A new podcast finds Steve Albini talking Nirvana, In Utero, and music industry "parasites"
A.V. Club contributor Vish Khanna talked to Steve Albini about that upcoming In Utero reissue for the latest episode of his podcast, and the results are fairly fascinating. In the episode, Khanna grills Albini on what the original sessions are like, and Albini talks about meeting Cobain at a Big Black show in Seattle, something he says he’s not sure he’s ever told press before. Albini also detailed how and why he remixed the classic record this year (short answer: Krist Novoselic called him), and expounded at length about the “parasites” that were “carping at the band from the outside” about working with him. Says Albini,
“They want, somehow or another, to claim authorship of the creative output of these other people who are doing the heavy lifting for their career. I can’t have any respect for somebody who’s not involved in the creative process but then decides they want to snipe at it from the outside and manipulate people into doing things to suit them. Fuck every one of those people. And then to go into the press and leak unflattering stuff about the band and me, as a means to put pressure on the band? To have a motherfucker in an office fuck with them in order that they would submit to his will or whatever—that’s just fucking gross. There’s no way I can have respect for that as a mode of behavior. It’s operating from fear. All of those people were afraid that if this Nirvana album wasn’t awesome, somehow it would affect them. Their first presumption wasn’t that this band actually knew what they were doing when they went off into the woods to make a record. Their first presumption was, ‘There’s no way this record can be good without us in charge.’ Despite the fact that the band had done really well by following their own instincts up to that point.”
There’s a lot more like that on the podcast, as well as Albini’s thoughts on Breaking Bad, Bottomless Pit, and Shellac’s new(!) record.
The In Utero reissue is out Sept. 24 and available for pre-order now.