It all started one night when they wouldn’t let the members of Nirvana into the Rat. “I think Nevermind had just come out, but people didn’t really know about it yet. So I was at the Rat and I see three guys at the door. I saw the bouncer asking them, ‘Who are you guys?’ They said ‘We’re Nirvana,’ and he said, ‘You’re not on the guest list.’ That’s when I said to myself, ‘Self, turn yourself around!’ I explained who they were and why he should be letting them in.
“So once we got downstairs, Kurt [Cobain] came up and thanked me for getting them in. and suddenly I noticed that all these people were hanging around us, I would up asking Kurt which bands he liked, and he named the Vaselines, Daniel Johnston, the Pastels-all my favorite bands in order. I thought he was kidding. We just wound up hanging out from there.”
The two stayed together for most of the Nirvana tour, while Nevermind was going ballistic. Then Cobain met his wife-to-be, Hole singer Courtney Love, while Lord was back home in Boston, and fate took its course. Turns out that Cobain was seeing them both for awhile, a fact that neither was aware of.
Love got the news one night when her own band were playing the Rat. “I think Hole was about to paly when she heard somebody say something about, ‘Kurt’s girlfriend, Mary Lou.’ She went through the roof and called the hotel where we were staying in England. I didn’t find out what had happened until the next day; then I heard that Courtney spent most of the show dissing me from the stage. I think she still has an outstanding phone bill at the Rat.”
This led to an intense period of chilling out, from which Lord has emerged with a stronger spirit and a good batch of songs. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to be getting over someone and seeing them all the time on MTV. I mean, I found out that Courtney was pregnant when the whole world found out. That can really fuck you up. But it certainly gave me something to write about.”
Besides, considering the fan support that Lord has been building lately, it shouldn’t be long before Cobain’s friends start asking what it was like to go out with a star like her. At some of her recent gigs, you couldn’t help noticing the adoring-guy types who hang around the dressing room when she gets off stage.
“That happens whenever I lose too much weight,” she says. “Not I need two weeks’ notice before every gig, so I can gain it all back. I guess that if you’re a woman and you’re relatively young and you’re up there in the middle of everybody’s world, you’re going to get some attention. Plus, a lot of the songs I do are pretty sentimental and they have a way of grabbing you, whether you know you’re being grabbed or not.”
