And if I'm honest about it, I was obsessed with Nirvana and Pearl Jam. This is like '92, right in the throes of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and Nirvana. I think I probably wanted to be Kurt Cobain.
In January of 1995, my family and I moved to Seattle. Pearl Jam did the first of their live radio broadcasts, Monkey Wrench Radio, along with many other Seattle musicians.
Nirvana was like that- Nirvana was like the only band to come out of that- it was like the same thing, Seattle was like this whole scene and it was like this big scene that was thrust upon America.
I was on the pro-Nirvana, anti-Pearl Jam bandwagon.
I seriously do not think Nirvana is grunge.
Nirvana was a band that led you somewhere, as opposed to all the grunge bands that began and ended with themselves.
Doolittle was a major influence on the Seattle grunge scene, which emerged in the early 1990s.
I'll never forget getting my first Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chain records, and hearing that wonderful, beautiful darkness. And the rhythmic intensity, that's what attracted me more than anything else.
When it comes to grunge or even just Seattle, I think there was one band that made the definitive music of the time. It wasn't us or Nirvana, but Mudhoney. Nirvana delivered it to the world, but Mudhoney were the band of that time and sound.
When I came out with 'Posse on Broadway,' I decided, enough with trying to imitate New York, enough with trying to imitate L.A., let's just be Seattle. And rock, grunge, followed right after 'Posse on Broadway' and Seattle just exploded.
I'm the mold that grunge was grown in.
When I heard Nirvana, it changed my life.
This is my own little rock theory: In my mind, Nirvana slayed the hair bands. They shot the top off the poodles.
Nirvana was happening when I was 14, kind of the perfect age. Growing up in Anacortes, Washington, it was close enough to Seattle that it seemed like a local thing.
There's a Kiss through-line to a lot of the music that came out of Seattle, and it hasn't been talked about a lot.
I absolutely think the Seattle grunge sound was instrumental to my music education.
