Nirvana singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic met while attending Aberdeen High School in Washington state. Their first band, the Sellouts, was a Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute band.

After dropping out of Aberdeen High School, Cobain took a job as a janitor at that very same school. In fact, he cleaned toilets to fund the first Nirvana demo. The dancing janitor in the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" music video was an inside joke for those who knew of Cobain's old job.

The band went through a succession of drummers, including Aaron Burckhard, Dale Crover, Dave Foster, Chad Channing, and Dan Peters, before Melvins frontman Buzz Osbourne finally introduced Grohl to Cobain and Novoselic, ending the vicious cycle of rotating drummers.

Cobain said that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was an attempt to write a song in the style of the Pixies, a band he greatly admired.

After a few bottles of Jack Daniels, Novoselic heaved a tamale at Cobain, who retaliated with a salvo of guacamole. Soon food was flying with no regard for the industry geeks whose suits were getting splattered. The doormen rounded the band up and got them out the door just in time for them to barf up their drinks on the side of the road. "We were laughing," Novoselic remembers. "Oh my God, we just got kicked out of our own record release party!"

Cobain came up with the song's title when his friend Kathleen Hanna, the lead singer of the riot grrrl band Bikini Kill, wrote "Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit" on his wall. Hanna meant that Cobain smelled like the deodorant Teen Spirit, which his then-girlfriend Tobi Vail wore. Cobain said he was unaware of the deodorant until months after the single was released, and had interpreted it as a revolutionary slogan, since they had been discussing anarchism and punk rock.

Nirvana's first official release was a cover of "Love Buzz" by the Dutch rock band Shocking Blue. Shocking Blue is better known for their classic song "Venus," which reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in February 1970 and sold 7.5 million copies. A 1986 Bananarama cover also topped the charts. "Love Buzz" however did neither of those things, for either Shocking Blue or Nirvana.

Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend
As an old enemy
Take your time, hurry up
Choice is yours, don't be late
Take a rest as a friend
As an old memoria, memoria

On February 24, 1992, Cobain and Courtney Love got hitched on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. Cobain wore green pajamas because, as he said at the time, he was "too lazy to put on a tux".

Bleach was influenced by the heavy dirge-rock of the Melvins and the 1980s punk rock of Mudhoney, as well as the 1970s heavy metal of Black Sabbath. The money for the recording sessions for Bleach, listed as $606.17 on the album sleeve, was supplied by Jason Everman, who was subsequently brought into the band as the second guitarist.