Becoming a legend with his rock band Nirvana in the 1990s, Kurt Donald Cobain was an American musician, singer, songwriter and guitarist, posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2014), along with his Nirvana bandmates Novoselic and Dave Grohl, in their first year of eligibility. With Cobain, Nirvana has sold over 25 million albums in the U.S. and over 75 million worldwide. Read below to know more about him:

1. Kurt Donald Cobain, was born on February 20, 1967 in Aberdeen, Washington, U.S. and committed suicide by gunshot on April 5, 1994 in Seattle, Washington, U.S.

2. In middle school, Cobain used to play drums in the school band and music was his favorite class. He was also enrolled in his school’s wrestling team by his father, but in tournaments, he would always refuse to fight back.

3. Once Metallica, the American heavy metal band, sent Cobain a fax saying, “We really dig Nirvana. Nevermind is the best album of the year. Let’s get together soon, Metallica. PS, Lars hates the band.”

4. David Fricke (Rolling Stone) ranked him the 12th greatest guitarist of all time in 2003. He was also ranked at number twenty by Hit Parader on the list of “100 Greatest Metal Singers of All Time”, in 2006.

5. Dave Grohl once said that his band: Foo Fighters’ 1997 song “My Hero” is about Cobain. Foo Fighters was formed as a one-man project following the death of Kurt Cobain.

6. After the release of Nirvana’s first single, ‘Love Buzz’, in 1988, Cobain gave a copy to the college radio station KCMU, and then remained tuned in to his car radio all day to hear it. When he didn’t hear it after waiting all day, he found a pay phone and requested it himself.

7. Cobain’s band was nominated for 6 Grammys and won their first in 1996 for Best Alternative Music Performance for MTV Unplugged in New York. However, the album, was released later after Cobain’s death.

8. In 2006, Cobain received the place of Elvis Presley as the top-earning deceased celebrity, after the sale of the Nirvana song catalogue.

9. Cobain started taking heroin on a daily basis giving an explanation he does it to relieve his chronic stomach pains. He once wrote, “So I decided, if I felt like a junkie, I may as well be one”. He also claimed to spend around $100/per day on heroin.

10. Cobain also produced the rockumentary “Not Bad for a Girl”, based on women musicians of the 90s, which was also awarded the Best Documentary at the New York Underground Film Festival in 1996.

11. Wife to Cobain, Courtney Love once said, “Kurt was pure and he was also insanely ambitious. He wanted what he got, but because of his training, because of Olympia, he decided he didn’t want it.”

12. Cobain had one daughter named Frances Bean Cobain (born August 18, 1992), an American visual artist, with Hole frontwoman Courtney Love.

13. On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead at his home in Seattle, when he was just 27, becoming a topic of debate and public fascination. In his last years, he struggled with heroin addiction, depression, illness and also found it difficult to cope up with his fame.

14. Cobain addressed his suicide note to his imaginary friend Boddah. The note began: “To Boddah, Speaking from the tongue of an experienced simpleton who obviously would rather be an emasculated, infantile complainee, this note should be pretty easy to understand [..].”

15. At Aberdeen, where Cobain was born, the welcome sign board now reads, “Welcome to Aberdeen, Come as you are”.