Sub Pop Oral History: "Going Out of Business Since 1988!"

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The first Sub Pop Singles Club release was “Love Buzz”/“Big Cheese,” by the then little-known Nirvana. In December 1988, Nirvana entered the studio to record their debut, Bleach, with Endino. But first, there were some legal matters to attend to …

Pavitt I was at a party next door to my house when I got this intuitive feeling, like, I really gotta go back home. Right as I did that, [Nirvana bassist] Krist Novoselic was walking up my stairway. He’s inebriated and he’s intimidating and he’s demanding a contract. It was very scary. I called up Poneman and said, “I know we don’t have contracts on any bands, but we need to get this guy one.”

Poneman Krist seemed like he could go off. He didn’t really know who we were, and stories about corrupt label people are legion. I sat up for a couple nights and composed a three-record contract largely taken from music-industry books. 

Pavitt That contract ultimately allowed the label to survive. Krist coming over to kick my ass was the biggest blessing of my life.

In March 1989, Sub Pop flew Everett True, a writer for the U.K. weekly Melody Maker, to Seattle to cover the burgeoning scene.

Poneman It’s a total misconception that we dreamed up flying Everett over here. It was an opportunity offered by a publicist for our distributor. We came up with the dollars, though—back then, scrawny indie labels weren’t doing things that were so calculated.

Pavitt I thought that people in Europe would get excited about American music if the bands actually looked or felt more authentically “American.” So we played up the “backwoods” vibe.

Everett True (former Melody Maker reporter) Everyone in Seattle was lying to me, but I didn’t care. If they wanted to portray [TAD’s] Tad Doyle as some kind of chainsaw-toting, dope-smoking, backwoods redneck, that was cool by me.

Tad Doyle (ex-TAD frontman) It was fun and effective, but hyping me as a 300-pound lumberjack painted my band into a corner.

Charles R. Cross (author of Kurt Cobain bio Heavier Than Heaven) Kurt hated that he was presented as an inbred logger. Bozos like Everett True played into that.

Poneman Everett used the word grunge, which he got from the catalogue description of Green River’s Dry As a Bone that Bruce wrote: “ultra-loose GRUNGE that destroyed the morals of a generation.” None of us made up the word; it just became the tag that fit.

Thanks in part to True’s articles, Sub Pop bands blew up in Britain, then Europe. Meanwhile—recurring theme alert!—there were money­ problems back at home. Frustrated, in 1991 the label’s two top bands, Nirvana and Mudhoney, defected to the majors.

Poneman The bands would see records being sold and they’d go, “Where are my royalties?” Never mind the fact that we had bought them a van, flown them to Europe, advanced them rent.

Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth guitarist) When I first saw Nirvana play, they had no money but destroyed all their equipment onstage. I was like, “How are you gonna finish your tour?” Bruce was figuring out how to get their shit fixed every night.

Arm Every once in a while, I’d go, “Bruce, I really need some money.” And he would cut me a check. Sometimes he’d go, “I really shouldn’t do this,” because by this point I was doing a lot of drugs.

Pavitt When Steve Turner of Mudhoney came in saying, “Jon said I could get my check for $5,000 today,” I started laughing, kind of a nervous laughter, because we had maybe $20 in the bank. Based on that conversation, Steve said, “Well, fuck you, we’re going to Warner.” I remember breaking down and crying in front of him.

Poneman We were lying to bands, but we were lying to ourselves as well—by being overly optimistic about when money would come in. We didn’t have even rudimentary bookkeeping knowledge.

Greg Dulli (Ex–Afghan Whigs frontman; now half of the Gutter Twins) The Whigs moved to L.A. to work on our second record. Then the label ran out of money. Around then, Sub Pop came out with T-shirts that said WHAT PART OF "WE HAVE NO MONEY" DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?, which I’m sure was pretty funny, but I got stranded in L.A. and had to get a job.