Squabble keeps Nirvana boxed set off shelves

By ELI SANDERS

Seattle Times

Monday, December 17, 2001

Seattle - It could have been a sweet Christmas present for Nirvana fans: a 45-track boxed set including the never-released Nirvana song, "You Know You're Right," just in time for the holidays.

Instead, fans are being treated to the latest round of sniping in a nasty dispute that has stalled release of the boxed set and pitted Courtney Love, widow of Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain, against the band's surviving members, bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl.

In papers filed last week in King County Superior Court, lawyers for Grohl and Novoselic painted the singer and sometimes-actress Love as a has-been "prima donna" who is using legal action to hold Cobain's music hostage, thereby increasing her power at the expense of Nirvana fans.

All this began when Love, who sings with the band Hole, filed a complaint against Grohl and Novoselic in May, asking a judge to prevent them from releasing "You Know You're Right" in the boxed set because she disagreed with the marketing strategy behind its inclusion.

Superior Court Judge Robert Alsdorf, finding that Love had a right to have a say in the matter, issued an injunction in June that effectively halted the boxed set's production.

Alleged self-interest

A trial on the issue, and on the larger issue of who will control Nirvana's legacy and its profits, is set for next fall.

"Faced with a waning recording and acting career," lawyers for Novoselic and Grohl wrote, "Love is using her claims . . . to continue to further her own career goals, not to protect Cobain's legacy."

The two musicians are asking the court to dismiss Love's earlier complaint and award them damages for the delay in releasing the boxed set as scheduled under their agreement with Geffen Records (now Universal).

They also want Love ousted from Nirvana L.L.C., the partnership created so that Love, Novoselic and Grohl could control Nirvana's assets together after Cobain's 1994 suicide.

As justification for removing Love, the complaint contends her behavior has become so erratic she should be considered "incapacitated."

"In her professional dealings, Love is irrational, mercurial, self- centered, unmanageable, inconsistent and unpredictable," the complaint says. "Love's business and personal judgment also makes her incompetent to be a member of the L.L.C."

'Totally inconsistent'

Love's Seattle lawyer, O. Yale Lewis, called the allegations "preposterous."

"Those allegations are totally inconsistent with the public record," he said. "She is recognized widely as a very successful businessperson, a very successful actress and a very powerful person. And I would say she has achieved much more success on her own than either Mr. Grohl or Mr. Novoselic has on his own."

Lewis said Love believes she should control Nirvana's legacy as the widow of Cobain, whom he described as the band's essential force.

"It was clearly Kurt," Lewis said. "Nirvana was his name, he wrote all the music and he was the lead guitar and the lead singer. It was his own will and his own talent. It was not a three-party partnership. After his death, his property and assets and legacy evolved to his wife and child, not to the two guys who played with him."

In an open letter to fans released by Grohl and Novoselic last week, the two musicians claimed Nirvana was an equal partnership and blamed Love for blocking the release of "You Know You're Right" and exploiting her role as representative of Cobain's estate.

'Value for decades'

The problem, Lewis said, is not that Love doesn't want to release "You Know You're Right" or other Nirvana recordings. Rather, he said, "it's a matter of timing. She has a long-term perspective. I think their interest is more in the quick bucks now and then it's over. Courtney's interest is informed in large part by her role as a mother and widow, and by wanting to see the legacy developed and managed in a way that it has value for decades to come.

"There's lots of music and recordings that Mr. Grohl and Novoselic haven't even heard," Lewis said. "I think her perspective is that it needs to be released in a thoughtful way."

But in their filing, lawyers for Grohl and Novoselic call this argument hypocritical.

"Love now claims she wants to protect the legacy of Cobain and Nirvana by withholding approval of the public release of Nirvana sound recordings," they write. "Yet, Love felt no such protectiveness when it came to her own career, exploiting the cache surrounding Cobain's death for her own benefit by performing ("You Know You're Right") on MTV after introducing it as Cobain's last song."

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