‘I Don’t Think You Should Die’, How Dave Grohl Knew The End Was Near For Kurt Cobain And Nirvana

By early 1994, the cracks inside Nirvana weren’t subtle anymore.

The band were still selling out rooms and landing magazine covers, but behind the noise, Dave Grohl could feel something slipping away, Looking back he’s been clear about the moment it stopped feeling survivable.

Nirvana’s final show took place on March 1st, 1994, at Terminal Einz in Munich, more European dates were booked, but Kurt Cobain asked for them to be cancelled as he was sick, exhausted, and done.

“Kurt wanted to go home,” Grohl recalled in 2009.

“He intentionally blew his voice out so that we could all go home. We were having good shows, but by the time we got to Germany I don’t think Kurt wanted to be there any more.”

Fame didn’t feel like a win anymore

Nirvana had appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone just weeks earlier, inside Cobain sounded anything but triumphant, admitting the band felt creatively “stuck in a rut” and acknowledged his heroin addiction was straining relationships with Grohl and Krist Novoselic.

After the tour was cancelled, Grohl and Novoselic returned to Seattle, while Cobain stayed in Europe with Courtney Love, who was preparing for the release of Hole’s Live Through This. On March 4th, Cobain overdosed in a Rome hotel room after swallowing 50 to 60 Rohypnol pills, he survived but news travelled fast and inaccurately.

Grohl learned something was wrong in the most chaotic way possible.

“Five minutes later the phone rings again. And someone goes, ‘Dude, turn on CNN…’ And I see Kurt, in Rome. So that’s when I knew, Oh no, it’s over…”

At one point, Grohl was told Cobain had died, minutes later he was told he hadn’t, the emotional whiplash stuck.

‘I don’t think you should die’

After Cobain returned to the US, Grohl finally spoke to him:

“We talked on the phone,” Grohl said. “I didn’t tell him that someone had told me that he’d died, but I told him that I was terrified and so worried… And I said, Listen, I don’t think you should die!”

A month later on April 8th, 1994, Kurt Cobain was found dead in his Seattle home, he was just 27, for Grohl the warning signs were already there, knowing didn’t make it hurt any less.

Article credit via Loudersound and This Is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl.