08/05/2024
When I was 15 I wasn't that bothered about music. I liked it in the same way as I liked red dwarf and microwave lasagne. I liked queen, but that was kind of it.
I heard in utero because another kid made me a cassette with In Utero on one side and Terrovision How to Make Friends and Influence People on the other.
After I heard Nirvana, everything changed. I just became obsessed, listened to all their albums, formed a band, wore different clothes, grew my hair. Red dwarf disappeared (I still ate microwave lasagne). From that point on, I was only really ever interested in music.
Listening yesterday to the 2013 mix of In Utero I wondered how much when I was fifteen, I was inspired by the actual music and how much I was inspired by the sound. That big thumping bass drum, how you can hear the moving air of the speakers on the guitars, how the vocals just sit. On our last album in utero was one of my main mix references.
He would have hated that speculation. He always hated the idea that he had any influence on a record coming to be. I always took that as a mix of false modesty and holding himself to a standard. Making a virtue of providing a service for the musicians and being an invisible part in the beauty of recorded music.
When I started making records, he became one of my biggest influences and in my own way I tried to hold myself to the same standards because that is what I fell in love with in the first place. Making that beautiful music happen.
Thanks for my bands, my living, my life but most of all thanks for all the music, Steve. RIP.