Frances Cobain doesn't like Nirvana
Kurt Cobain's daughter, Frances, has revealed she doesn't really like Nirvana.
The 22-year-old visual artist has given a rare interview to Rolling Stone magazine, a place she interned at when she was 15, as a documentary on her dad is about to be released.
Frances served as an executive producer on the film, Cobain: Montage of Heck, which delves into the life of her late father using archived material and footage from his life.
"I don't really like Nirvana that much ... I'm more into Mercury Rev, Oasis, Brian Jonestown Massacre. The grunge scene is not what I'm interested in," she told the magazine.
But the artist did pick out some Nirvana songs she liked, Territorial Pissings and Dumb, which have a profound effect on her.
"I cry every time I hear that song (Dumb). It's a stripped-down version of Kurt's perception of himself - of himself on drugs, off drugs, feeling inadequate to be titled the voice of a generation," she said.
During the rare chat, there are also some insights into how Frances has processed her dad's death. The young artist lost her father, as she says, in the "most awful way possible", when she was just a one-year-old.
"He's larger than life. And our culture is obsessed with dead musicians. We love to put them on a pedestal. If Kurt had just been another guy who abandoned his family in the most awful way possible... But he wasn't. He inspired people to put him on a pedestal, to become St. Kurt," she said.
However, Frances also shows great understanding about what drove her father to commit suicide.
"Kurt got to the point where he eventually had to sacrifice every bit of who he was to his art, because the world demanded it of him," she said.
"I think that was one of the main triggers as to why he felt he didn't want to be here and everyone would be happier without him."
But as Frances poignantly points out, if he had lived she would have had a dad, "and that would have been an incredible experience," she said.
The director of the documentary, Brett Morgen, had full access to a storage facility where all Cobain's artwork, journals and recorded material had been kept since his death in 199 4.
The film explores Cobain's life from his childhood - with home video footage - right up until his death, showing videos he made with his wife Courtney Love (Frances' mother) which were clearly never made for public consumption.
In the footage, both appear to be high on drugs and Cobain looks particularly drugged up in some clips where Frances is just a baby.
"When Brett and I first met, I was very specific about what I wanted to see, how I wanted Kurt to be represented. I told him, `I don't want the mythology of Kurt or the romanticism'," Frances said.
"Even though Kurt died in the most horrific way possible, there is this mythology and romanticism that surrounds him, because he's 27 forever ... He will always be that relevant in that time and always be beautiful."
*Cobain: Montage Of Heck opens on limited release in Australian cinemas on May 7
