“Growing Up Kurt Cobain” is a new exhibition at the Museum of Style Icons in Newbridge. The exhibition features personal effects belonging to Cobain that have never been displayed in public before, including his powder-blue 1965 Dodge Dart, childhood toys, sketches and hand-written lyrics. The exhibition was opened by Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean, his mother Wendy and his sister Kim. They joined Dave Fanning on The Ryan Tubridy Show to talk about the man they knew, the star he became and the legacy he left behind.
Going through Kurt’s childhood drawings and memories of his youth was something Kim really enjoyed, she told Dave.
“It’s just really thrilling to be able to go and see our childhood that we had together…We always had music and art in our family, it was always around us…He loved to play guitar, he loved to play drums. He loved the draw.“
Frances thinks the exhibition, curated by Cobain’s own family, is an opportunity to present their version of who he was to the public.
“This is the first time they’ve [Wendy and Kim] ever really creatively informed their idea of Kurt and who they knew him to be. Because everything that we’ve heard or seen is like the saturated version. Because it’s part of the mythology. We love to think of him as like this mysterious, dark Poet Laureate. And he was. But he was also, like, funny and warm and a brother and son. And I think this is more reflective of that.”
Wendy remembered the first time Kurt played his music for her. A little-known track called ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.
“When that came on I was just freaking out on him, like a fan. I was like ‘Oh my God, I don’t think you’re ready for this’. I burst into tears thinking, ‘Oh my god, you’re going down. You can’t handle this…This is going to blow up so big I’m scared for you‘.“
Her worry stemmed from Kurt’s shyness, Wendy explained. She knew that his music was good enough that it would probably garner more attention than he would like.
“I was freaked out. But at the same time, ready to pop because I was so impressed with it.”
Kurt and his sister grew up in a “raucous” household that was filled with music. But not all genres got equal play, Kim recalled.
“There are many things where Kurt has written on walls: Disco sucks.”
Kim described seeing the music video for ‘In Bloom’ for the first time. It was being played on MTV and she watched it on her tiny black and white TV in Seattle. It marked the sudden shift in Nirvana’s status from popular Seattle band to huge international act with the album Nevermind.
Living with the legacy of such fame can be challenging and it’s fair to say Frances has overcome her fair share of difficulties in her short life. Dave asked about a recent social media post she made about being 2 years sober. It was an opportunity to “take accountability”, she told him.
“I grew up in a circumstance where accountability really wasn’t a thing. Like, it was always really disregarded as somebody else’s fault, even though it wasn’t always somebody else’s fault. And I think that had an opposite reaction in me, where I am sort of maybe even too quick to take accountability for things that aren’t even my fault.”
As Dave put it, Frances was famous before she was born. She regularly encounters people who knew and loved her father. How does she feel about being approached by people in this way?
“I think that the older I get, the more humbled I am that I am part of a legacy that has altered people’s perspectives and lives. Like, that is what good art is about.”
These stories people have about her father also make additions to the “arsenal” of information she has about him, she explained.
“Some people lose their parents and they get a couple of photographs and maybe a couple of home movies and that’s it. But I have this whole arsenal of information from not just like people who I know in my family but from people who encountered him one or two times and that one or two times changed them.”
Being so close to Kurt provided ample resources when it came to putting this exhibition together. Dave was curious how people like Courtney Love, Cobain’s widow, view this version of Kurt. Frances says that Courtney recognises that the man she knew may look different to the one represented in this exhibition.
“I think Courtney is supportive of them. I also think Courtney recognises that this is their version of Kurt. This isn’t reflective of her husband, this is reflective of her son and her brother. I think that also, Kurt tended to put on a bit of a façade with Courtney, you know what I mean? Like, he tended to play up certain aspects of his mystery or his darkness because he was trying to match her mystery and darkness. He didn’t get to choose who they saw. With my Grandma and my Aunt, that was just who he was and who they knew him to be.”
Wendy is hopeful that this exhibit will help to show a different side to Kurt than the narrative the media tends to run with.
“Even though we tell it, it doesn’t get reported. They have their own idea of what they want to put out there. He was the sweetest, funniest little devil sometimes.”
It wasn’t just the public Wendy wanted to share her memories of Kurt with, Wendy explained. Everything she has done since Kurt’s death in 1994 has been with the goal of showing Frances who her father was.
“She didn’t know Kurt and it was really important to me to let her know who he was.”
The exhibition runs until September.
Listen back to the whole interview on The Ryan Tubridy Show here.