Krist Novoselic: Nirvana’s secret weapon
Anyone who was to join a band with a songwriter like Kurt Cobain is bound to be overshadowed just a little bit. Even when Dave Grohl launched his band The Foo Fighters after Cobain’s tragic passing in 1994, he was adamant about never showing his original songs to the rest of Nirvana, not wanting to disrupt the flow of tunes that Cobain was churning out at the time. While Grohl has found his niche as one of the biggest rock stars in the world today, Krist Novoselic remains one of the unsung heroes of the Nirvana story.
Long before Grohl had entered the fold, Novoselic was always Cobain’s right-hand man, always giving him a place to stay and often jamming with him with whichever drummer suited them at the time. Although Cobain had his methods of pulling melodies out of thin air, Novoselic’s style was more indebted to classic rock, including some bluesy lines that he would sprinkle in throughout Nirvana’s best records like ‘Lithium’.
Before the rest of the world had even heard of the definitive grunge act, though, Novoselic carried the band across some of their earlier records. Their first single, ‘Love Buzz’, is built around Novoselic’s iconic bass figure, riding along for the song’s duration as Cobain builds rapid-fire guitar licks around him.
Even when the band started to hit the big time, Novoselic’s distinctive touch on the bass was always in its right place. Although both Cobain and Grohl play some of the most memorable lines from ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, Novoselic’s way of holding down the rhythm section in the verses brings a foreboding atmosphere to the procession of morose Gen-Z anti-establishment rhetoric. Whereas Cobain might only be playing a few notes here and there, the bass growl is the real secret weapon on the iconic track.
Most of that trademark low-ending would continue on some of the deeper cuts like ‘Polly’. With no drums to speak of outside of a crash cymbal to lead in the verses, Novoselic uses his bass more like a percussion instrument, providing a gentle little pulse for Cobain to build the demented world of the tune around.
Like Cobain’s songs, Novoselic’s bass playing got far more gnarly when they hooked up with Steve Albini for the album In Utero. Throughout the record, Novoselic has a field day running the gamut of what his four-string can do, whether that’s the calming buzz towards the end of ‘All Apologies’ or in the chorus of ‘Heart Shaped Box’ when he employs power chords on the bass, making the entire low-end of the track sound massive.
Aside from his instrumental backing, Novoselic was always known as the good-time spirit of the band off the stage. Whereas Cobain was always standoffish with his fame and Grohl liked to fade into the background, Novoselic was happy to play the ironic stoner role in interviews, even letting that persona shine at the beginning of the song ‘Territorial Pissings’.
Though Novoselic might have been fun to watch both onstage and off, he had no real interest in playing up that character anymore once Cobain died. After years of bouncing ideas back and forth, Novoselic went in a different direction, moving into the world of politics and becoming a major political activist in Seattle. While he occasionally made music on the side or guested on someone else’s record, Novoselic seemed to see Nirvana as something from his past that wasn’t worth reliving the bad memories.
Then again, Novoselic’s bass playing is still one of the central foundations of what made Nirvana such a powerhouse. When he guested on the Foo Fighters’ track ‘I Should Have Known’, fans could hear that distinctive growl that brought back some flashbacks to the days of flannel and disaffected irony. Novoselic isn’t claiming to be the best bassist in the world by any stretch, but his best moments tend to be something the listener feels rather than hears. And if Nirvana’s brilliance can be distilled into one thing it, it would be an unshakable feeling.