Steve Albini made sure there were no hangers-on or “drug dealers trying to do business” while he recorded with Nirvana.
The 60-year-old producer – who has also worked with Manic Street Preachers, Pixies and Breeders – produced the group’s 1993 album ‘In Utero’ and said they decided to work in a studio about 50 miles outside of Minneapolis “in a place where people weren’t going to be predatory” following Nirvana’s sudden global fame.
He told NME: “There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about the sessions. I mean, apart from them being extremely famous. I had to do everything I could to keep it under wraps to make sure that we didn’t get overrun by fans and the added nonsense. That was the only thing that was weird about it.
“It was far enough away from anybody that the band knew socially, and we wouldn’t have a f****** TV crew out front every day or any drug dealers trying to do business.
“We had to make sure that word didn’t get out. The studio was an independent studio and there was only a small number of people working there.”
Steve added about the tactics he used to keep the recording venue under wraps: “I didn’t really want to trust them with the secret, so I booked the studio on my account under the pseudonym the ‘Simon Ritchie Band’, which was of course Sid Vicious’ real name.
“Until the flight cases started arriving from the cartage company the day before we started, nobody knew.
“The cases had Nirvana spray-painted on the side of them, but until that happened, even the people who owned the studio didn’t know that Nirvana was going to be recording there.”