1987–1988: Formation and early years Singer and guitarist
Kurt Cobain and bassist
Krist Novoselic met while attending
Aberdeen High School in Washington state. The pair became friends while frequenting the practice space of the
Melvins. Cobain wanted to form a band with Novoselic, but Novoselic did not respond for a long period. Cobain gave him a demo tape of his project
Fecal Matter. Three years after the two first met, Novoselic notified Cobain that he had finally listened to the Fecal Matter demo and suggested they start a group. Their first band, the Sellouts, was a
Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute band. The project featured Novoselic on guitar and vocals, Cobain on drums, and Steve Newman on bass but only lasted a short time. Another project, this time featuring originals, was also attempted in late 1986. Bob McFadden was enlisted to play drums, but after a month this project also fell through. In early 1987, Cobain and Novoselic recruited drummer
Aaron Burckhard. They practiced material from Cobain's Fecal Matter tape but started writing new material soon after forming. During its initial months, the band went through a series of names, including Skid Row, Pen Cap Chew, Bliss, and Ted Ed Fred. The band played under the name Nirvana for the first time on March 19, 1988, at Community World Theater, Tacoma, Washington, together with the bands Lush and Vampire Lezbos. This concert's flyer, designed by Kurt Cobain, also mentioned all of the previous band names: "Nirvana (also known as... Skid Row, Ted Ed Fred, Pen Cap Chew, Bliss)". The group settled on Nirvana because, according to Cobain, "I wanted a name that was kind of beautiful or nice and pretty instead of a mean, raunchy punk name like the
Angry Samoans." The band were initially sued by the British band
Nirvana over the usage of the name, reaching an out-of-court settlement. Novoselic moved to
Tacoma and Cobain to
Olympia, Washington. They temporarily lost contact with Burckhard, and instead practiced with
Dale Crover of the Melvins, with whom Nirvana recorded its first demos in January 1988. In early 1988, Crover moved to San Francisco but recommended Dave Foster as his replacement on drums. Foster's tenure with Nirvana was a rocky one; during a stint in jail, he was replaced by Burckhard, who again departed after telling Cobain he was too hungover to practice one day. Foster would rejoin the band, but after Cobain and Novoselic were introduced to drummer
Chad Channing, the band would permanently dismiss him (although not before Foster witnessed the group play live without him). Channing continued to jam with Cobain and Novoselic; however, by Channing's account, "They never actually said 'okay, you're in. Channing played his first show with Nirvana in late May 1988.
1988–1990: Early releases " (1988) Nirvana released its first single, a cover of
Shocking Blue's "
Love Buzz", in November 1988 on the Seattle independent record label
Sub Pop. They did their first interview with
John Robb in
Sounds, which made their release its single of the week. The following month, the band began recording its debut album,
Bleach, with local producer
Jack Endino.
Bleach was influenced by the heavy dirge-rock of the Melvins, the 1980s punk rock of
Mudhoney, and the 1970s
heavy metal of
Black Sabbath. The money for the recording sessions for
Bleach, listed as on the album sleeve, was supplied by
Jason Everman, who was subsequently brought into the band as the second guitarist. Though Everman did not play on the album, he received a credit on
Bleach because, according to Novoselic, they "wanted to make him feel more at home in the band". Prior to the album's release, Nirvana became the first band to sign an extended contract with Sub Pop.
Bleach was released in June 1989, and became a favorite of
college radio stations. Nirvana embarked on its first national tour, but canceled the last few dates and returned to Washington state due to increasing differences with Everman. No one told Everman he was fired; Everman later said he had quit. Although Sub Pop did not promote
Bleach as much as other releases, it was a steady seller, and had initial sales of 40,000 copies. However, Cobain was upset by the label's lack of promotion and distribution. In an interview with Robb, Cobain said the band's music was changing: "The early songs were really angry... But as time goes on the songs are getting poppier and poppier as I get happier and happier. The songs are now about conflicts in relationships, emotional things with other human beings." performing with
Scream in 1989|alt=In April 1990, Nirvana began working on their next album with producer
Butch Vig at
Smart Studios in
Madison, Wisconsin. Cobain and Novoselic became disenchanted with Channing's drumming, and Channing expressed frustration at not being involved in songwriting. As bootlegs of Nirvana demos with Vig began to circulate in the music industry and draw attention from major labels, Channing left the band. That July, Nirvana recorded the single "
Sliver" with Mudhoney drummer
Dan Peters. Dale Crover filled in on drums on Nirvana's seven-date American West Coast tour with
Sonic Youth that August. In September 1990,
Buzz Osborne of the Melvins introduced the band to drummer
Dave Grohl, whose Washington, D.C. band
Scream had broken up. Grohl auditioned for Novoselic and Cobain days after arriving in Seattle; Novoselic later said, "We knew in two minutes that he was the right drummer." Grohl told
Q: "I remember being in the same room with them and thinking, 'What?
