Nirvana’s former soundman Craig Montgomery recently joined an interview with American Songwriter and revealed that he doesn’t remember Courtney Love being involved in any Nirvana shows.
Craig Montgomery started working with the legendary grunge band Nirvana briefly after releasing their debut album, ‘Bleach,’ in 1989. He first met the band’s drummer Dave Grohl during a tour in the United Kingdom. He continued working with them through the ‘Nevermind’ album up until ‘In Utero.’ The soundman spent several years working at the band’s every show.
Montgomery toured the world with Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic for a long time. As a close witness of Nirvana’s musical journey, the soundman said a lot about those years during his latest interview. After talking about how Nirvana would approach the show, Montgomery was asked about his memories of Courtney Love on stage.
The soundman stated that he doesn’t have any memory of Love during any show since she wouldn’t get on stage with the band. He thinks Courtney Love did want to keep her music career and Nirvana separate. Montgomery remembers her being with them in many gigs but doesn’t recall her getting involved in any Nirvana show. She was trying to enjoy the gigs.
Craig Montgomery speaking on Courtney Love:
“I don’t have any memory of her—and I don’t think she did—get on stage with Nirvana. In retrospect, they really kept that separate. I think she was pretty protective of her independence. She wouldn’t have wanted to be seen as—she wanted to be seen in her own right. There were plenty of gigs that we did where she was there with us.
But I don’t remember her ever getting involved with a Nirvana show, which might be a surprising thing for people to hear. But she was generally fun to have around. I got along with her, and I think she got along with almost everybody. So, she was a pretty positive presence.
Sometimes we worried about her band because I know there were times when she compromised what her band was doing because she wanted to hang out with Kurt. Like maybe she was late for some of her gigs, or there might have been some Hole gigs that she might have missed or canceled or skipped out on because she was traveling with us. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, that’s not good!'”
Courtney Love was the lead singer of Hole during those years. Montgomery revealed that she sometimes got late, missed, or canceled some of her band’s shows while traveling with Nirvana. Thus, they worried about her band since they didn’t want her to have problems with the rest of the band members.
