Krist Novoselic

Krist Anthony Novoselic II (16 May 1965 – present) is an American rock musician, best known for being the bassist and co-founder of the grunge band Nirvana. Apart from his musical endeavors, Novoselic has been active politically, including the creation of the political action committee JAMPAC (Joint Artists and Musicians Political Action Committee). Since 2008 he has been board chair of the electoral reform organization FairVote.

Quotes

I voted last week, and everything I voted for was defeated. I voted for less police station money and against adding more courtrooms. The guy I voted for, a congressman, lost big time because he's totally anti-military. He wanted to cut the CIA budget! He's really cool. But he lost.
- As quoted in "Take The Money and Run", Sounds (27 December 1990), interviewed by Keith Cameron on 23 September 1990^[1]

America is a fucking police state.
- As quoted in New Musical Express (12 November 1991)^[2]

Did you know that the biggest—you know, the biggest star in the univer—in the whole galaxy/universe is as big as an atom is small? Did you know that? Isn't that wild? That's more pothead philosophy.
- Video interview, 1991

People standing on escalators! And that is a testimony to human laziness! I mean, the guy who invented the escalator is just, probably, kicking himself in the ass. Do you think the guy made the escalator so people—and they're made like stairs—just so people stand on it so you go up and down? You're supposed to walk on 'em so you get there faster. You know? And then people stand on there. So every time I'm on an escalator, I'm just like, "Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me, pardon me…." You know? That's my pet peeve, right there. And I'm gonna do something about it, and I'm urging you to do something about it! Write your congressman, get a group together, get together, and—I think we can do something about this.
- Video interview, early 1990s

Krist Novoselic, interviewed by Nick Gillespie, "Nirvana's Krist Novoselic on Punk, Politics, & Why He Dumped the Dems", ReasonTV (19 June 2014)

I do feel like, kinda like a misfit; usually I feel, inside, I'm a misfit. Like, I don't really watch sports, or a lot of…
- 1:46–1:55

It seems like our politics is so old, like, it almost seems like turning on the t.v. and there's ABC and CBS and NBC, and, y'know, there's like one newspaper in town, and so they're all pushing things on us, and that's all going away.
- 5:10–5:28
Nick Gillespie: So, um, how do you self-describe politically?
Krist Novoselic: I'm a, what, an anarcho-capitalist socialist…I don't know…I'm kinda a moderate, I think I'm moderate.
Nick Gillespie: So you're an anarcho-capitalist socialist moderate.
Krist Novoselic: I mean I'm a gun-owning pacifist, so there you go. I'm an anarcho-socialist—you know what I mean?
Nick Gillespie: Anarcho-socialist—
Krist Novoselic: —capitalist—
Nick Gillespie: —capitalist, gun-toting…
Krist Novoselic: Yeah, it's just like I, y'know, I just tryin'a, tryin'a make it work in this world and...basically I'm just a small-D democrat.
- 11:30–12:03

Well, I think it just goes back to the values that I grew up with in the punk rock world because it was this decentralised world, and so we just made our own way—like we'd be antigovernment or, you know—but we really didn't complain a lot; we were more action-oriented, like, people were publishing fanzines, we were setting up shows, we were getting in vans and touring around, and we were associating with other people, so…y'know, I just like that idea.
- 11:43–15:10, about the value of decentralisation

I don't think that corporations are these big bogeymen that a lot of people paint them to be.
- 15:30–15:37

A corporation is a group of people, and if you want to come together for profit or nonprofit, that's your business—whatever you want to do.
- 17:10–17:20

Yeah, I was a Democrat for about four or five years—active Democrat—and I thought I could reform the party; maybe I wasn't going about it right, maybe somebody can and somebody will, y'know? But I don't see it. It's just a top-down structure, it's a soft-money conduit, and, y'know, and like Nancy Pelosi, she's gonna lose the election again, and it's just like, what's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing—wrong, wrong thing—over and over again. Republicans, they have a real big demographic problem, because they're the party of old white people, and they're not reaching out to folks.
- 20:00–20:38

Well, it was just—it seemed like it was violence, and, like, 'cause I went by some of the stores that, like, I don't really eat at McDonald's, y'know, but a lot of people do, and so there are these people who want, y'know, they're-they're socialists but they hate people, y'know, so they go trash the McDonald's, and I just think it was just reckless violence, and they weren't tryin'a accomplish anything, and they said—he was writing something on the wall, some kind of graffiti that was just stupid and cliché, and I said, "Hey, how would you like if someone did that to your house?" and he yelled back, "Fuck you!" and these other people started yelling "Fuck you!" at me; I'm, like, "Oh," like "I'm in trouble."
- 28:27–29:07, about the 1999 Seattle WTO protests

Globalisation is a great thing, and the genie's out of the bottle; it's called the Information Revolution. It has a promise to bring opportunity and information to all corners of the world. It's a wonderful thing.
- 29:41–29:55

If you hear a song you like, start dancing. That's what I do, I'll just start dancing, and that's it. That's all there is to it.
- 34:23–34:29

We weren't really interested in those bands; we were—because we came out of this subterranean scene. And then Nirvana breaks big, and it's just diametrically opposite: we have, like, facial hair, and just, kind of, logger shirts, but we're all, like, "sensitive" and "feminine"—you know what I mean?
- 36:00–36:19, about mainstream rockers of the 1980s