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With the 30th anniversary of Nirvana‘s breakthrough album Nevermind coming up on September 24th, bassist Krist Novoselic looked back at the legendary album’s sessions.

Novoselic recalled to Mojo that Nirvana came in the wake of a massive hair metal era, which proved to be the exact opposite of what he, Kurt Cobain, and Dave Grohl were offering up: “The dominant bands were Aerosmith reinvented. These soft bands with this macho swagger. Then we were this hard band with feminine sensibilities.”

He went on to explain how Nirvana adjusted to life in L.A. while recording Nevermind: “We had this work ethic we learnt from the Melvins. After hours, however, was a different matter. We would have these wild nights in our apartment or we’d hang out on the beach at night. We’d been in the studio with no windows all day so we wanted to get out.”

Novoselic said of the phenomenon that’s grown around Nevermind: “It’s a heavy rock n’ roll record, that’s all it really is. Something happened where it was bigger than life and captured the imaginations of people, but if you look at the genesis of it, it’s amazing. . . It was a very happy time before Nevermind. I feel like we were free. . . You parachute out, and land, and pick up the pieces. But that’s me. In the end, what you find in that record is up to you.”

Krist Novoselic told us a while back that although Kurt Cobain earned his way into rock icon status following his 1994 suicide, to him he’s still the friend and bandmate he misses: “I’ve got a different perspective. I try to stick to one vision of Kurt and it’s the Kurt I knew as a person. And whatever anybody else’s perception of him is just some manufactured cult of celebrity idea. So, y’know, in my mind that person doesn’t exist or never existed, but that person exists to a lot of people. It’s just a real personal thing for me.”