My uncle knew Kurt Cobain back in Aberdeen in 1986. Here’s what he remembers.
I figured some people here might find this interesting. My uncle spent quite a bit of time around Kurt Cobain back in 1986, before Nirvana blew up and before Kurt became the person everyone knows today. I wasn’t even born yet, so I can’t pretend these are my own memories. I was still just an itch in my dad’s crotch at the time.
I watched a documentary about Kurt with my uncle recently, and it brought up a lot of old memories for him. Some of the things he told me were pretty funny, some were sad, and some were just ordinary stories about a bunch of young guys hanging around in the 1980s.
Just to clear something up first: my uncle wasn’t from Aberdeen and never lived there. His mother lived in Cosmopolis, Washington, and he spent a lot of time around Aberdeen because most of his friends were from there. Through one of those friends, he ended up spending quite a bit of time around Kurt, roughly between March and September 1986, before Kurt moved to Olympia.
They were on friendly terms and got along fine, but they never became particularly close. Kurt was more of a friend of a friend. They’d hang out in the same group, but my uncle and Kurt never really spent time together just the two of them. So while my uncle saw quite a bit of him during that period, he wasn’t one of Kurt’s closest friends.
According to my uncle, Kurt could be a really funny, upbeat guy. He joked around, laughed a lot, and could be genuinely fun to hang out with. That doesn’t mean he never struggled or that my uncle saw every side of him, obviously. He just doesn’t remember Kurt as this constantly miserable, tortured person that people sometimes imagine when they look back at him.
They’d hang out at people’s houses, smoke weed, drink beer, and generally get up to the sort of stupid stuff young guys get up to. On one or two occasions, someone brought cocaine and they all ended up sharing it.
Apparently, Kurt was also a bit of a moocher when it came to weed. He’d happily smoke what other people had rather than necessarily being the guy supplying it.
My uncle had also heard that Kurt had tried heroin around that time. From what he remembers being told, Kurt didn’t like it and said he probably wouldn’t do it again. I can’t tell you exactly when that happened or whether that was the whole story, so take that for what it’s worth.
Kurt wasn’t an angel, either. He could be a bit of a prick sometimes, just like anyone else.
One thing my uncle remembers is that Kurt talked about wanting to become a famous, rich rockstar. He seemed to believe he was different from the people around him and wanted to get out of Aberdeen. Kind of in a “im just bullshitting” ironic type of way but people kind of made fun of him for actually believing it secretly.
Looking back, knowing what eventually happened, it’s strange to imagine those conversations. At the time, though, he was just another young guy talking about what he wanted to do with his life. Nobody sitting around someone’s house drinking beer could have known exactly how things would turn out.
My uncle and his friend never hung out with Kurt under a bridge. According to what his friend remembered, Kurt didn’t really do that either. If he ever went under a bridge, it was probably to secretly drink booze or get out of the rain, rather than to sit there contemplating the meaning of life.
That always makes me laugh. Sometimes a bridge is just somewhere to get out of the rain lol.
When my uncle and I watched the documentary about Kurt, there was a scene involving breaking store windows. My uncle got a real kick out of that part because he and his friend had done that with Kurt a few times.
What surprised him was that he never knew Kurt remembered it. Seeing that scene brought the memory back for him, and he found it funny that something they’d done together all those years ago had stuck with Kurt.
My uncle’s friend stayed in touch with Kurt after those days in Aberdeen. They weren’t necessarily hanging out all the time anymore, but they hadn’t simply disappeared from each other’s lives, either.
According to my uncle, his friend last spoke to Kurt on the phone in 1992. As my uncle remembers the story, Kurt said he wanted to forget his old friends from Aberdeen and leave that part of his life behind.
I don’t know the exact words Kurt used or the full context of that conversation, so I’m not going to invent a quote. But apparently, his old friends took it hard. They had let him sleep on their couches and had shared parts of their lives with him, and it hurt to feel as though he wanted to leave all of that behind.
I also want to be clear that I don’t know what Kurt was feeling at the time or why he said what he said. There could have been a lot more to it than my uncle’s friend understood from that one conversation.
This is the part that makes the whole story a lot sadder.
My uncle’s friend passed away in 2018, so there’s no way to ask him about any of this directly. My uncle and his friend weren’t best friends in the sense of seeing each other constantly, but they kept in touch over the years. They’d probably call each other once or twice a year, usually on birthdays or some other occasion.
From what my uncle told me, his friend carried a lot of guilt about his time with Kurt. He felt bad about how much drugs they had done together and about encouraging Kurt to join in. Looking back, he apparently wondered whether he’d contributed to things going in the wrong direction.
When Kurt killed himself, his friend was absolutely devastated. My uncle described him as being really broken up by it, and he went into a deep depression afterward. I can’t speak to everything he went through or how he processed it over the years, but it clearly affected him profoundly.
According to my uncle, Kurt’s mother attended his friend’s cremation. His friend had been one of Kurt’s best friends from childhood, and they’d kept in touch over the years, despite their lives going in different directions.
I think that detail says something about how these relationships could continue beyond the years when everyone was young and hanging around Aberdeen. Even if people weren’t in each other’s daily lives anymore, the connection was still there.
I also think it’s important not to turn my uncle’s friend’s guilt into proof that he was responsible for anything that happened to Kurt. He was looking back on a difficult time in his life and struggling with the loss of someone he cared about. Feeling guilty afterward doesn’t mean that guilt was deserved.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of my uncle standing next to Kurt. The closest thing is a picture that Kurt apparently took of my uncle’s friend in a park somewhere, with my uncle partly visible in the background.
It’s not exactly the sort of photograph that would prove much to anyone, but it’s a little connection to that period.
I wish I had more firsthand material, but most of this comes from memories and conversations decades after the fact. I’m not trying to turn it into something bigger than it is.
I know stories like this can be difficult to verify, especially when they’re being passed down through other people. My uncle can tell me what he remembers, but I can’t promise every detail is perfect after all these years. His friend, who was much closer to Kurt during that period, is sadly no longer around to ask.
I’m sharing this because I thought people here might be interested in hearing about a small, ordinary part of Kurt’s life from someone who spent quite a bit of time around him before he became famous. They weren’t close friends, and my uncle isn’t trying to suggest otherwise. They were on friendly terms, shared the same social circle, and had some memorable experiences together.
If anyone is interested in more details or has questions, I’d be happy to ask my uncle. Doesnt even have to be a comment, feel free to dm me! I can’t guarantee he’ll remember everything, but I’ll ask him what I can.