Recording was approached very much from the live perspective, with the drummer set up in the middle of the room and the bass and guitars isolated for separation. It has a big, live tracking room, there's an old Neve board, a 24вЂ‘track analogue Studer tape machine, a good collection of tube mics, some nice LA2A compressors, but not a lot of outboard gear.' 'Then, after Dave Grohl joined the band, the new stuff was recorded at Sound City in Los Angeles. 'The only track that made it from the original sessions at Smart was 'Polly', which was a fairly strippedвЂ‘down acoustic song,' recalls Vig. 'I was lucky' is Vig's modest assessment.

Nevertheless, in spite of Geffen's desire to bring in a bigвЂ‘name producer, Nirvana held out to have Butch Vig at the helm when it was time to lay down new tracks in the studio. So really the stuff that I had recorded with them primarily became demos, and they got bootlegged real fast!' 'Still, we recorded six or seven songs at Smart and they were going to come back and do some more, but this was right around the time when all of the major labels took an interest in them and they subsequently jumped from Sub Pop to Geffen. 'I don't think they were necessarily happy with the lineвЂ‘up, or at least Kurt wasn't,' recalls Vig. Yet these were the days before drummer Dave Grohl had joined the band, and apparently all was not running that smoothly for the other members. The band just happened to be one of the acts on Sub Pop's roster and, having recently come off the road, was scheduled to record what was ostensibly going to be its next album for the company. It was while producing records for independent label Sub Pop that producer/engineer/ writer/musician Butch Vig first came into contact with Nirvana. He didn't know what the hell he was trying to say but he was definitely trying to get it out.'

'Very few artists have that kind of sensibility in their nature,' says Vig, 'and that's part of what made Kurt so amazing and also so much of an enigma at the same time. Add 'intense passion,' and he's talking about the writing and singing of Kurt Cobain. 'Cathartic,' is how Butch Vig chooses to describe the experience of hearing Nirvana perform either in concert or on tape. Richard Buskin caught up with him to talk about roots, reincarnation, and rubbish. Now he's hit the big time as both artist and producer, as part of internationallyвЂ‘successful band Garbage. Butch Vig came to fame for his work on the seminal Nirvana album Nevermind, going on to make a name for himself in postвЂ‘punk indie production.

Butch vig garbage tour