin abuse. Shortly after his daughter, Frances Bean Cobain was born. In early 1993 "In Utero" was released into the top spot on the music charts. "In Utero" was widely acclaimed by the music press and it contains some of Cobain´s most passionate work. "In Utero" was a lot more open than Nirvana´s previous albums. Songs like "All Apologies" and "Heart Shaped Box" detailed aspects of Cobain´s sometimes shaky marriage, other songs like "Scentless Apprentice" detailed the agonies and struggles of Cobain´s experience. Nirvana embarked on a support tour and recorded and filmed an "unplugged" (acoustic) performance for MTV in November of 1993. Nirvana's choice to honour bands and people that had influenced them and Cobain's passionate andintense vocals especially on "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" silenced many of those who had labelled Cobain talentless. Rumours circulated that the MTV Unplugged compilation would be Nirvana's last album and the band were splitting up. Cobain was a gun fanatic and always had several in his possession or in various forms of confiscation. In the northern winter of 1993-94 Nirvana embarked on an extensive European tour. Twenty concerts into the tour Cobain developed throat problems and their schedule was interrupted while he recovered.

While recovering Cobain flew to Rome to join his wife who was also preparing to tour with her own band.On March the 4th Cobain was rushed to hospital in a coma after an unsuccessful suicide bid in which he washed down about fifty prescription painkillers with champagne. The suicide bid was officially called an accident and was not even made known to close friends and associates. Several days later he returned to Seattle. Cobain's wife, friends and managers convinced Cobain, who was still in deep distress to enter a detox program in L.A. According to a missing person's report filed by his mother Cobain fled after only a few days of the program.

Cobain was cited in the Seattle area with a shotgun. Days later on the 5th of April he barricaded himself into the granny flat behind his mansion, put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. On Thursday April the 7th, two days after a medical examiner says Cobain shot himself and the day before his body was found police say Courtney Love herself was taken to hospital in L.A. for a drug overdose. Released on bail, Love checked her self into a rehab centre but left soon after a friend called her the next day with news of Cobain's death. Cobain's body was found when an electrician visiting the house to install a security system went round the back of the house when no one answered the front door and peered through windows. He thought he saw a mannequin sprawled on the floor until he noticed a splotch of blood by Cobain's ear. When police broke down the door they found Cobain dead on the floor, a shotgun still pointed at his chin and on a nearby counter a suicide note written in red ink addressed to Love and the couples then 19 month old daughter Frances Bean. The suicide note ended with the words "I love you, I love you." Two days after Kurt Cobain's body was found about 5,000 people gathered in Seattle for a candlelight vigil. The distraught crowd filled the air with profanechants, burnt their flannel shirts and fought with police. They also listened to a tape made by Cobain's wife in which she read from his suicide note. Several distressed teenagers in the U.S. and Australia killed themselves. The mainstream media was lambasted for it's lack of respect and understanding of youth culture.

We'll Always Remember