Frances Bean Cobain opens up about rocker dad Kurt Cobain
Frances Bean Cobain says fame helped push her rock star father, the late Kurt Cobain, into taking his own life at the height of his success as frontman of 1990s grunge outfit Nirvana.
"My dad was exceptionally ambitious. But he had a lot thrown on him," the 22-year-old artist told Rolling Stone magazine.
"He wanted his band to be successful. But he didn't want to be the f--king voice of a generation," said Cobain, who served as the executive producer of Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the first authorized documentary about the late rocker, who committed suicide 21 years ago at age 27.
Montage of Heck makes its Canadian premiere at Toronto's Hot Docs festival later this month, before airing on HBO on May 4.
Growing up in the glare
In the exclusive interview, published Wednesday by Rolling Stone on the 21st anniversary of Cobain's death, Frances Bean Cobain describes growing up under the glare of her father's fame.
She was just 20 months old when he took a massive dose of heroin and shot himself with a 20-gauge shotgun on April 8, 1994.
"I was around 15 when I realized he was inescapable," said Cobain, the only child of the rocker, and former Hole singer Courtney Love.
"Even if I was in a car and had the radio on, there's my dad. He's larger than life and our culture is obsessed with dead musicians. We love to put them on a pedestal."
"If Kurt had just been another guy who abandoned his family in the most awful way possible," Cobain said, hinting at the anger and heartbreak she must have felt growing up without him.
"But he wasn't," she continued. "He inspired people to put him on a pedestal, to become St. Kurt."
Cobain says Montage of Heck, written and directed by Brett Morgen, will give the public a chance to get to know the man behind the ill-fated music legend, who died at the height of his career.
"It's the closest thing to having Kurt tell his own story in his own words – by his own esthetic, his own perception of the world. It paints a portrait of a man attempting to cope with being a human."
Co-produced by HBO Documentary Films, Montage of Heck is the first documentary made with the co-operation of Cobain's family.
It draws on home movies, journals and other personal archives. It also features Nirvana songs and performances, and previously unheard Cobain originals.
Can't see the video? Watch it here.
Unofficial Gen-X spokesman
Led by Kurt Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl, Nirvana became one of the leading sounds coming out of Seattle's grunge rock scene in the late 1980s and '90s.
The band hit the mainstream with Smells Like Teen Spirit. The alternative, punk rock-inspired anthem was the lead single from the 1991 album Nevermind, and it propelled the Aberdeen, Wash., band to the top of the charts.
With his stringy blond locks, ripped jeans with Chuck Taylor sneakers and low-key demeanour, Kurt became the unofficial spokesman of Generation X.
- AUDIO | The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain
Despite her father's indisputable influence on music, Frances Bean Cobain admits she's not really a fan.
"I don't really like Nirvana that much," Cobain said grinning. "Sorry, promotional people, Universal. I'm more into Mercury Rev, Oasis, Brian Jonestown Massacre."
