#SMELLS LIKE TEAMSPIRIT HOW TO#

#SMELLS LIKE TEAMSPIRIT HOW TO#

Grohl described the band's converted barn practice space as 'weird,' with its brown shag carpeting, stage lights, and a massive PA that no one knew how to use. The other songs, including 'Smells Teen Spirit,' took shape during those practice sessions. At least half of what would become Nevermind-including 'In Bloom,' 'Breed,' 'Lithium,' 'Polly', 'Stay Away' (then 'Pay to Play'), and 'Something in the Way'-were already performed at an industry showcase gig in late November 1990.

The two drove up to Novoselic's neck of the woods in Tacoma and practiced every night. Grohl, a newcomer to the band, lived with Cobain in Olympia when he first relocated to Washington. The relationship ended in early 1991, while Cobain's band was writing new material that would not only appear on Nevermind but also on In Utero, Nirvana's third (and final) studio album, which wasn't released until September 1993. Long before Cobain actually got Hanna's joke, he and Vail had broken up. Vail was Cobain's girlfriend at the time. I've never worn any cologne or underarm deodorant.' Bikini Kill drummer Tobi Vail knew what Teen Spirit was, because she wore it. I didn't know that the deodorant spray existed until months after the single came out. 'I thought that was a reaction to the conversation we were having but it really meant that I smelled like the deodorant. 'I took that as a compliment,' Cobain later told Michael Azerrad in the authorized band biography Come As You Are. Cobain loved the line so much that he decided to make it the title of one of his next songs. The two spent the rest of the evening celebrating their victory and ended up at Cobain's place, where Hanna 'smashed up a bunch of sh*t' then took out a Sharpie and wrote 'Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit' on Cobain's bedroom wall before passing out. Cobain and Kathleen Hanna, singer/songwriter of the influential feminist riot-grrl punk band Bikini Kill, shared a bottle of Canadian Club whiskey and a goal on that October 1990 night: to deface a new teen pregnancy center, which Hanna described as 'a right-wing con where they got teenage girls to go in there and then told them they were gonna go to hell if they had abortions.' After doing some recon, Cobain was the lookout while Hanna made her way to the building and graffitied 'Fake Abortion Clinic, Everyone.' When it was Cobain's turn, he spray-painted 'God is Gay' in six-foot red letters. Six months earlier, Cobain was holed up in the woods of Olympia, Washington. We're major label corporate rock sellouts,' the man who would soon be a rock star told the boisterous crowd.

The band was currently mulling over major label offers, and was ultimately two weeks away from signing with DGC, a Geffen record imprint. On that night, however, Cobain couldn't help himself. Kurt Cobain, the band's frontman, wasn't usually very talkative during gigs he mostly left the witty banter between songs to bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl.

Less than five months later, on September 10, it was released as a single. Deemed the most 'iconic song of all time,' scientifically-speaking, by researchers at the University of London, Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' made its live debut on April 17, 1991, at Seattle's OK Hotel.

Smells like teamspirit