This has been an incredibly difficult article to write because the musical life and incredible career of Dave Grohl is so diverse. Apologies for not including all his musical achievements to date.
David Eric Grohl was born 14th January 1969 in Ohio, USA and is of German, Irish, and Slovak descent. He was seven when his parents divorced and moved to Springfield Virginia but it was another year before his interest in music developed. In 1977 he heard 2112, an album by Rush, and the fantastic drumming of Neil Peart. Listening to that album influenced him dramatically and gave him the wish to learn drums. As well as Neil Peart, Grohl also cites John Bonham as another of his influences. That resulted in him having the “three-rings” symbol tattooed on his right shoulder.
In 1985 Grohl joined the hard-core punk band Dain Bramage but, in 1987, at the age of 17, following the departure of their drummer, he left to join Scream and produced their first album, I Scream Not Coming down. It was while playing and touring with Scream that Grohl became a fan of the Melvins and during the 1990 tour Grohl was introduced to Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic of Nirvana by the Melvin’s guitarist, Buzz Osborne. That was to lead to Grohl auditioning with the Nirvana. The rest is history.
The band had already released Bleach, their first album and were working on demoes of new material for the follow-up. The demoes created a great deal of interest and asa result they chose to sign to DCG records, and in 1991 they began recording their next album, Nevermind, at Sound City Studios Los Angeles. Released later that year it became a worldwide commercial success and Grohl began writing with Kobain, including "Color Pictures of a Marigold." As well as recording many of the guitar tracks on their album Grohl became deeply involved in all aspects of their music and live gigs.
Prior to the Nirvana 1994 European tour, the band scheduled session time at a studio in Seattle to work on demos for the upcoming album. For most of the three-day session, Cobain was absent, so Novoselic and Grohl worked on demos of their own songs. Those tracks would eventually become part of the Foo Fighter’s first album.
On the final recording session, 8th April 1994, Cobain decided to attend, but for some still unknown reason, following that session, Cobain was found dead from a self-inflicted shotgun wound.
Following the untimely deathof their lead singer, Kurt Cobain, Grohl decided to work on the Foo Fighters. Grohl “is” the Foo Fighters. He is the lead singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter of the band. In 2010, he was described byClassic Rock Drummersco-author Ken Micallef as one of the most influential rock musicians of the last 20 years.
The first album from the Foo Fighterrs was released in 1995 and he put together a full band to promote and tour the music. Since then, they have released ten studio albums. As well as the Foo Fighter project, Grohl founded the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures and recorded and toured with Queens of the Stone Age.
Grohl is incredibly talented and began directing Foo Fighters music videos in 1997 releasing his debut documentary, Sound City in 2013. That was followed by the documentary miniseries, Sonic Highways in 2014 and the documentary filmWhat Drives Us in 2021. In 2021, Grohl released an autobiography,The Storyteller: Tales of Life and
Music. and in 2022, Grohl and the Foo Fighters starred as themselves in the comedy horror
film Studio 666.
Now, three decades on Nirvana are still synonymous with music of the 1990s, and the Foo
Fighters, fronted by the multi-talented David Grohl and his array of session players, continue
to fill stadiums around the world.
Grohl was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Nirvana in 2021.
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Dave Grohl
BY-------Graham Sclater
TABITHA BOOKS