Nirvana’s former manager speaks out over “ridiculous” claims Kurt Cobain was “murdered”

"The tragedy of the loss is so great people look for other explanations."

Nirvana’s former manager Danny Goldberg has spoken out about claims that their frontman, Kurt Cobain, was murdered, describing them as “ridiculous.” Today marks the 25th anniversary of Cobain’s death.

In a new interview with The Independent, Goldberg, who managed the Seattle band between 1990 and 1994, described Cobain’s increasing erratic behaviour in the run up to his eventual death by suicide.

When “conspiracy theories” started to emerge surrounding Cobain’s death soon after, Goldberg said he found them “ridiculous.”

He added: “He killed himself. I saw him the week beforehand, he was depressed. He tried to kill himself six weeks earlier, he’d talked and written about suicide a lot, he was on drugs, he got a gun.

“Why do people speculate about it? The tragedy of the loss is so great people look for other explanations. I don’t think there’s any truth at all to it.”

American rock group Nirvana, backstage in Frankfurt, Germany, 12th November 1991. Left to right: drummer Dave Grohl, singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain (1967 – 1994) and bassist Krist Novoselic

Describing the weeks prior to Cobain’s death, Goldberg revealed that he was one of nine other people who tried to help after Cobain’s wife, Courtney Love, attempt to stage an intervention following an earlier suicide attempt.

“He was in a bad way,” Golberg recalls. “The main memory I have is feeling so shitty about how hard it was for me to get through to him and how deeply depressed he seemed to be.

“It was not a great situation in terms of connecting with him personally because there were so many other people there and I’m sure he felt under siege in his own house. But Courtney was scared. She’d witnessed that he was going through a very tough time and thought maybe other people talking to him would get him to get some help.”

Courtney Love

Goldberg also revealed that before his death, Cobain had asked Goldberg if he could launch a career outside of Nirvana. Goldberg also claims that Cobain had arranged to record with REM’s Michael Stipe.

“I think he would’ve found different ways of expressing himself, sometimes with the band and sometimes not,” Goldberg said.

This week, Goldberg released Serving The Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain – a book featuring his memories of the frontman, interviews with Courtney Love, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and other members of Cobain’s family and friends, as well as files that were previously unavailable to the public.

Meanwhile, next week will see the release of Nirvana’s ‘Live At The Paramount’ on vinyl for the first time.

The famed concert, which took place in 1991, received a DVD and Blu-ray release to coincide with the its 20th anniversary celebrations of ‘Nevermind’ in 2011.

Now, ‘Live At The Paramount’ is set to be released as a double LP set on April 12. You can see footage from the original concert, the only one of the bands to be shot on 10mm film, below. You can now pre-order the album here.

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