-The popular music at that time
was a lot of hair metal -- Guns N' Roses, Poison.
So when Seattle started gaining attention,
it was the death of that music.
Hello. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
I need all of your attention right now.
Turn up your radios.
We're talking about Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana,
Screaming Trees, Alice In Chains, Mudhoney.
Nobody was playing the local bands.
-And now more of Seattle's cut-cutting-edge of rock.
-Back in the day, I was somewhat infamous for leaking records.
-Breaking the law! Breaking the law!
-There was a certain element of just not giving a [bleep]
that makes your show good.
-Hello. -[ Laughs ]
-My name is Marco Collins, and I worked at a radio station
that allowed me to break artists like Beck
and Garbage and Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
And I was there in the '90s
when the grunge explosion happened.
-Oh, shit, yeah.
-[ Laughs ] Uh, Ben?
You can't say "shit" on the radio.
The grunge term is still hard for me to say.
In Seattle, we call it "The G Word."
I think grunge is something that somebody made up
to market the sound out of Seattle.
But it's a term that's definitely gone down in history.
107.7 The End.
Music there from Pavement.
107.7 The End was a radio station
that started in 1991.
-The End will stand for the end of radio
as you've known it in Seattle.
-Before I got to Seattle,
107.7 wasn't called The End,
and they were playing Michael Bolton, Celine Dion,
easy listening.
So we couldn't wait to flip the switch.
I played artists that I felt needed to be heard by the world.
To me, the important thing was
that we were, "A," supporting the local scene
and finding artists to play and blow up,
no matter what the record deal was,
no matter how much money they had behind them.
If the song was good, we played it.
-107.7 The End.
-Hey, this is Eddie from the band --
What's my band? Soundgarden. Oh, no, Nirvana.
I'm sorry. Mudhon-- uh... oh, Pearl Jam.
And you're listening to Marco Collins,
the first person ever to play my little voice on the radio.
-The bands that we started playing on The End
were not household names yet.
The mainstream world did not know
who Nirvana and Mudhoney were.
They didn't know who Soundgarden was,
Jane's Addiction, The Pixies, Nine Inch Nails.
All of these bands weren't huge bands at that time.
How I found a lot of these artists
is just scouring record stores.
I'd spend hundreds of dollars a week
just to find that next thing.
World Premieres. New releases.
Fresh album cuts. Exclusive imports.
It's the world-famous 7:30 Spotlight
with Marco Collins on 107.7.
-The End.
-I've always had the ability and the knack
to hear a hit.
When I first heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit,"
I was shocked.
It was produced big,
but it still had that sort of anarchistic energy.
And when I played "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
for the first time on the radio,
people freaked out.
-Cool! -Yes!
-Oh, my God! -[ Squeals ]
-Yeah, I really love Nirvana.
-Yeah. My favorite group.
-Okay, bye.
-I remember playing it twice in a row
because the phone lines were lit up and people were calling.
There was a feeling when you heard
"Smells like Teen Spirit" for the first time
that things are changing.
-Hi, I'm Dave. -And I am Krist.
And we're from Nirvana.
And you're listening to
Seattle's cutting edge of rock,
sharper than a diamond... -Whatever.
-...107.7 The End!
-Nirvana had number-one singles on pop charts,
like, beat out Michael Jackson for the number-one album.
And they're nothing but a punk-rock band
with some pop hooks.
Fuck. That's awesome.
-The Sub Pop sound.
-Oh, yeah, the Sub Pop sound.
-Grunge. -Grunge.
-Seattle. -Seattle was definitely
on the map in a way that it had never been before.
Once Nirvana blew up, once Pearl Jam blew up,
our ratings started blowing up,
because we were embracing these bands,
we were embracing the culture.
Once we became the number-one
alternative station in the country,
we were really influential with the rest of the country,
and that was amazing.
7:30 Spotlight tonight, as promised,
in the studio with me is Beck Hansen,
better known just as Beck.
One of the artists I'm most proud about is Beck.
We were the first commercial station in the country
to play Beck's "Loser,"
and it was because a friend of mine bought
this 12-inch single at a record store in Los Angeles,
and I listened to it and thought,
"Oh, man, this is really good," so I threw it on the air.
