We Tracked Down a Nirvana Superfan and Took Loads of Photos Inside His Bedroom

This week Cobain: Montage of Heck is released on DVD. We’ve written loads about the film, its uniquely female perspective on Nirvana, and spoken with its director about trawling through the archive footage to put the film together.

But Nirvana’s legacy in the years since Kurt’s death hasn’t been about the band, but the fans, those that keep the mythology and excitement around the band alive. We wanted to know what it’s like to be a Nirvana superfan in 2015, so we tracked one down and took loads of photos in their room. Meet Jim Atherton of Deeping, Peterborough - a Nirvana superfan.

Noisey: What is your favorite record?
Jim: In Utero, that was his most refined work. it’s got his most honest songs that are from him as his most popularized persona, him trying to deal with the fame and everything.

What about CDs, I can see you have few laying around..
I’ve collected vinyl since I was 12, before that I just bought all CDs, I’ve got pretty much every Nirvana CD released.

What’s your favourite piece of memorabilia that you have?
Would have to be the "Smells like Teen Spirit" record and the Kurt Cobain journals - all from 1988 before Nirvana was even big.

You read the whole thing, cover to cover?
Yeah, it took about a year - it’s amazing, literally his own thoughts; it’s seeing how false he was in a way. There’s a letter here to Dale Crover from the Melvins, he’s bigging up a Nirvana show. Kurt claims that big labels and bands from Seattle came down to watch them. And that they all wanted a piece of the band. And most of this information is massively exaggerated. Kurt was like “all these bands are judging us” - but they weren't. The show wasn't anywhere near as well attended as Kurt makes out. He was making himself sound bigger than he was - to how he turned out to be.

Why do you think that was?
He wanted to be a rockstar in the early days, there’s stuff in here proves it; there’s letter to labels with him begging for them to press their album and stuff. Literally begging them.

How did you first get into Nirvana?
I used to listen to Guns and Roses solidly in Year 6 and my step dad got me (which I don’t own; someone stole it from me) the first CD of Nevermind - he said ‘just check these guys out you might like them.’ So I listened to it all the way through and every element of the CD was perfect to me.

What made it perfect, what clicked in your head?
The guitar riffs, the lyrics. What he was saying was so straight up in terms of, he was just presenting himself with his faults and stuff. I remember being mesmerized by the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" music video, it was crazy - the whole scene was nuts! I had never been to a hardcore or punk show at that point and it blew me away. It was kind of, like, a boy crush. As weird as it is to say - like on the video when it pans out to his eyes and its like - this is fucking cool.

Was it Nirvana as a band that you fell in love with or was it the Kurt persona?
I’d like to say the music. But I think what really made the obsession is the whole mystery of Kurt Cobain and his paradoxes. In the journal, it’s clear he wanted to be a rockstar so much but his persona was that he didn’t. And fell into becoming one - which is complete lie.

Do you believe Kurt's spirit lives on in one way or another?
You can see it all the time. There’s a band called Allusondrugs, it’s pretty lame because he looks just like Kurt Cobain. Most of the UK hardcore scene dresses that way, flannel shirt, ripped jeans, converses, shaggy hair. In the music, you can hear the same guitar tones, drums and it all kind of stems from that Nirvana style - it’s pretty timeless in a way.

If Kurt was alive, what would you have to say to him?
I liked to have known what the next step for Nirvana was, I liked to have known where he’d gone musically and personally. It’s kinda hard; like most questions he was asked, I know he wouldn’t give an honest response. I would love to sit him down and quiz him over some of the stuff in his journal and try and find out who Kurt really was.

What sets them aside from any other great bands?
They’re the perfect punk band that’s influenced by pop. He takes the melody of The Beatles, shouts noisy stuff like Converge and even embraces that passion for punk. With bands nowadays it’s either one or the other - never both. It’s rare.

Do you know any Nirvana facts that not many people know of?
The first gig he went to was Whitesnake, like a hair metal band. His school friends said he got a Whitesnake tour t-shirt and wore it at school for months which is funny because he destroyed that scene.

Do you believe his death was a suicide?
I think the evidence, really kind of leans to the point of why would he have killed himself at that point of his life. You get a lot of his friends who say he was really happy in the weeks leading up to his death. Had tickets booked for things weeks and months after his death. Then there’s things that surround the actual death that’s just weird. Like, the amount of heroin he injected before he killed himself was enough to immediately paralyze you. So how did he manage to stand up and pick up a shotgun. There's just a lot of dodgy things surrounding his death. Check this book - it’s crazy!

If Nirvana didn’t exist, where or how do you think you’d be right now?
The whole world would be different… I honestly don’t know. The whole hair metal scene would have remained, possibly could be into Ed Sheeran or something.

Thanks for chatting with us man. I guess our last question is, at the most personal level, what do Nirvana mean to you?
Well, without sounding cringey - it gives you the emotion of ‘do whatever you want to do, fuck everything, I do what I want when I want,’ not to give a fuck, ever.

Cobain: Montage Of Heck is out on DVD & Blu-ray today (April 27)
For more info check the film's Amazon page, Facebook and website