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had a crush on Kurt. Kuft was scared of me. Hesaid he didn't have r ime to deal with me. But Iknew it was inevitable." Kurt adds: ,,1 would iustlike to say that I liked Courtney a lot. I wasn,tignoring her. I didn't mean ro play hard to tet. Ijust didn't have the time. I had so many things onmy mind." "He had to write a hit record,';saysCourtney.

The turning point for the relationship was lastSeptember. Courtney was meeting with a recordcompany exec. "He said to me, .What

do youwant? | can make you a big star,"' says Courtney,whose band is based in LA. ,,And I said, ,l wanr tosee Nirvana in Chicago.' So he got on the phoneand spent, like, g 1,000 and bought me a ticket andI went. And that is when we got together.',

Before you knew it, they were boyfriend andgirlfriend. And now they're planning to get marrieda.s soon as possible (maybe by the time you readthis), both wearing dresses. Kurt l ikes wearingdresses because they are comfonable and says helooks best in baby dolls with flowers on the;. ,,ln

slttlng lna treethe last couple of months," says Kurt, ,.l,ve gocenengaged and my attitude has changed drasiically,and I can't bel ieve how much happier I am andhow even less career oriented I am. At times Ieven forget I'm in a band, I'm so blinded by love.I know that sounds embarrassing, but it,s true. Icould give the band up right now. h doesn,t mat_ter. But I'm under contract." What a wondrouslysweet th ing ro say. lcan' t bel ieve i t whenCourtney tells me that a friend of hers called herup in Europe and told her.not to go out with Kurt:"She told me, 'What you,re doing is cultural lyimportant and you' l l just get swallowed up bygoing out with Kurt."'

Courcney continues: ,,We get aftention for ourrelationship, but if we didn't have bands, no onewould care. I mean, the reason we're doing thisinterview is girls have been trained to look up torock star boys as rhese...objects. They grow uptheir whole l ives with horses or rock stars ontheir walls. For me, I didn't want to marrT a rockstar, I wanted to be one. I had a feminist hippiemom, and she told me I could do whatever I want_ed to do. But a lot of girls think that to go out withsomebody who's cool or successful, they have t6be pretty and submissive and quiet. They can,t beloud and obnoxious like me, and they ian,t havetheir own thing."

Courtney clearly wants to be a huge rock starin her own right. She doesn't want to be perceivedas glomming on Kurt's success. And she seems alittle paranoid-probably with good reason_thatpeople wi l l th ink that she is. L ike, )aAGE 79

I t's l:00 pr.,r and I've been sitting in! this Easr Vi l lage restauranr sinceI noon, wait ing for Nirvana's KurtI Cobain and Hole's Courtney Lover to arrive for our interview. On thispart icular rainy afternoon Nirvana hasthe number-one record in the country,the awesome Nevermind, which has sold.like, three million copies. The album wastheir first for a major label; their debut,Bleach, was released on Sub pop in l9g9and sold only 50,000 back when theywere just a Northwest punk trio with anunderground fol lowing. Their sudden,massive and shocking success has madethe band sought after by media all overthe world. And the anti-mainstream Kufthas blown off everTone from Ro//rng Stoneto the New York Times. Also, at this time,all kinds of major labels are rryrng to wooHole (the foxcore band whose drummerwas included in our February piece on

girl drummers) away from carorine, which rereased their first record, pretE on the/nside' I should be worried that they're not going ro make it to rhis interview, ourI've been told that Kurt and courtney ,rJuoa"r' sossy readers, and I lust knowthey're going to show up.As I'm assuring the waiter again that the rest of my party wit be here anyminute, Kurt and courtney wark in the door. I wave, and they come over to mytable, apologizing for being rate. courtney's in this coor brack midi-dress, afuzzy ordsweater and brown vintage pumps. she keeps praying with her breached hair, cov-ering her hce with it and making it stand up and siuff. courrney says she,s 24, but Ithink she could be order. she's not crassicaty pretry, but she wears her offbeatlooks well' Ku.. who probabry reaty is 24,isvery cute, wirh incredibry brue eyes,which are set off nicery by his pink-streaked hair. However, he is so skinny that Iwould like to force'feed him a sorid mear. He's wearing disintegrating leans and acardigan over an ancient Fripper (the band, not the TV show) T*hii'. ri, itu."sneakers have hores in them. "He's got the number-one record,,,says courtney, inher scratchy voice, ,,and he only has one pair of shoes.,,

I mention that I saw their engagement announced on MTV when Nirvana,svideo was number one. Says Kurt' "rt was embarrassing, but it was arso kind ofneat." Courrney says, ,,1 thought it was kind of dorky.,, She,s wearing an engate.ment ring, circa 1906, with a ruby or something in the middle. Kurt h"Jon" to"o,'anornate band. "sorr7 about this zit," she says, pointing to her cheek. ,,Zits are beau-ty marks," says Kurt.

