Krist in Nirvana

Ask most people to name the members of Nirvana and you’ll hear Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl first. But Krist Novoselic was there from the very beginning: he and Kurt started the band in Aberdeen in 1987, and he played every Nirvana show until the end. He was the tall guy on the left, the one who did a lot of the talking, and in many ways the band’s anchor. This page looks at the part Krist played in Nirvana and in keeping its music alive since. For the full release list, see our complete discography.

From Aberdeen to Sub Pop

Krist met Kurt in the mid-1980s around Melvins rehearsals in Aberdeen (we cover that story on When Krist Met Kurt). Their band played its first show at a house party near Raymond in March 1987 and went through names like Skid Row and Pen Cap Chew before settling on Nirvana in 1988 (HistoryLink). Sub Pop put out the “Love Buzz” single that year and the debut album Bleach on June 15, 1989 (Sub Pop).

In his oral history, Krist describes how the songs came together: Kurt would write a riff and a melody on his own, then the band would “play it over and over again and try different things,” with Krist trying out bass parts and suggestions of his own (Washington State Legacy Project).

Nevermind and the whirlwind

Dave Grohl joined in September 1990, and Nevermind came out on DGC on September 24, 1991. By January 1992 it had knocked Michael Jackson’s Dangerous off the top of the Billboard 200 (Billboard). Krist later admitted that fame took some getting used to. “It took me a long time to get used to the idea, even years after Nirvana ended,” he said in 2008 (Washington State Legacy Project).

It was a wild ride on stage, too. At Trees in Dallas on October 19, 1991, Kurt dove into the crowd during “Love Buzz” and ended up in a fight with a bouncer. Krist and Dave stopped playing and rushed in to break it up, and after a short break the band came back and finished the show (LiveNirvana). Krist always seemed to be the one looking out for Kurt.

Then there’s the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards. At the end of “Lithium,” Krist threw his bass high in the air, missed the catch, and it bonked him on the head. He has told the story with good humor for years (Rolling Stone).

The band’s spokesman

Kurt didn’t always want to talk to the press, and Krist often stepped in. He was also the member most likely to point Nirvana toward a cause. In 1992 he followed the Washington Legislature’s attempt to restrict “erotic music” sales to minors, and in 1993 Nirvana headlined a benefit at San Francisco’s Cow Palace for survivors of rape in the Bosnian war (HistoryLink). For Krist, whose family roots are in Croatia, that cause was personal. Both of those threads, music and politics, ran straight into his later work, which you can read about in Krist and Politics.

He was also the band’s resident comedian. Live tapes are full of his rambling between-song banter. At that same Dallas show, he introduced one song with “The F is for formaldehyde” (LiveNirvana).

In Utero, Unplugged and the end

In Utero followed on September 21, 1993, and debuted at No. 1 (HistoryLink). On November 18, 1993, Nirvana taped MTV Unplugged in New York, with Krist on acoustic bass and, on “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam,” accordion, the instrument he had learned as a kid (HistoryLink). He called the accordion “impromptu, just kind of trying to mix things up a little bit,” and said one of his best memories was “how happy Kurt was afterwards, that we pulled it off” (Washington State Legacy Project).

Kurt Cobain died in April 1994, and Nirvana ended with him (HistoryLink).

Keeping the music alive

Krist didn’t walk away from Nirvana’s music. The 1996 live album From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah was largely his work: he wrote the liner notes, and Dave Grohl said that Krist “did most of the pick and choose” (LiveNirvana). It got little attention in the press at the time, but it showed how much he still cared about doing right by the band.

He also got back on stage quickly. Some fans assume Dave got a head start with Foo Fighters, but it was close. Foo Fighters played their first shows in late February 1995 (Louder), and Krist’s new band, Sweet 75, played its first show at RCKCNDY in Seattle on March 17, 1995 (see our Sweet 75 bootlegs list and our Life After Nirvana article). The difference is that Foo Fighters had an album out that summer, while Sweet 75 took until 1997.

Nirvana reunions

Krist, Dave and Pat Smear have played together several times since, always for a special occasion:

• December 12, 2012: they joined Paul McCartney to play “Cut Me Some Slack” at the 12-12-12 Hurricane Sandy benefit (our post).
• April 10, 2014: Nirvana was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with Joan Jett, Kim Gordon, St. Vincent and Lorde singing (Rock & Roll Hall of Fame).
• October 6, 2018: a Nirvana set at Foo Fighters’ Cal Jam festival (Billboard).
• February 4, 2023: Krist gave the speech when Nirvana received the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award (Rolling Stone).
• January 30, 2025: the FireAid benefit for Los Angeles wildfire relief (Variety; our post).
• February 14, 2025: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with Post Malone at the SNL50 concert (Rolling Stone; our post).
• September 27, 2026: MTV’s Video Vanguard Award, where Krist spoke for the band and credited Kurt’s vision for their videos (Rolling Stone; our post).

For everything Krist has done since 1994, see our Krist Novoselic timeline and side projects page. If you’re curious what he played, see Krist’s Equipment.

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Last updated October 2026.