That Nirvana? Are you kidding?' Because on their record cover they looked like psycho lumberjacks... I was like, 'What, that little dude and that big motherfucker? You're kidding me'."
1991–1992: Nevermind and mainstream breakthrough Disenchanted with Sub Pop, and with the Smart Studios sessions generating interest, Nirvana sought a deal with a major record label since no indie label could buy them out of their contract. Cobain and Novoselic consulted
Soundgarden and
Alice in Chains manager
Susan Silver for advice. They met Silver in Los Angeles and she introduced them to agent Don Muller and music business attorney Alan Mintz, who specialized in finding deals for new bands. Mintz started sending out Nirvana's demo tape to major labels looking for deals. When Nirvana was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, Novoselic thanked Silver during his speech for "introducing them to the music industry properly". After signing, the band began recording its first major label album,
Nevermind. The group was offered a number of producers, but held out for Vig. Rather than record at Vig's Madison studio as they had in 1990, production shifted to
Sound City Studios in
Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California. For two months, the band worked through a variety of songs. Some, such as "
In Bloom" and "Breed", had been in Nirvana's repertoire for years, while others, including "
On a Plain" and "Stay Away", lacked finished lyrics until midway through the recording process. After the recording sessions were completed, Vig and the band set out to
mix the album. However, the recording sessions had run behind schedule and the resulting mixes were deemed unsatisfactory.
Slayer mixer
Andy Wallace was brought in to create the final mix. After the album's release, members of Nirvana expressed dissatisfaction with the polished sound that Wallace had given
Nevermind. Initially, DGC Records was hoping to sell 250,000 copies of
Nevermind, the same they had achieved with Sonic Youth's
Goo. However, the first single, "
Smells Like Teen Spirit", quickly gained momentum, boosted by major airplay of the music video on
MTV. As it toured Europe during late 1991, the band found that its shows were dangerously oversold, that television crews were becoming a constant presence onstage, and that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was almost omnipresent on radio and music television. By Christmas 1991,
Nevermind was selling 400,000 copies a week in the US. In January 1992, the album displaced
Michael Jackson's
Dangerous at number one on the
Billboard album charts, and topped the charts in numerous other countries. The month
Nevermind reached number one,
Billboard proclaimed, "Nirvana is that rare band that has everything: critical acclaim, industry respect, pop radio appeal, and a rock-solid college/alternative base." The album eventually sold over seven million copies in the United States and over 30 million worldwide. Nirvana's sudden success was credited for popularizing
alternative rock and ending the popularity of
hair metal. In March 1992, Cobain sought to reorganize the group's songwriting royalties (which to this point had been split equally) to better represent that he wrote the majority of the music. Grohl and Novoselic did not object, but when Cobain wanted the agreement to be retroactive to the release of
Nevermind, the disagreements came close to breaking up the band. After a week of tension, Cobain received a retroactive share of 75 percent of the royalties. Bad feelings about the situation remained within the group afterward. Amid rumors that the band was disbanding due to Cobain's health, Nirvana headlined the closing night of the 1992
Reading Festival in England. Cobain programmed the performance lineup. Nirvana's performance at Reading is often regarded as one of the most memorable of their career. A few days later, Nirvana performed at the
MTV Video Music Awards; despite the network's refusal to let the band play the new song "
Rape Me", Cobain strummed and sang the first few bars of the song before breaking into "
Lithium". The band received awards for the
Best Alternative Video and
Best New Artist categories. DGC had hoped to have a new Nirvana album ready for a late 1992 holiday season; instead, it released the compilation album
Incesticide in December 1992. A joint venture between DGC and Sub Pop,
Incesticide collected various rare Nirvana recordings and was intended to provide the material for a better price and higher quality than
bootlegs.
