Chad Channing
Drummer - Nirvana
Chad Channing is a Seattle musician best known as the early drummer for Nirvana during the band’s formative years. A key contributor to their 1989 debut album Bleach, Channing helped shape the raw, heavy sound that would lay the groundwork for the grunge movement.
Before the band’s meteoric rise, he was part of the tight-knit Pacific Northwest scene that defined late 80s underground music. His steady, powerful drumming played an essential role in Nirvana’s early recordings and live performances, securing his place in Seattle’s music history.
Photo by Rosetta Greek at The Vogue, where Nirvana played early in their career
Transcript
After playing in Cincinnati, our next stop was Lawrence, Kansas, over a nine-hour drive. Instead of hitting the road, we decided to stay the night in Cincinnati and head out in the morning. When we got up and started loading our guitars back into the van, we noticed we had been broken into. Nothing important was taken except the sagebrush we had hanging from the rearview mirror. Once we hit the road, we eventually found ourselves driving through miles of cornfields.
By 10 p.m., we were lost looking at our map with a flashlight to find the club, which turned out to be in the middle of a cornfield. Pulling in, a guy asked if we were Nirvana. We said yes, and he said they were ready for us and to go ahead and load up on stage and play whenever we were ready. It was the quickest setup and play we ever did. After the show, we hooked up with a guy who was either a friend of Kurt's or Chris, or perhaps both of them knew him, who was working on a film being shot in Kansas City. He asked if we were hungry and said he knew a great little place to eat but that it wasn't your average place. That was fine with us, so we followed him into the city.
We found ourselves driving down suburban streets with nothing but houses and no sign of any kind of restaurants around. We eventually pulled up in front of a house, thinking maybe we were just going to chill at a friend's place for dinner, but instead entered in a much different situation. It was quite late already, past midnight. When we walked up to the door, it had a security door in place. We rang the bell and the door opened just a crack. The guy was talking to our friend as if to receive some kind of password in order to come inside. It was kind of trippy.
We apparently got the okay because the door opened and we were let inside and shown to our table as our friend greeted the patrons of the house. We found ourselves in a special kind of nightclub that served some of the best soul food I had ever eaten. I found myself feeling rather out of place at first, but mostly was amazed by my surroundings. People were standing around listening to live music and chatting it up. Most looked like they came out of the movie Superfly. It was crazy but really cool and definitely an experience I’ll never forget.