R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe was close with late Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, and was even named as the godfather of the grunge hero's daughter, Frances Bean. In a recent interview, Stipe opened up about his proposed musical collaboration with Cobain, admitting that it was his attempt to build a bridge with his troubled friend.
"I was doing that to try to save his life," Stipe told Interview Magazine of the project. "The collaboration was me calling up as an excuse to reach out to this guy. He was in a really bad place."
Stipe's words suggest that he knew the suicide was inevitable. "I reached out to him with that project as an attempt to prevent what was going to happen," he explained.
R.E.M. was in Miami recording an album at the time, and Stipe attempted to convince Cobain to fly to meet him. "I simply constructed a project to try to snap Kurt out of a frame of mind," he revealed. "I sent him a plane ticket and a driver, and he tacked the plane ticket to the wall in the bedroom and the driver sat outside the house for ten hours. Kurt wouldn't come out and wouldn't answer the phone."
Of course, the project never came to fruition, and Cobain committed suicide in early April, 1994.
Read the full interview with Stipe here.
"I was doing that to try to save his life," Stipe told Interview Magazine of the project. "The collaboration was me calling up as an excuse to reach out to this guy. He was in a really bad place."
Stipe's words suggest that he knew the suicide was inevitable. "I reached out to him with that project as an attempt to prevent what was going to happen," he explained.
R.E.M. was in Miami recording an album at the time, and Stipe attempted to convince Cobain to fly to meet him. "I simply constructed a project to try to snap Kurt out of a frame of mind," he revealed. "I sent him a plane ticket and a driver, and he tacked the plane ticket to the wall in the bedroom and the driver sat outside the house for ten hours. Kurt wouldn't come out and wouldn't answer the phone."
Of course, the project never came to fruition, and Cobain committed suicide in early April, 1994.
Read the full interview with Stipe here.
