Pitchfork

We all know Kurt Cobain as Nirvana frontman, Courtney's love, and, more recently, an action figure from beyond the grave. According to journalist Michael Azerrad, however, Cobain was more accurately, "a person who a lot of people thought they understood but probably didn't," MTV.com reports.

Azerrad first met with Cobain in 1992 to interview him for Rolling Stone. "Courtney [Love] greeted me at the front door of their apartment, and we walked down this long hallway, with a bedroom down at the end," he told MTV. "And I was just dreading what I was going to find in that bedroom. But what I found was a man lying in bed, with his feet pointed towards the door. His feet were sticking out from underneath a blanket, and his toenails were painted red. He was extremely nice, told me to come in and sit down. And then he offered me some grapes."

Later that year, Azerrad laid the idea of a Nirvana book on Cobain, who approved. Following the proposal, Azerrad interviewed the frontman over a series of months.

"I'd fly out to Seattle from New York, and he'd call me and say, 'OK, great, come over at around midnight,'" he said. "So I would take a nap, and then I'd head over. And we'd start talking, and often keep talking until the sun came up. It was basically a man, in his kitchen, talking to someone he trusts in the wee hours of the morning. The TV was always on. He was a huge 'Speed Racer' fan. He loved Chim Chim the monkey. He'd be sitting in his kitchen wearing ripped jeans and a pajama top."

Close to 25 hours of interviews were recorded, the majority of which Azerrad used in his 1993 Nirvana book, Come as You Are. Just months after the work landed, however, Cobain committed suicide. Emotionally unable to go over the remaining interviews (or even to listen to Nirvana albums, for that matter), Azerrad shelved the leftover material, not touching it for nearly a decade.

Dun dun dun...UNTIL NOW. Or a few years back, anyway, when Azerrad was interviewed for the They Might Be Giants documentary, Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns), and got to know director AJ Schnack. The two bonded over their passion for Nirvana, so when Azerrad dropped the "I've got a truckload of unreleased Cobain interviews in my apartment" bomb, Schnack was like, "Say WHAT? Let's make a movie!" Or something along those lines.

"It won't fit into what anyone is expecting about a Kurt Cobain documentary, and it's not a traditional rock doc," Schnack explained to MTV. "There's no archival footage in the film, and Kurt only appears at the very end. Basically it's the chance to sit with his voice and listen to him tell his story."

The final product, titled Kurt Cobain: About a Son, was based on 90 minutes of conversation snagged from the tapes. It features music by some of Cobain's favorite bands, from his widely known-about loves the Melvins and David Bowie to lesser-realized favorites like Queen, R.E.M., and Cheap Trick. And get this: Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard and legendary grunge producer Steve Fisk provide a "plaintive, ambient soundtrack," according to MTV. Grundie!

About a Son will debut on September 10 at the Toronto International Film Festival. Following its premiere, Schnack and Azerrad plan to take the film to theaters across the nation. But it's not easy viewin', folks.

"The movie is funny in a way and brutal in others," Schnack commented. "And listening to his voice, coupled with the visuals of the places he lived, it's both mesmerizing and haunting. You get the feeling that he was an ordinary guy-- with problems and issues-- who sort of became famous despite that. He was this really extraordinary ordinary man."

In related news, various news sources including MTV.com have reported that Courtney Love plans to release a 288-page memoir, Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love, come November. The book will include poetry, letters, childhood records, lyrics, fanzines, show fliers, never-before-seen photos, and journal entries on the topic of Cobain's death, the couple's last good night together, and more. A book tour will take place with the release of The Diaries, and is expected to hit Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and New York.