Kurt Cobain Unplugged – The story behind one of music’s most iconic guitars

0:00 Hi, you love then too? Yes, that's sure. Why Crazy youngro Whacome of America. It's time for the Adventures of pipe Man on W four C. Why do com list poon Beats is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the pipe Man. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures of pipe Man W four C Y Radio. And I'm here with our next guest. And we have something very exciting to talk about. And this person is legendary, a legendary journalist.

0:45 I don't know how I always get to interview all the coolest journalists and radio personalities, but it is kind of cool to do. And this one here, well, I'll let him tell his story. But he's been around forever and is iconic, and we have something very cool to talk about. So let's welcome to the show. Alan Deperna. How are you. I'm fine. How are you, Jan? I'm doing great. So let's start off with let's tell the listeners a little bit about yourself for people that don't know you, like, you know, basically your elevator explanation of what you've done for so many years for the music industry and journalism.

1:29 Okay, yeah, so I've been I've been kicking around for a long, long year. I started. I started writing as a professional journalist in nineteen eighty I was living in New York at the time, playing in a playing in a new romantic synth band, and needed a day job. So I got a job on a magazine called Music Sound Output, and journalism became my career. I shifted to LA in nineteen eighty three. I started freelancing and we're working as that as a contractor for lots of publications rolling Song Cream, Billboard, Guitar World, Guitar Player, a lot of guitar mags, and I've been blessed to interview so many legendary artists, David Bowie, Keith Richards, Pete Towns and Ray Charles. The list goes on and on, including everybody from Nirvana except for Kirk Cobain unfortunately, but he was going so quickly. But I've had opportunities to debut Dave Grohl, Pat Smear, Christen o Oselk and Fortney Love as well.

2:40 Wow. So the museum part of my career begins. Around two thousand and eight, I saw that the Internet was starting to detimate the music industry, and then the print journalism game so I started to see if I could work with music related museums. The first thing I did was text for the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles when that was first going out. I worked as a consultant for the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, where I'm now located, and I consulted with the Metropolitan Museum of Art twenty sixteen on an exhibition of rock and roll instruments, a historic exhibition really that they didn't called Play a Loud, which was actually named after a book I wrote. So on the basis of all of that, I was contacted by the World College of Music in London late last year and asked if I wanted to co curate an exhibition based around Nirvana Kurt Cobain, the historic of the Martin d eighteen e that Kirk played the sweater he wore on the MTV unplug program. So that's how I come to be here.

3:55 Well, you know what's really cool, especially when I got the press release about this, is that you know, I loved Nirvana and I love heavy, heavy music, and the thing is is that unplugged performance is probably my favorite of Nirvana, which you would think somebody that's in real heavy. They may not be, but that acoustic performance was amazing. Can you tell us what made that guitar that he was using so iconic? Well, a few things. It's a very rare instrument for long. It was made in nineteen fifty nine by Martin Guitar Company.

4:36 It was a very noted maker of acoustic guitars. But in fifty nine the world was going crazy for the electric guitar. Rock and roll was happening, so Martin wanted to get in on that game, so they came out with an electric model with dace. They put some pickups on it. Unfortunately, it didn't sound that great as an acoustic guitar, so the model wasn't very successful as there was a they only made three hundred and two of them total in the whole world. Wow. So for Kurt Cobain to come upon this instrument at a guitar show in La Voltage Guitar was, you know, you know, kind of a weird coincidence of history. If he if he hadn't, if he hadn't come upon that instrument, he probably it probably wouldn't it never would have claimed six million dollars at auction, but he adopted it. To make it his own.

5:28 The way I look at it is that the guitar is kind of an outcast like Kurt. I mean, how punk is it to take a guitar that wasn't popular and you know, turn it into this iconic rock and roll instrument. That is something that sounds so Kurt, even though I never knew Kurt, but he just he seemed to be somebody like that. And then even the green sweater that was like his favorite and his final year of life. Do you have stories of why that sweater is so important? Uh? Well, as you said it was a favorite of his in his last year of life. It's again it's very indicative of her who Kurt Cobain was. I mean, the whole the adopting thrift shop fair wearing inexpensive clothing other people's cast off was very much part of the grunge esthetic nineties and really has its origin in the punk explosion of the seventies. That Johnny Rotten of The Sex also wore ripped up sweaters. But for you know, for Kirk to keep wearing this kind of garment after he she worldwide fame as a rock star, I see as a kind of a statement you know, a show of solidarity with his Indian rock roots, a way of saying, you know, come as you are. In a way, this is who I am. Take me as you know, take me as you find me. So I think it's significant for that event, for that for that reason, I mean,

7:02 and uh, and it's it's it's marked by Kurt. It's got cigarette burns, there's some kind of mysterious stain in one of the pockets that he really knows what the hell that is. And uh, it's missing a button. It's it's a real lived in garment. Wow. Yeah. And you know it just says something because he was a true musician. And I say that in the fact that most iconic musicians have no clue nor did they want to be a quote unquote rock star. Yeah. Yeah, well Kurt wasn't. Kurt wasn't there wasn't it wasn't comfortable with being a rock star. I mean, you know that's fir. He he did everything he could to uh avoid being seen in that life. But it's inevitable.

