A week after describing the documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck as “90% bullshit … Total bullshit”, the Melvins’ Buzz Osborne has expanded on his remarks.
“I don’t think that’s a good legacy for him to have out there,” Osborne told Riff You. “I know it’s not true. It’s that simple,” said Osborne. He was particularly scathing of the film’s stance towards Cobain’s wife, Courtney Love. “If they want to take her word for things, then go ahead,” he said. “Do you feel better? Then everything she says is the golden rule. Absolutely. That’s got to be honest, no problem. That’s fine by me. If that makes them feel better, it’s fine by me.”
Last week Osborne – who went to high school with the Nirvana singer, though he was three years older – reviewed the film for the Talkhouse, and questioned the veracity of a sequence in which Cobain, admits on audio cassette to having had sexual intercourse with a girl with special needs, then trying to kill himself.
“I know the whole ‘I tried to fuck a fat retard’ story is complete bullshit,” he wrote. “Not even an inkling of truth. That’s too good a story to have gone this long without me hearing about it, especially if, as he suggests, the girl’s father freaked out about it at the high school. In that small-town shit-hole, exciting news of that nature would have been common knowledge before the sun set. It never happened. And the trying-to-kill-himself-on-the-train-tracks story is bullshit as well. It never happened, either. There it is, though, told in a recording of Kurt’s own voice so it must be true … right? Wrong.”
Osborne also claimed the stories about Cobain suffering from stomach ulcers, much referred to in the film, were untrue. “Kurt also told me there was absolutely nothing wrong with his stomach. He made it up for sympathy and so he could use it as an excuse to stay loaded. Of course he was vomiting – that’s what people on heroin do, they vomit.”
In his new interview, Osborne said he had nothing to gain from being honest about the film, and that he just wanted to stand up for a friend who could not defend himself.
