Melvins Frontman Says He Took Kurt Cobain to His First Show, That Nirvana Frontman Was From 'Poor Background' With 'No Money'

-During a conversation with Revolver, Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne talked about Nirvana and the late Kurt Cobain, remembering how he took Kurt to his first gig. Osborne and Melvins are promoting their 25th studio album, titled "Five Legged Dog." When the interviwer said, "You took Kurt Cobain to his first show, which was a Black Flag gig. What was that night like?", Buzz replied (transcribed by UG):

-"It was a hall that maybe held three or four hundred people, maybe 500 if it was packed - it was not packed. It was a Black Flag [1984's] 'Slip Ut In' tour.

"We were friends with Kurt and had been for a long time, and I've been going into weird music for a lot longer than that.

"The beginning musically, for me, was all on my own. There were no record stores where I lived, there were no radio stations that would play anything weird.

"I discovered all that through pictures and magazines and ordered the records through mail orders.

"I didn't have older brothers or sisters or people that were turning me onto cool music, unlike the way I did with all the people like [Nirvana bassist] Krist Novoselic, the guys in my band, Cobain...

"All those people would never probably have ever gotten into any of that stuff without me saying, 'There's this whole world out there that you might be interested in. What do you think of this?'

"I was like, 'Come on, we're going to go see this band Black Flag, I'd already seen them a bunch of times, you should come and check it out.'

-"But you gotta remember, he [Kurt] was from a poor background. That really is a rags-to-riches story for those guys, all those guys, they had really nothing - no money.

"The families had no money, no parental support whatsoever, no one that believed in anything that they did.

"And so I was like, 'We're friends with all these people, you might have fun. You'll come up and see this thing and it would be a lot of fun.'

"And Black Flag was really good that night, it was a great, great, great show. Big enough to where it wasn't too crazy but it also was enough to get an intense look into this rock music that wasn't like anything he'd ever seen before.

"But I was already way into all that stuff, I had been for quite a while.

"And I remember I was up closer to the stage watching the show, and he was kind of maybe halfway back, and I remember him saying to me, 'That is exactly the kind of guitar sound I want when I play guitar.'"

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