In September, Nirvana will celebrate the 30th anniversary of their seminal second album, Nevermind.
As the anniversary approaches, Dave Grohl sat down with Uncut to reflect on the album’s legacy, revealing that he didn’t anticipate the record as being influential and groundbreaking as it is.
Grohl reminisced that before Nevermind was released to the world, friends, family and musician contemporaries told the band that the record was going to be “fucking huge.”
“Donita [Sparks] from L7 came by and said we were going to be fucking huge,” Grohl recalled. “My old friend Barrett Jones, who I had grown up with in Virginia, who was a musician and a producer himself, heard ‘Lithium’ and said we were going to be fucking huge. He thought ‘Lithium’ should be the first single.”
Despite the overwhelming praise, Grohl had his doubts, “‘Well, it’s nice of you to say so, but there is no fucking way that is ever going to happen.””
Obviously, Nevermind went on to be one of the most singular, generation-defining records of all time. A success that Grohl did not anticipate. “It was Wilson Phillips, it was Mariah Carey and fucking Bon Jovi. It was not bands like us,” explained Grohl.
“So it seemed totally implausible that we would ever even get close to that kind of success,” he added.
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“But, you know, it all sounded great: the drum sound at [recording studio] Sound City, Butch Vig’s production. The band was tight and Kurt’s songs were fucking great. We would do one or two takes and maybe do an overdub here and there, Kurt would go in and do the vocal and it was crystal clear and so fucking powerful, melodic and beautiful that you’re proud of [it] – and we were definitely proud of it.”
The new issue of Uncut will arrive on Thursday, June 17th.
