influence is not really to do with what the band sounds like.
Agreed - sometimes it's about appreciating and learning the craft of songwriting.
I agree that there's fair bit of suicide 'crapola' aurrounding Cobain, but he's deifnitely a great songwriter.
Whilst fairport may seem a jump, Nick Drake and even some of RT's early stuff is fairly dark and not a million miles away from the tone of some of Cobain's writing (The former not being immune to a bit of journalistic suicide/early death hype either, just on a smaller scale and in a more middle class accent).
I got into Nick Drake when I was about eighteen after the Black Crowes, who I idolised at the time, kept name-checking him. Though some of their stuff is less of a jump from Drake than you might think (Nonfiction and Thorn in my Pride spring to mind) it's another good example of 'influuence' not only being about direct relations to sound, but appreciating craft.