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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2019
Novoselić fi nds post-Nirvana nirvana on his quiet farm
By MICHAEL
RIETMULDER
Seattle Times
GRAYS RIVER, Wash.
— “This is what I look
like when I fl y,” says Krist
Novoselić, leaning back in
his chair.
The Nirvana bassist and
licensed pilot had already
logged roughly 700 miles
in his twin-engine plane
by the time he sits down in
the old creamery he con-
verted into a studio near his
Wahkiakum County farm.
Not exactly aviators and a
bomber jacket, his fl ying
attire of a blue button-up
and beige slacks that hang
above a pair of Vans is more
business-casual-skater than
“Top Gun.”
Novoselić caught the fl y-
ing bug roughly 20 years
ago — about as long as he’s
made rural Deep River his
full-time home — when
another Washington state
rocker, Queensrÿche’s Chris
DeGarmo, gave him an air-
borne lift from Seattle to
Astoria. It’s a handy means
of transportation, espe-
cially living in the pasto-
ral southwest Washington
county along the Colum-
bia River where it’s eas-
ier for Novoselić, a famous
guy who’s not big on self-
ies, to lead a normal life, he
says. Here, in what might
be the greenest pocket of
the Evergreen State about
70 miles south of his home-
town Aberdeen, the 54-year-
old seems to have found his
post-Nirvana nirvana, grow-
ing cherry tomatoes and
keeping a horse, alpaca and
a goat named “Vespasian.”
These days, fl ying is
just one of the accordi-
on-squeezing farmer, elec-
tion-reform activist, Grange
master and recent college
graduate’s myriad pursuits
— not to mention his band
Giants in the Trees.
“I’m
privileged,”
Novoselić says of his abil-
ity to chase his disparate
passions. “I just try to take
Rebekah Welch/Seattle Times
Krist Novoselić plays accordion with his band, Giants in the Trees, opening for the Foo Fighters in a 2018 concert at Safeco Field.
advantage of it; try to live
a good life and try to be
responsible, healthy and
open-minded.”
Novoselić’s
studio,
where Giants in the Trees
recorded its versatile soph-
omore album “Volume 2,”
isn’t far from the Grays
River Grange, a frater-
nal organization, com-
posed largely of farmers,
that Novoselić says works
for the public good, main-
taining a local cemetery and
several parks, and running
a farmers market. A mem-
ber since 2004, Novoselić
serves as the local Grange
master, an elected position,
leading the biweekly meet-
ings and, along with his
wife, Darbury Stenderu,
helping to prepare the pot-
luck-style
premeeting
feasts, according to Giants
guitarist and fellow Granger
Ray Prestegard.
Prestegard, who lives on
a century-old family farm,
describes Novoselić as an
“old-school farmer” who is
always working on some-
thing — building fences,
fi xing up abandoned cars —
and regularly arrives at band
practice with “a little bit of
dirt on his boots.” Indeed,
Novoselić’s eyes light up
faster discussing some of
his latest handiwork than
last year’s big Safeco Field
show with the Foo Fight-
ers. “Did you see the kiosk
at the park?” Novoselić asks
excitedly. “Go to the cov-
ered bridge. I painted it.”
While some of his ven-
tures, like those cherry toma-
toes he planted this year,
require a bit more premed-
itation, others have come on
a whim. Several years ago,
Novoselić’s nephew was
heading off to community
college in Longview when
his rock-star uncle impul-
sively hopped in the car and
enrolled himself. In 2016,
Novoselić earned his bac-
calaureate in social sci-
ences through Washington
State University’s online
program.
“I went on tour with
(Dave
Grohl-corralled
supergroup) Sound City
Players and I recorded with
Paul McCartney, and I’d
have to study. I couldn’t go
out or anything,” Novoselić
says.
Two decades earlier, the
guy working his way up to
college-level math was in
front of 50,000 screaming
fans at England’s Reading
Fest delivering one of the
most famous performances
in a generation of rock his-
tory at the height of Nirva-
na’s fame.
“For the most part, that
kinda goes away,” says
Prestegard of the local cog-
nizance of his bandmate’s
fame. “He’s well-respected
in this area. Well-respected
within the Grange … by
hardworking people, by
farmers — by people who
have never listened to a Nir-
vana song in their entire
life.”
Novoselić joined the
Grange after attending the
organization’s
centennial
celebration, intrigued by the
way the meetings were run,
but even more so by the peo-
ple — some of whom helped
establish the community in
the 1930s and 1940s. He’s
since become an “armchair
Grange historian,” he says,
pointing to the shelf full of
Grange books behind him
that he’s read.
The rural Renaissance
man likens the sense of
community and involve-
ment with the Grange to the
one he found growing up in
the punk-rock scene, with its
network of bands, clubs and
fanzines. He enjoys meet-
ing people from all walks
of life and political leanings
through his various endeav-
ors, be it the Grange, music
or his work with FairVote, a
nonpartisan group champi-
oning electoral reforms that
Novoselić believes would
curb gerrymandering and
push American politics back
toward the middle.
“There’s
something
about the humanity of that
I fi nd really compelling,”
Novoselić says of those
face-to-face
connections
with people across the polit-
ical spectrum. “I used to
be really cynical and that
was part of the whole Nir-
vana thing. One thing led to
another and maybe I’m not
as cynical as I used to be.
Though I am very skeptical,
I’m not very cynical. I’m
just more laid-back now.”
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