1993: In Utero , for the
In Utero tour.In February 1993, Nirvana released
"Puss" / "Oh, the Guilt", a split single with
the Jesus Lizard, on the independent label
Touch & Go. Cobain said they chose him for his "natural" recording style, without layers of studio trickery. Albini and Nirvana recorded the album in two weeks in
Pachyderm Studio in
Cannon Falls, Minnesota, that February for . After its completion, stories ran in the
Chicago Tribune and
Newsweek that quoted sources claiming DGC considered the album "unreleasable". Fans became concerned that Nirvana's creative vision might be compromised by their label. While the stories about DGC shelving the album were untrue, the band was unhappy with certain aspects of Albini's mixes; they thought the bass levels were too low, and Cobain felt that "
Heart-Shaped Box" and "
All Apologies" did not sound "perfect". The longtime
R.E.M. producer
Scott Litt was called in to remix the two songs, with Cobain adding more instrumentation and backing vocals.
In Utero topped the American and British album charts.
Time critic
Christopher John Farley wrote in his review, "Despite the fears of some alternative-music fans, Nirvana hasn't gone mainstream, though this potent new album may once again force the mainstream to go Nirvana."
In Utero went on to sell more than five million copies in the United States. For the tour, the band added
Pat Smear of the punk rock band
Germs as the second guitarist. In November, Nirvana recorded a performance for the television program
MTV Unplugged. Augmented by Smear and cellist
Lori Goldston, they broke convention for the show by choosing not to play their best known songs. Instead, they performed several covers, and invited
Cris and
Curt Kirkwood of the
Meat Puppets to join them for renditions of three Meat Puppets songs. In early 1994, Nirvana embarked on a European tour. Their final concert took place in
Munich, Germany, on March 1. In Rome, on the morning of March 4, Cobain's wife,
Courtney Love, found Cobain unconscious in their hotel room and he was rushed to the hospital. Cobain had reacted to a combination of prescribed
rohypnol and alcohol. The rest of the tour was canceled.
1994–1996: Death of Cobain and disbandment In the weeks following his hospitalization in Rome, Cobain's
heroin addiction resurfaced. Following an
intervention, he was persuaded to enter
drug rehabilitation. After less than a week, Cobain scaled the 6-foot wall and escaped, then returned to Seattle. On April 6, 1994, it was announced that Nirvana withdrew from their planned appearance at the
Lollapalooza 94 tour due to Cobain's ongoing health problems, with reports that they had broken up. Two days later, on April 8, Cobain was
found dead of a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head at his home in the
Denny-Blaine neighborhood of the city. He had died approximately three days earlier. Until the discovery of his body, Cobain had been missing since escaping the rehabilitation center. Cobain's death drew international attention and became a topic of public fascination and debate. Within hours, stocks ran low of Nirvana records in stores, and Nirvana sales rose dramatically in the United Kingdom. Unused tickets for Nirvana concerts sold for inflated prices on the used market. The inflation was triggered by the manager of
Brixton Academy, who lied on
BBC Radio 1 that fans were purchasing tickets as a "piece of history", in an effort to retain the money he stood to lose from ticket refunds. A public vigil for Cobain was held on April 10, 1994, at a park at
Seattle Center, drawing approximately 7,000 mourners, followed by a final ceremony on May 31, 1999. In 1994, Grohl founded a new band, the
Foo Fighters. He and Novoselic decided against Novoselic joining. Grohl said it would have felt "really natural" for them to work together again, but would have been uncomfortable for the other band members and placed more pressure on Grohl. Novoselic turned his attention to political activism. Instead, in November 1994, DGC released the
MTV Unplugged performance as
MTV Unplugged in New York. It debuted at number one on the
Billboard charts and earned Nirvana a
Grammy Award for
Best Alternative Music Album at the
1996 Grammys. It was followed by Nirvana's first full-length VHS live video,
Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!. In 1996, the live album
From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah became the third consecutive Nirvana release to debut at the top of the
Billboard album chart. A 45-track box set of Nirvana rarities was scheduled for release in October 2001. However, shortly before the release date, Love filed a suit to dissolve Nirvana LLC, and an injunction was issued preventing the release of any new Nirvana material until the case was resolved. Love contended that Cobain was Nirvana, that Grohl and Novoselic were sidemen, and that she had signed the partnership agreement originally under bad advice. Grohl and Novoselic countersued, asking the court to remove Love from the partnership and to replace her with another representative of Cobain's estate. It debuted at number three on the
Billboard album chart. The box set,
With the Lights Out, was released in November 2004. The release contained early Cobain demos, rough rehearsal recordings, and live tracks. An album of selected tracks from the box set,
Sliver: The Best of the Box, was released in late 2005.
