Kurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain was the vocalist and guitarist of the famous American band Nirvana, as well as its leader and spiritual center. With the success of the band, he became an international celebrity.
Kurt Donald Cobain was born on February 20, 1967, in the port town of Hoquaim, Washington. Six months after Kurt was born, his family moved to the nearby town of Aberdeen. Aberdeen was a small and depressed town, due to massive unemployment. The main source of income in Aberdeen was the timber industry, which by then was in a very poor state.
Kurt Cobain's father was car mechanic Donald Cobain, a German. His wife, Wendy O'Connor, Cobain's mother, was Irish. Wendy O'Connor changed jobs frequently, managing to work as a waitress, educator, and in other professions. Kurt had a sibling, Kim, who was three and a half years younger than him. The bulk of Kurt's upbringing was taken care of by his uncles and aunts, of whom he had quite a few. As a child, Kurt loved to paint and won several awards at school competitions, for his work. His interest in music comes after his uncle Chuck, Cobain's mother's brother, takes his two-year-old nephew to a rock band rehearsal where he was a guitarist. Aunt Mary gives little Kurt records of The Beatles and The Monkees and gives him his first guitar lessons. Then he spends a lot of time at the little kid's Mickey Mouse drum kit, learning The Beatles songs. Over time, Kurt becomes hyperactive, which prevents him from interacting normally with his peers. He becomes withdrawn, avoids the company of other children, becomes depressed and is often ill. The turning point in Cobain's life came when he was just 7 years old when his parents decided to divorce him, causing him to resent them, becoming more withdrawn and not as cheerful as before. At the age of about eight, he is taken into the school band, where Kurt plays guitar.
In 1981, when Kurt Cobain turns 14, his Uncle Chuck gives him a used electric guitar with a twenty watt combo. After that the guitar becomes his favorite pastime. From then on, he spends a lot of time with Warren Mason Uncle Chuck's friend and musician in his band. Warren Mason gives Kurt guitar lessons then he learns a song from rock'n'roll band AC/DC - Back in Black and tries to compose his own stuff. His first attempt to create his own band together with his high school friends Andy and Scott turn out to be a failure. After a few unsuccessful rehearsals discord arises in the band, and the idea is dropped.
In 1984 Kurt drops out of high school half a year before graduation and decides not to study anymore. After several scandals, his mother kicked him out of the house. At first, Kurt slept either under the bridge over the Whiskey River or in the cabs of trucks. At that time Kurt was a fan of the Sex Pistols and The Clash, and had time to understand the ideology of punk. Therefore such a situation did not put him off, on the contrary, he was proud of his position, which, in his opinion, made him a real punk rocker. During the summer, Kurt's company would often have booze parties where they smashed and broke everything around them. He was once arrested by the police, fined $180 and 30 days in jail on probation for vandalism.
Kurt starts out playing three chords and a lot of screaming. According to Kurt, his first music "was like Led Zeppelin, only rougher, and I tried to make it as aggressive and angry as possible." His band, formed in 1985, was characteristically called Fecal Matter (Nirvana since 1988).
Cobain and Nirvana did much to help redefine popular music in the '90s. The 1991 release of the song Smells Like Teen Spirit kicked off the popularization of grunge. The song was recognized by the music press as the anthem of "Generation X", and Kurt himself gained the status of one of the leaders of this generation.
As the leader of a very popular band, Kurt Cobain was in the eyes of the media not just a musician, but the "voice of the generation", and Nirvana was the flagship of "Generation X". Cobain did not like such media attention, and he went to work on his third numbered album In Utero.
During the last year of his life, Kurt was actively trying to get rid of his drug addiction, and the press discussed his relationship with his wife, Courtney Love. On April 8, 1994, Kurt's body was found in his home. The official version of his death - suicide by shooting himself in the head with a shotgun - is still in doubt. Private investigator Tom Grant has put forward a version claiming that Kurt's murder was orchestrated by his wife, Courtney Love.