- Kurt has a very sweet way about him, armost shy. He'il sit there and not ark,but not in a hostile way-besides, it,s hard fo,. anyon", even me, to get a word inedgewise with the loguacious Miss courtney. But he't definitery ansi", uny l*r-tion. I ask how they met. ,,1 saw him play in portland in | 9gg,,, ,.y, Courrn"y.';1,,

from Eugene. I thought he was really passionare and cute, but I couldn,t tell if hewas smart or had any integrity. And then I met him at a show about a year orsomething ago." "Butthore surfers," says Kurt. "And L7," adds courcney. .,r rearypursued him, not too 'ggressive, but "ggressive enough that some girrs wourd havebeen embarrassed by it. I'm direct. That can ,.ur" "lo,

of boys. Like, I got Kurt,snumber when they were on tour, and I wourd cat him. And I wourd do interviewswith people who I knew were going to interview Nirvana, and I wourd teil them I

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IIT&COURTNE' , , |sk.. i f they plan to ,our. .ogu,h"r, | |tatty normal about it. ..1 know that | 1were on rour we wished we *u." I Iour shows together," he savs. ,.1

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rT 79 KURI & COURTNEYmy f i rst band was al l l2_str ingRickenbacker, three gir ls, no drummer, Igot.accused of being wimpy, and I tor areally big chip on my shoulder about it],

Courtney shifts conversational gears alot , and now she br ings up the housethey're going to buy in Seattle. ,.lt's

reallvbeautiful," she says. ,,lt's

Victorian. And myfavorite thing ro think about while we,redoing major label meetings and stuff is basi_cally what color we're going to paint thewalls. I want to have a baby really bad, but Iwant to be able to afford it myself. I wantmy own money. I couldn't imagine marry-Ing someone with money and then l iving offthem." Kurr on the baby possibility: ,.1 justwant to be situated and secure. I want tomake sure we have a house, and make surewe have money saved up in the bank.,,

With Nirvana's material success, I doubtthat wi l l be a problem. Speaking of which,alternative rock fans have a way of slaggingtheir favorite bands once rhey get f"*rJAre people just jealousi . .1'd

be real ly ego_:ist ical to admit thar. bur I can't f ,ulp Ort'eel that way ever-/ once in a while,,, Kurtsays. "The orher day I was driving aroundn LA l istening ro a co ,ege stariJn. Thev"rere playing a lot of .rry favorite bands, like

myself, This is great. And then the Dl cameon and went on this half_hour rant abouthow Nirvana is so obviously business ori_ented and just because we have coloredhair doesn't mean we are alternative. And Ifelt really terrible. Because there is norhingin the world I like more tnan pure under_ground music. And to be shunned by thisclaim that just because you are playing thecorporate game you are not honest! youuse [the corporate ogre] to your advan_tage. You fight them by joining them.,,

It is now time for Kurt to go to MTV,where Nirvana will tape five videos to beplayed in regular rotation. And Courtnevhas an appointment at Charisma Records.But first we go outside for some photos.They sit on the sidewalk and Courtneykisses Kurt, smearing lipstick on his face.It's looking very Srd and Nanq (Courtney,by the way, had a small parr in rhe 19g6movie). Kurt asks Janet, Hole's publicist, toget him a copy of their album. ,,This

is theman, f 'm going to marry," says Courtney,"and he still hasn't heard my entire album.,,Then a yuppie couple walk by and ask tophotograph Kurt. "Who were those Deo_ple?" I ask. "Christ ina," says Courtney,"everyone has the Nirvana album.Everyone." I guess so, because the guy with: l ipper

and the l '1e v ns. I was saytng to tne camera was wearing a bolo tie. 6nv