2006–present: Further reissues and reunions in 2011 In April 2006, Love sold 25 percent of her stake in the Nirvana song catalog to
Primary Wave for an estimated . She sought to assure Nirvana's fanbase that the music would not simply be licensed to the highest bidder: "We are going to remain very tasteful and true to the spirit of Nirvana while taking the music to places it has never been before."
Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!, was re-released on DVD in 2006, followed by the full version of
MTV Unplugged in New York on DVD in 2007. In November 2009, Nirvana's performance at the 1992 Reading Festival was released on CD and DVD as
Live at Reading, alongside a deluxe 20th-anniversary edition of
Bleach. DGC released a number of 20th-anniversary deluxe packages of
Nevermind in September 2011, which included the
Live at the Paramount show, and of
In Utero in September 2013, which included the
Live and Loud show. In 2012, Grohl, Novoselic, and Smear joined
Paul McCartney at
12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief. The performance featured the premiere of a new song written by the four, "Cut Me Some Slack". A studio recording was released on the soundtrack to
Sound City, a documentary film by Grohl. On July 19, 2013, the group played with McCartney again during the encore of his
Safeco Field "Out There" concert in Seattle, the first time Nirvana members had performed together in their hometown in over 15 years. In 2014, Cobain, Novoselic, and Grohl were inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the induction ceremony, Novoselic, Grohl and Smear performed a four-song set with guest vocalists
Joan Jett,
Kim Gordon,
St. Vincent and
Lorde. Novoselic, Grohl and Smear then performed a full show at Brooklyn's St. Vitus Bar with Jett, Gordon, St. Vincent,
J Mascis and
John McCauley as guest vocalists. Grohl thanked Burckhard, Crover, Peters and Channing for their time in Nirvana. Everman also attended. At Clive Davis' annual pre-Grammy party in 2016, Novoselic and Grohl reunited to perform the
David Bowie song "
The Man Who Sold the World", which Nirvana had covered in their
MTV Unplugged performance.
Beck accompanied them on acoustic guitar and vocals. In October 2018, Novoselic and Grohl reunited during the finale of the Cal Jam festival at
Glen Helen Amphitheater in
San Bernardino County, California, joined by Jett and
John McCauley on vocals. In January 2020, Novoselic and Grohl reunited for a performance at a benefit for the
Art of Elysium at the
Hollywood Palladium, joined by Beck, St Vincent, and Grohl's daughter
Violet. For the 30th anniversary of
Nevermind, in September 2021, the
BBC broadcast the documentary
When Nirvana Came to Britain, featuring interviews with Grohl and Novoselic. That month, a 30th-anniversary edition of
Nevermind was announced, containing 70 previously unreleased live tracks from four concerts and a Blu-ray of
Live in Amsterdam. For the 30th anniversary of
In Utero, DGC reissued it in several formats on October 27, 2023, which included the full 1993 show at the
Great Western Forum in Los Angeles and the 1994 show at the
Seattle Centre Arena. On January 30, 2025, Novoselic, Grohl and Smear reunited for the first time in five years to perform at the
Fire Aid benefit concert in Los Angeles. They were joined by
St. Vincent for "Breed",
Kim Gordon for "School",
Joan Jett for "Territorial Pissings", and
Violet Grohl for "All Apologies". For the 50th anniversary celebrations for
Saturday Night Live on February 14, Novoselic, Grohl and Smear reunited to perform "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with
Post Malone. == Artistry ==