Vinyl. Like, I wasn't playing CDs.
We were playing vinyl.
Within two weeks, it was the number-one requested song,
and Beck hadn't even inked a deal yet.
It's Beck in the studio with, uh, "Loser."
Anything you want to say about "Loser" before we go into it?
-Um, no. -Okay.
Beck, "Loser," right here in The End Zone.
It's 107.7 The End.
I think what set me apart from other deejays at that time
is my inability to be professional.
I just did me.
107.7. We are The End.
And that is the wrong CD player. [ Laughs ]
Back in the day, I was somewhat infamous for leaking records.
-Breaking the law! Breaking the law!
Breaking the law!
-We got a lot of legal notices from lawyers,
cease-and-desist orders.
I believe what we're doing is probably illegal anyway.
So I had already leaked Pearl Jam's second record.
But "In Utero" from Nirvana was a whole different story.
Everybody was anticipating that record,
and we had the exclusive, and we played the mixes.
And I remember Courtney called and was like,
"Marco! Kurt's mad at you."
And I could hear Kurt in the background going,
"I'm not mad. Just tell him to tell people
these aren't the final mixes."
That's 107.7 The End. -And Courtney's bitching.
-And I'm [chuckles] on the phone with Courtney Love,
who's got a couple of bones to pick.
-No! My bones are fine. I'm happy.
-The [sound distortion] End.
-I always wanted to be a radio deejay.
Music, for me, was an escape.
For me, I was gay
and couldn't really face it,
and I got bullied severely in school.
I never came out on the radio in the '90s.
It was scary, man.
It was a very male,
rock-driven culture.
It took somebody like Kurt Cobain
to include lyrics in his songs like,
"Everyone is gay,"
and I felt like I was accepted by that crowd
because I was gay.
I was a misfit like them.
I started at The End when I was 26 years old,
and I was partying.
I was drinking. I was doing drugs.
In order for me to do my radio show,
I had to be in bed by noon, get up at 6:00.
I still get six hours of sleep.
I'm on the air at 7:00.
I'd be on from 7:00 to 11:00,
and I'd start it all over again.
Not the healthiest way to live your life.
It was a lot of fun until it wasn't.
And ironically, I went to the same rehab Kurt Cobain did.
I didn't jump over the fence, though, to leave.
I stayed the entire time.
At this point, I've been to rehab seven times,
and the last 25 years of my life have been a real struggle.
I've been sober now for almost four years,
but at this point, I'm just rebuilding.
-Hi. I'm Kurt Loder with an "MTV News" special report
on a very sad day.
Kurt Cobain, the leader of one of rock's most gifted
and promising bands, Nirvana, is dead.
-Well, it's just sad, really.
-Kids are very upset right now.
We've had people calling us on the air who are crying.
I spoke at the public memorial,
and it was one of the most intense things I've ever done.
Everybody getting together here
is a very important thing to let a lot of stuff go.
There's a fountain in Seattle Center
where we had this memorial,
and Nirvana music was playing out of the fountain,
and after the memorial,
all the kids that were there
climbed into the fountain
and climbed onto this monstrosity.
And it was, like -- it was just beautiful chaos.
Some people felt that Kurt Cobain's death
was the death of grunge, and maybe in a way it was.
One of the premier songwriters of the decade is gone.
-Marco Collins, music director from Seattle's The End.
-I'm very proud of what we did in the '90s with The End.
I had no idea that what we were creating at The End would be,
you know, heralded with such respect.
We were just trying to do good radio,
have fun on the air, play bands that we loved,
help bands' careers.
We had no idea that we were helping
usher in an entire revolution of music.
It didn't feel like that.
I'm grateful that I got that opportunity
and that I worked for a station
that gave me enough power to be creative.
That doesn't happen all the time,
and it happened then,
and it was perfect.
I remember Johnny Rotten coming into the radio station.
I couldn't wait to meet him.
I walk out and go to shake his hand,
and he looks down at my hand, turns away,
and just walks away from me, doesn't shake my hand,
doesn't say hello at all.
And I was like, "That is so punk rock.
That is so Johnny Rotten."