The Nirvana Wars

In 1994, on a late January Sunday in North Seattle , Nirvana went into the studio for the last time. They'd had three days of recording scheduled, but for the first two, Kurt Cobain didn't turn up. On the third they recorded "You Know You're Right," a song of Cobain's they'd first played live the previous October.

"It's basically just the quiet-loud dynamic with lots of noise," says Dave Grohl. "I think it came out of a jam. . . ."

"It was just something we were working on," says Krist Novoselic.

"Something to take our mind off playing 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' every night," says Grohl.

Afterward, Novoselic took home the master tapes and put them in his basement. Just over two months later, Kurt Cobain killed himself in a room above the garage of the Seattle home he shared with Courtney Love. The tapes stayed in Novoselic's basement, and he didn't think about them too often. "I kept it safe," he says. "I kept it like a secret."

You know you're right" -- which remains unreleased despite the fact that no one involved disputes its quality -- is neither the cause of, nor the key issue in, the current fight over Nirvana's legacy; it's just one of the battle's pawns and, for the moment, one of its hostages. It was retrieved from the basement so that it could be included on a Nirvana box set scheduled for release last October, but neither it nor the box set has appeared. Now that Cobain's widow and primary heir, Courtney Love, is at loggerheads with his former band mates, there's no agreement there should even be a box set, or about much else. Lawsuits and legal motions have been flying back and forth for the past year; alongside them and in their shadows, all manner of accusations are being exchanged.

Love says that, on the day "You Know You're Right" was recorded, Cobain got home late and she'd been worried. She heard he'd left the session saying that he needed a nap but would return, and that he never returned because he went to score drugs. Eventually, Cobain would bring home a tape of what he described to her as "a really sick, good Alice in Chains song." That's what he said. "But I think he sold it out," she judges. "It's better than that."

Among the material that Grohl and Novoselic planned to put on the Nirvana box set, aside from "You Know You're Right," were, according to Novoselic, material from: "KAOS radio, 1987, BBC Peel sessions, studio outtakes, sessions that we did in North Seattle, Rio de Janeiro, In Utero outtakes, live stuff." He specifically mentions the "Butch Vig raw mix of 'Teen Spirit,' a rough mix that's really different." He adds, "You are going to have the people that were into Nevermind but never bought Bleach, and they are going to hear stuff that sounds like Scratch Acid, like the Butthole Surfers; they are going to hear crazy Flipper punk rock, and that's what excites me, because I got turned on to all of that when I was a kid and it changed my life." He and Grohl also say that they planned to include various jams on the box set.

Kurt, Dave, and Krist "Up in the list of horrors and bad things that ever happened in the history of rock & roll," Love declares, "this is up there." She scoffs at what she terms Novoselic and Grohl's "whole buddy-buddy thing."

Love strongly favors a single-CD Nirvana best-of package over the proposed box set. "I want to make sure that this record sees its way through to the kind of packaging, the kind of quality, the kind of mix, the kind of mastering, the kind of everything that Kurt deserves. This is ugly, but I'm ready for it. It's not a big deal. Compared to some aspects of my life, it's nothing. And if it means protecting my kid and protecting Kurt's legacy."

Though this battle unfolded only last year, it has its roots in the business arrangements put in place after Cobain's death, and also, earlier, in the complicated relationships between Cobain, Love, Grohl and Novoselic when Cobain was alive. When they address the conflict, each side finds it difficult to believe that the other side's motivations, in any particular instance, are anything other than the worst they could possibly be.

Their basic positions are as follows: As far as Novoselic and Grohl are concerned, Nirvana was a three-way partnership. The business structure put in place before Cobain's death reflects this arrangement: For the biggest decisions, Novoselic, Grohl and Cobain had to agree. Novoselic and Grohl contend that this worked fine until Love began firing torpedoes last year as the designated representative of Cobain's estate, demanding everything be dismantled. They believe Love is causing a fuss because she can't bear not getting her own way, because she is an attention seeker, out of greed and as a bargaining tool in her lawsuit against Universal, Nirvana's label. They have now countersued, asking the court to remove Love from the Nirvana partnership and to replace her with a less contentious representative of Cobain's estate.

As far as Courtney Love is concerned, Kurt Cobain was Nirvana. He controlled the group, wrote the songs, and the other two members were only sidemen. He used a group name only because that was the romantic ideal in those days. She contends that when the Nirvana partnership was formalized, she was still in a bad way after her husband's death, was poorly advised by lawyers, and misled by Grohl and Novoselic's representatives. So she signed the agreement, a move she now bitterly regrets. Love says, regarding Nirvana's business affairs, that Novoselic and Grohl take no notice of her opinions, routinely outvote her on everything and have been poor stewards of her husband's legacy. She believes it to be a huge wrong that, as things stand, Cobain's daughter, Frances, will grow up with only a minority say over how her father's records and other Nirvana products are handled, and it is a wrong Love has vowed to right

At the heart of the conflict is the Nirvana Limited Liability Company, which was set up after Cobain's death. During Cobain's lifetime, Nirvana shared royalties from record sales evenly, one third each. Cobain, who wrote the lion's share of the songs, separately collected the largest cut of the publishing income. (Though it has been reported otherwise, Grohl and Novoselic share in publishing royalties on only eleven Nirvana songs - including 12.5 percent each of "Smells Like Teen Spirit.")

Love contends that Cobain shared record royalties only out of kindness. Grohl and Novoselic contend that, though Cobain was the band's leader, the even split reflected how decisions were made in Nirvana. Whatever the case, the way the LLC was drawn up mirrors Grohl and Novoselic's position: aside from publishing, money and control are evenly split among Grohl, Novoselic and Love.

Love believes that Cobain controlled the group in life and so his estate should have the same control now. She also argues that between publishing and record royalties, the majority of income generated by Nirvana goes to Cobain's estate; therefore, the estate should have a majority say in the management of Nirvana. Though there are some financial implications, the Nirvana wars are not primarily about money, they are about control.