90s DAVE GROHL SUPREMACY

while they had a shared mutual interest in bands and had similar core punk values that brought them together initially, they never really got beyond that. it seemed like they were kinda perpetual acquaintances. also doesn't help dave already had a bit of reputation with kurt since he'd been a part of the D.C. punk scene, which was more male oriented than the olympia punk/riot grrrl scene and their focus on feminism and centering women/queer people in music. he got off on the wrong foot by insulting tobi vail to kurt's face (who he was dating at the time), calling her the "sad little girl with the bad fucking songs" (pg. 153, come as you are) when recalling a party the both of them attended before properly getting to know each other. they were able to get over that though and dave shook off that male oriented mentality quickly.

you'd think living together would improve their situation, maybe harbor a sense of comradery in their shared, impoverish misery. having to ration money to buy cheap corn dogs at the AM/PM down the street to survive and covering the hole in the window so they wouldn't freeze to death in the winter. that's something that should form a bond of some sort. but it really didn't. as recalled in come as you are;

"“There wasn’t a lot to do,” Dave continues. “There was a lot of time just spent sitting in the room totally silent reading or just totally silent doing nothing, staring at walls or going downtown and seeing a ninety-nine-cent movie or shooting BB guns in the backyard”" (pg. 156).

kurt often shut himself in the one bedroom in their apartment, playing for hours on end or pursuing other creative endeavors while dave was stuck in the living room with his sleeping bag and a couch he barely fit on with a turtle that smacked its head against the glass of its terrarium every single night and drove him nuts. dave wrote a song during this time, which is featured on the foo fighter's album, in your honor, titled "friend of a friend". it was also originally featured on dave's ep, pocketwatch, he released under the moniker late!

the verses, "he needs a quiet room / with a lock to keep him in / it's just a quiet room / and he's there" and "he plays an old guitar / with a coin found by the phone / it was his friend's guitar / that he played" are specifically about kurt writing songs while shut in his room.

they also lived in complete squalor. as recalled by dave in his book, the storyteller;

"our apartment at 114 NE pear street was the back unit of a dilapidated old house built around 1914, with one bedroom, one bathroom, a small living room, and a kitchen the size of a broom closet (ironically located just across the street from the washington state lottery building). versailles, it was not. "unclean" doesn't even begin to describe the carnage within. it made the chelsea hotel look like a four seasons. whitney houston's bathroom turned upside down. a trailer-park-tornado aftermath of ashtrays and magazines" (pg. 134).

there is a claim in everett true's book, nirvana; the biography, that dave was "like a husband" to kurt, where he tidied up and fed him but i'm unsure if this specific claim is true or not. i do believe that it was boy-land over there in the sense they didn't know how to take care of themselves as early 20-somethings and were living in a constant mess they didn't bother cleaning but i do find it funny that they specifically state that, "Dave and Kurt started to have this real married couple vibe to their relationship." cause like---what does that mean? were they like a dysfunctional husband and wife, is that what they're getting at? that still implies some sort of romantic attraction to each other to some degree. either way, that isn't the first time someone's been referred to as kurt's boyfriend or husband and that's an entirely different topic to tackle.

with all that established, i want to bring this dave quote from come as you are to the forefront;

"“We do depend on each other for certain things, but for the most part, we’re really removed from each other—far removed,” Dave says. “As close as we may seem sometimes, it’s not like bosom buddies. It’s not like a business thing where we talk to each other because we’re in the same band—we’re friends but we’re not best friends or even great friends. So I don’t know if it (kurt's heroin usage) let me down or not because I didn’t feel like I’d invested so much in the relationship anyway that I was being robbed" (pg. 256).

and also this one later on;

"“Everybody knows if Kurt smiles, it lights up the fucking room, because he usually doesn’t,” says Dave. “I don’t know if he’s really unhappy or if he’s always been unhappy or if he just doesn’t know how to be happy. When we’d shoot BB guns in the backyard or throw rocks at cars from the roof of the house or shoot out the windows at the lottery building with a BB gun when we were trying to quit smoking and we had nothing better to do, you’d see the laughing, funny, ha-ha-ha Kurt come into play, which a lot of people don’t see.” [...] “A lot of people think he’s always the quiet-bitter-angry-confused little pixie, but he’s not,” Dave says. “I don’t even know him that well and I know that much”" (pg. 301-302).

"i don't even know him that well and i know that much". what a thing to say about someone you lived with for a good chunk of time and have been in a band with for at least 3 years (at the point when he said that anyways).

while i do think that much of what dave details to michael azerrad in come as you are was laced with residual animosity from issues that arose between him and kurt like the royalties split and discussions of replacing him as the band's drummer behind his back, as well as other arguments that might've cropped up in that time we aren't aware of, that statement above does encapsulate what i feel was dave and kurt's relationship to one another.

they were always quite distant, seemingly stuck on the cusp of friendship but never quite reaching it. yes, they hung out, they bantered, they made each other laugh and goofed off. they played super mario world together, they shot bb guns at cartons in the backyard or at the lottery buildings windows. they wanted to form a band together with kathleen hanna and tobi vail as a fun side project. but they weren't close. not like kurt and krist were anyways. only getting more strained as time went on as a result of kurt's drug usage. they could've had something but it seemed neither wanted to fully commit for whatever reason.

that's what i think anyways. hope you found this analysis helpful! here's some bonus pictures of the two of them together at the apartment as a bonus for reading all of that <3