When you become famous, people can have a powerful yet illusory idea of who you are. You want to live your life, but still, you don't want to let anyone down. I know Ed Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Jerry Cantrell, all those guys felt it. They're smart, real, and all of a sudden, they're put on a pedestal.
I love Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain. I really do. It doesn't matter what style they had - whether it was pin-up or whatever - it just worked for them, and it looked effortless even though it was fabulous. I like anything that just looks effortless.
I adopted a motto: Never say no. Jim Morrison never said no, Kurt Cobain never said no. You couldn't have great things to write about if all you did was sit in your living room with your roommates talking about the phone bill.
I always thought Kurt Cobain was the perfect embodiment of the great alternative guitar player.
Whenever people hear that Kurt Cobain was a fan of my standup, it's like hearing Jimi Hendrix loved Buddy Hackett or something.
I was in Ann Arbor, and I was told that this singer-songwriter guy wanted to meet me. It was Kurt Cobain. Nirvana had just made 'Bleach.' Kurt interviewed me on a college radio station. It was very strange. He was a fan of mine, and he gave me his album.
I used to love Kurt Cobain, when he was telling people we're a pop band. People would laugh, they thought of it as good old ironic Kurt. But he wasn't being ironic.
I always thought it was strange when these artists like Kurt Cobain or whoever would get really famous and say, 'I don't understand why this is happening to me.' There is a mathematical formula to why you got famous. It isn't some magical thing that just started happening.
I don't think of Kurt as 'Kurt Cobain from Nirvana'. I think of him as 'Kurt'. It's something that comes back all the time. Almost every day.
Two of my biggest musical inspirations are Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell.