There's no school you can go to where you can study how to run a record label. Every day was a learning experience.

I think so much of our society is geared towards mainstream media and pop culture and so forth. And there's a huge divide between the artist and the fan. And with indie culture that wall is removed. You actually do see the musicians walking around enjoying the show. It's a distinctly different culture and for the 99% of Nirvana fans that caught up with them with Nevermind, my book is gonna give them a whole different take on Kurt [Cobain] and the band.

I can fully understand [that] artists want to be able to pay their bills. As a fan of art, and art as a way to shift dialogue and address cultural issues, there's a part of me that's really, really saddened by that and can't really relate to it.

I was a history major in school. I review the past a lot and think about music history and how culture unfolds.

I had no real photography experience, thankfully. I consciously took a lot of crowd shots. I was influenced by Seattle photographer Charles Peterson, who always seemed to incorporate fans in his live band shots.

People are hard-wired for tribal identity.

The idea of having an indie rock "career" while living in a remote backwater like Seattle was too ridiculous to contemplate. It was simply about having adventures, one day at a time, one song at a time.