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Frances Bean Cobain on father Kurt Cobain's musical legacy: 'I don't really like Nirvana that much'

The 22-year-old daughter of the grunge icon spoke ahead of the release of new documentary Cobain: Montage of Heck

Jenn Selby
Friday 10 April 2015 08:21 BST
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Kurt Cobain’s daughter, Francis Bean Cobain, has been hard on the promotional trail ahead of the release of Cobain: Montage of Heck, a new documentary based on the life, work and untimely death of her father.

The 22-year-old artist even reunited with her estranged mother, the ever extraverted Courtney Love, on the red carpet in January ahead of the release. They hadn’t been seen together for five years amid talk of a bitter feud.

The publicists must have been delighted. Now? Possibly less so.

“I don't really like Nirvana that much,” Francis Bean told Rolling Stone. “Sorry, promotional people, Universal. I'm more into Mercury Rev, Oasis, Brian Jonestown Massacre. The grunge scene is not what I'm interested in.”

She did, however, add that “Territorial Pissings” is still “a f**king great song”.

That doesn’t stop her from socialising with her father’s former bandmates from time-to-time, however.

“Dave [Grohl], Krist [Novoselic] and Pat [Smear] came over to a house where I was living,” she recalled. “It was the first time [they] had been together in a long time. And they had what I call the 'K C Jeebies,' which is when they see me, they see Kurt. They look at me, and you can see they're looking at a ghost. They were all getting the K C Jeebies hardcore. Dave said, ‘She is so much like Kurt.’ ... But I was glad they came over. It was a cool experience, like having a Nirvana reunion minus one. Except for his spawn.”

Brett Morgen, who directed the documentary, told NME he believed Kurt had “died of a broken heart”.

“I found his actual suicide letter, which was unexpected,” he said.

“I just opened up this heart shaped box and there it was. And I was like 'Based on everything I've witnessed, this makes no sense.' Kurt didn't have a problem with quitting music; he talked about it openly. If he wanted to stop performing, he would just stop. Nothing was leading up to that suicide letter.”

Cobain: Montage of Heck is in cinemas from 10 April, available on digital download on April 24 and on DVD and Blu-ray on 27 April.

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