In a world filled with pretenders and opportunists, Cobain was the real thing, a unique and invaluable voice that stayed in the heads of lonely people everywhere. Friends or loved ones come and go, but he is THAT friend that stayed who screams in my head and also tells me “I am not alone”.

Kurt Cobain died 27 years ago at the age of 27. (A friend of mine, Dr Philip Merry told me to find synchronicity in the numbers: I was born on 17 July 1977). His death on April 5 1994 was one of the most influential and groundbreaking events of the 90s. It took place during a time when grunge rock music was at its prime. Their music videos were super-intense (Heart-Shaped Box still scares me and fascinates me) and MTV brought the world together when the Smells Like Teen Spirit video premiered. My mom and dad, my two sis, and my next door neighbours absolutely hated it when I turned up the volume during Dive, Breed, Scoff, School, Endless Nameless, Scentless Apprentice, Radio-Friendly Unit Shifter, and even the hits like Lithium, Come As You Are and Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Our generation loved Kurt Cobain and his music because it was so different and wasn’t staged - it was authenticity and comes from a place of pain. We have started to feel the effects of anxiety and angst and understood what they were - so to have Kurt Cobain literally screaming into a mic about how f*cked up his head is made people feel good - it was validation for Gen X-ers which our parents didn’t understand. The generations after us ie. Millennials and Gen Z experienced hand-me down stuff (and we’ll feature each generation covering Kurt Cobain songs during the #NirvanaTributeVirtualFestival) but this podcast episode recorded two weeks prior to the batch-taping event on our PodFest Asia - Live In Clubhouse session serving as a precursor, proved that Kurt Cobain was so ahead of his time and spoke to not just my generation but also all the generations that came after. It features spontaneous conversations with fellow podcasters, educators, new bandmates, spanning across generations and geographies and cathartic moments when audiences raised their hands to come on stage to provide their own impromptu rendition of “Come As You Are” and “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”.

Decades in the making, April's Nirvana Tribute Virtual Festival literally took me a lifetime’s journey to learn how to do podcasting, curate an online festival, masking taping gear tech and apps, develop communicative and interviewing skills, establish network and build community in order to be able to make a serious stab at this and do my heroes Nirvana and friend Kurt Cobain justice. The Festival is more than simply remembering him and his music, it opens up the conversation on how his suicide made each generation feel.

Like many in the pre-internet days, I found out about his suicide from the newsstands after basketball practice in school and kept the newspaper clippings thinking even back then, his suicide was as important and game changing as Nirvana’s Nevermind was in resetting music entirely. I still remember on that fateful day thinking that it sucks, even though it wasn’t a breakdown for me personally cos I was still a pre-teen and it was the first time in my life I heard of suicide and for days after, I was bummed out and confused about why would anyone kill himself? My only experience of death at that time was only my grandparents. That gun shot blew up his brains but opened up the conversation about suicide and mental health. His work is art. All his lyrics are existential, about pain, but like poetry, which is what you will mostly find on social media and some of my favourite podcast shows in 2021 today.

Three decades in, after working through the ups and downs of life, career dissatisfactions, rough relationships that didn’t end well, more deaths in the family, tragedies piling up, feeling lost, pressures of finding myself, the struggles and journey to discover my own “stake the flag on the ground moment in the universe” before a brush with cancer and podcasting completely changed my life around. And gave me clarity. I can understand times better than before when someone goes through the mindset of Kurt Cobain when they realise the situation and the pain they are in meant suicide is the only way out; whether their end could also be representative of the rest of us still drawing breath, feeling not being able to eventually make it and why it is traumatising for us who are still here.

In 2021, I fully understood why fans were bawling their eyes out when Kurt Cobain died in 1994. I bawled my eyes out when Chris Cornell hung himself in 2017. Next to Kurt Cobain, the suicide that bothers me a lot was Chris Cornell. When you tie to life experiences or what you are going through that you have, it makes it harder. Chris Cornell scared the f*ck out of me - the guy has a lovely wife and beautiful kids, perfect marriage, sober and healthy (allegedly), was always up and up, and to do that, you are always on, with a facade, a mask and personality to yourself. For me, to watch him take a further step (which I contemplated at certain points in my life) when he did that, I feel like maybe I cannot do it too. Cos he didn’t make it. You could see his struggles from his art and performances. Heck, like Cobain, you could see he wrote about killing himself in Soundgarden songs “Like Suicide”, “The Day I Tried To Live” the same way Kurt expressed himself about “I Hate Myself & I Want To Die” in all those grunge albums.

We are all on the same road - If you make a list of disorders, whoever you talk to any given day, you can check every one of those boxes multiple times. When people are suffering alone: I have been there, I am there, it is very difficult. Pain makes you see light and create better art and music or in the case of comedians like Robin Williams, better jokes or for podcasters, better shows that are cathartic which cracked your hearts open. However sad that may be.

When I was in a dark place, I make more podcasts. I am fine when I talk to people and I feel good. It’s all good and that sh*t is gone. It allows me to work through depression which is kinda beautiful vs going through a depression. It is like a challenge that gives you more confidence and a security blanket to myself that if I can handle this, nothing is gonna rattle me. Humour and not taking things and myself seriously is also a great defence mechanism. I couldn’t be the success or make more podcast shows if I gave up. Humans need our very own bio-survivability tickets too in order to keep ourself on this planet.

P.S. This podcast also spotlight bands, artists and fans across Asia and beyond, I will be fulfilling my personal (as well as our audience) curiosity about: What was that like when Kurt died? What were you going through when you found out? Which suicide hurts more: Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, Chris Bennington, Scott Weiland or Chris Cornell? What was the reason for stepping over the ledge?And many more questions spotlighting the artists and their work. You don’t want to miss this https://fb.me/e/AItU44Im

Featured speakers on this podcast episode:

• Souniya Khurana, Co-Founder & CEO, WYN Studio  https://www.linkedin.com/in/souniyakhurana/
• Vince Fabella, Math Teacher at Thurston Middle School in the Laguna Beach Unified School District https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincentfabella/
• Andre Leong, Project Director, Mad & Medley Pte Ltd https://www.linkedin.com/in/andre-leong-a46942169/
• Alicia Tien, Podcast Director & Producer, Tsinghua Podcast https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciatien/

Podcast Trailer Music: Paul Christian (Vox), Andre Leong (Bass), Wayne Cheong (Drums)