Nirvana's Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic talk missing Kurt Cobain, van travel on 'The Tonight Show'

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony is tonight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, which means that New York is overrun with rock legends. Jimmy Fallon has been welcoming new members of the HOF on his show all week, and last night he sat down with Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic to talk about Kurt Cobain, the band's origins, and the psychosis required to play in front of 350,000 people.

In typical Fallon fashion, the interview was mostly about him (he told a story about playing Lead Belly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" in a once-a-year band called Born Losers), but Grohl and Novoselic did get to memorialize the late Cobain. Novoselic called the Hall of Fame induction a melancholy thing because of Cobain's absence, and described he and Cobain in high school as "weird kids who loved punk rock."

Grohl also told the story about the first post-Nevermind Nirvana tour, which found the band playing cartoonishly small clubs because it was booked before MTV put "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in heavy rotation. (For more on that story and other Nevermind-era tales, check out the conversation I had with Grohl, Novoselic, and producer Butch Vig back in 2011.)

Nirvana will join Kiss, Cat Stevens, the E Street Band, Linda Ronstadt, Hall and Oates, Peter Gabriel, Brian Epstein, and Andrew Loog Oldham as the new inductees in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Follow @EW and @KyleAEW on Twitter for updates live from the Barclays Center tonight, and check out the recap on the Music Mix tomorrow morning. The induction show will air on HBO on May 31.