When Kurt Cobain sang, “Here we are now, entertain us”, it is unlikely the man who famously hated his band Nirvana’s mainstream success thought his wife would one day consider making a musical about his life.
Yet days before the 20th anniversary of Cobain’s death, April 5, Courtney Love told Britain’s New Musical Express that, contrary to previous comments she has made, she and the couple’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, are doing just that.
“Remember I said I’d never do a musical” Love told NME. “Well, that’s not exactly true any more.
“After being swarmed by tons of Nirvana fan mail and social-media posts pushing for a musical to become a reality, both Frances and I have thought long and hard and agreed that if we can reach up to the highest shelf and select a team of the greatest and most respected writers, producers and directors, then a Broadway musical is very likely to happen.”
Love insisted that paramount to such a production going ahead would be “a great story, one that hasn’t been told before”.
She added that her reasons for pursuing the project were as much for her daughter as anyone or anything else.
“I would devote countless hours with an A-team to create a project that reflects Kurt in the most respectful but honest way possible, so that his story, his music and his legacy can be resurrected on stage for not only the world to see but more importantly for our daughter to see,” she said.
“I know her father’s spirit will be on that stage, and sitting in that theatre with her will be the most emotional experience of our lives.”
The musical is not the only officially approved Cobain tribute that might appear, with Love talking of a biopic, documentary and possibly a play in the works.
“I can’t go out in Hollywood at night without somebody grabbing me and saying, ‘I want to be a part of this.’ We’re talking about the biggest producers in town,” Love told NME.
Coinciding with the talk of Cobain projects, the singer, guitarist and sometime actor has reunited her best-known band, Hole, with the line-up that made their most successful album, 1998’s Celebrity Skin: Love, lead guitarist Eric Erlandson, bassist Melissa Auf der Maur and drummer Patty Schemel.
“I started playing with Patty and Melissa and Eric, just to see how that was,” Love told rock website The Quietus. “We already played three or four times in the last week.”
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– FFX Aus
