“I Need My Recognition. I Want To Get Paid”

by Mark Yarm

Sometimes Aaron Burckhard goes to Kurt Cobain Memorial Park in Aberdeen, Wash., to hang out and, if the mood strikes him, commune with Nirvana fans.

“I don’t like to tell people who I am,” Burckhard, the first of Nirvana’s six drummers, told me recently over the phone. “But sometimes I do. And before even talking, they’re either going to buy me a soda or show me a few bucks, right? Because people, they want to know everything.

“I try to stress that Kurt was not a depressed, sad boy. He was a prankster, a happy-go-lucky guy, when I knew him.”