7:51 I mean, you know, he was. He was so important to so many people. He just had a hard time dealing with us. Yeah. Absolutely, And see me, that's what makes him a true musician because he was doing it truly for the art itself and the love of the art. And you know, it's kind of unfortunate that really that theme and everything kind of I think got to him a lot, you know, and he just wanted to play music. Yeah, yeah, I think it was. It was definitely a factor in his decision to end his life. And I mean, you know, he wrote a sort of farewell known he made it clear that the discomfort with with the rock star thing was part of part of what drove him to it. It's really tragic. Yeah, he's he's he's one of the He's one of the tragic heroes of rock history for sure.

8:43 Absolutely. And so let's talk about the Royal College of Music Museum. So let's tell our listeners a little more about that and about you know, what they and why people should check it out. Okay, Well, the Royal Colleges with the Royal College of Music Museums in London. It's in Kensington. It dates back to the nineteenth century. It is uh principally a classical music school. This is their first ever rock and roll exhibition. Wow. The leadership Yeah yeah, yeah, So it's uh we're we're, we're we're we're rocking the Royal We're rocking the Royal here. Uh.

9:23 The leadership decided that they wanted to expand their horizons a little bit, reach, reach, reach a wider group of people, uh, create some cross cultural dialogue. So so they decided to uh to do this rock and roll exhibition. And uh, the way it came about is is the entrepreneur Peter Friedman had purchased the Kobaying guitar at auction, and he purchased it with the with the intention of sharing it with the world. He definitely didn't want to just keep this locked up in his in his office or his living room. He wanted he wanted Kurt's fans to be able to see this instrument and learn learn about its history and everything. So he and he's also a benefactor of the Royal College of Music, so he kind of got together with the college and said, let's let's put this on exhibit at your at your museum. Uh. And then my job, along with my co curator, uh Gabrielle Rossi Rognoni, who's who's the curator of the Royal College Museum itself, our our job was to build an exhibition around that, which she which we set out doing. We were able to obtain the sweater, which also sold met a record price at auction, and uh, and we went from there.

10:43 I would have bought bought the sweater and I don't even wear those type of sweaters. I was just gonna say it was iconic because if I think of Kurt Cobain, I think of that sweater. Oh yeah, A lot of people, A lot of people see him that way. He's often seen in posters with that. It's also kind of interesting how much he's seen in posters as a saint or an angel or Jesus even, you know, almost almost like a religious icon in a way. And I think the sweater is part of that iconography, part of the image absolutely. So where do you think Nirvana would be today if Kurt had still lived In your opinion.

11:32 That's really hard to say. I think they would. I think they would still be around if Kurt had been able to straighten out some of his personal problems. And I'd like to think that they would have stuck together. And I would like to think that the direction that they were starting to pursue with MTV unplugged more acoustic sounds, weaving a cello into the mix, and involvement for Pat Smear, who'd really just joined the band after their last studio album in Utero. I think they would have developed in a nice way, and I think that they are important enough that you know that they would still be around in one way or another. I mean, rock and roll has gone through so many profound changes in the digital era, but the cream has always risen to the top, and I think I think that Kurt Cobain and Nirvana would have would have been among the cream for sure.

12:30 Well, I tend to agree. So basically, the opening is on June third, correct, correct? And when's it lasting till? It runs until November eighteenth of this year? And how do people you know book two? I know that there's a you know, open on April thirtieth. To be able to join the wait list or to be able to go see it, can you tell everybody a little bit about what they need to do and how they can connect to the museum and any other pertinent information like that?

13:16 Sure tickets are Tickets are available through the museum's website, I believe, which is a RCM dot ac dot UK slash Kurt Cobain, or if you just google Royal College of Music Kurt Cobain, you should be able to find Your tickets are five pounds five quid, a very affordable ticket. And I'm not sure about the waiting list, but I hope everybody gets to see this. I hope they do too. It's really really cool. Is there anything else you want to add that the listeners need to know?

13:56 Well, just really that this is the first time that the guitar will be seen out site of Australia where Peter Friedman lives. It's never been exhibited before, and this is this is the first time that the guitar and the sweater will be seen together. We've been able to bring them together. I don't know if that's going to happen again. So if so, for your American listeners, if if, if it's within your budget at all to travel to London and you're a Nirvana fan, it would be worth the trip. And if and for any English listeners or European listeners, we hope you can make it down. I hope they do too, because it is I think a once in a lifetime opportunity. And I'm going to tell you something too that you're going to find pretty funny.

14:42 But we are actually our board that we use to record this interview right now. You know, Peter's the founder of Road Microphones and we use the Road procaster too. Oh that's perfect. See, So there you go, there's the connection right there. Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for everything you've done in your career to contribute to journalism and to the music industry. And thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipeman. Oh thanks, thank you Dean, and thanks for your good work in the medium too well. Thank you, thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipman. I'm w for CUI Radio.