Dave Grohl: “I Was Scared” to Write About Kurt Cobain

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: We turn next to the life and career of a rock and roll legend, Dave Grohl. He’s best known as the Foo Fighter’s front man and, of course, the former Nirvana drummer. And he now talks about what he’s doing at the moment with Hari Sreenivasan.

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HARI SREENIVASAN: Christiane, thanks. Dave Grohl, first, thanks for joining us. You read a lot of about growing up. And I want to know, when is it that you figured out how important music was to you, I mean, different than it is for me.

DAVE GROHL, AUTHOR, “THE STORYTELLER: TALES OF LIFE AND MUSIC,” FOO FIGHTERS FOUNDER AND FRONTMAN: It really started with this one car drive with my mother, while we were driving out to this lake. I grew up in Virginia, outside of D.C. We were driving out to this lake to go swimming and Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” came on the radio. And when the chorus came around, my mother who was also a singer in the ’50s, she took Carly Simon’s part and I took Mick Jagger’s part. And it dawned on me, like, oh, my God, two separate notes sung together create a chord. And I think I was maybe seven years old. This is in the ’70s. And then, I started really listening to music differently. All the different layers of instrumentation, the composition, the arrangement, I started seeing it as a puzzle and how all of those shapes fit together. So, from that moment on, everything I heard I would try to like decipher in this weird way. And I would go back to my bedroom with my Beatle’s records and my guitar and play along. And it was a mystery to me that I was trying to solve. And it’s been that way ever of since.

SREENIVASAN: You talk almost in a way where your brain is processing this information a little differently, like you can almost see music. And I —

GROHL: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: So, kind of explain that to somebody who doesn’t have this in their brain.

GROHL: Well, you know, there’s a condition called synesthesia and it’s when you — your sensory pathways are crossed somehow. So, in my case, when I — I don’t know if I have synesthesia, but when I hear music, I almost imagine it like Legos in my head, like the shape, whether it’s the time signature or rhythm, I see it in little blocks or the compositions or arrangement of a song, I it see in shapes. And because I don’t read music, this is what I rely on to memorize music. I don’t know why it happens, but thank God it does because otherwise, I would be really screwed. So — but that’s — yes. I mean, that’s how I process it. And even — if you and I were sitting here having a conversation and I heard music in the background, you know, I would been engaged in our conversation, but I would be trying to figure out the time signature going on in the background, well, like with this ear. And then with this ear — so, it just becomes something that, you know, you’re obsessed with, and I have been since I was a kid.

SREENIVASAN: So, do you timestamp the things in your life by the soundtrack that’s happening? I mean, do you remember, I don’t know, hotel lobby music? Or, I mean, where does it become too much and where do you say, I know that feeling because of what was playing?

GROHL: Well, it’s almost like if you smell a certain perfume or if you smell something cooking in the kitchen, it brings back memories of different times in your life. It’s that way with me and music. So, if I hear like Carly Simon or 10cc or Andrew Gold or Helen Reddy, it reminds me of the smell of my mother’s Ford Maverick car in a humid Virginia day, you know, like it just comes back like that. So, as I was writing these stories, it was easy for me to remember everything. I mean, miraculously, my memory remained pretty intact over the years. It just takes music to bring it all back, and it does. If I hear a Nirvana song on the radio, I remember like the shorts I was wearing when I played that drum track. Like I remember, you know, the suitcase I had on that trip, things like that, it all comes back with music.

SREENIVASAN: You write about when you had this tremendous opportunity to go play with this band that you really looked up to, Scream, but that also included telling your schoolteacher mom that you were pretty much done with school and you were trying to brace yourself for that conversation. How did it go?

GROHL: Well, first of all, I think she had been bracing herself for that conversation since first grade. You know, I was just a terrible student. I just was. And I don’t know if it was that I just didn’t get it or I couldn’t focus. I think it’s all of those things. But, you know, since my mother was a public schoolteacher for 35 years, she had taught generations of kids like me. And my mother, I think, she realized like, you’re better off — you want to learn Italian, go to Italy. You want to learn, you know, geography, go travel the world rather than sit under the fluorescent lights of a school room. So, she kind of set me free.

SREENIVASAN: So, there you are on an unbelievable road tour with these guys, basically living in a van, not just having all of your gear in it, but sleeping in this van at all times and then — and going to places and playing your hearts out. Not for much money, I might add, as you’re describing it. And I kind of want to know, what is it about being in a van with a group of people like this for an extended, intense period of time that’s so important? I mean, you made a documentary basically about that thing that happens in bands.

GROHL: Well, first of all, when you’re young, these are really form formative experiences, right? So, I mean, I never thought I would make it past the Mississippi playing drums, you know. Like I remember standing with my feet in the sand looking out at the Pacific Ocean and it was music that brought me there, you know. I mean, it was like new yoga over here and a drum circle and whatever California, but I was like, music brought me here. And that, to me, was, at the time, my life’s greatest achievement. You know, there — I think that — I think I say in the book that music used to just be a sound that moved the air until it became the air that I breathed. And so, I think that even in the darkest, most difficult times, it was music that kept you going. Music kept you alive. You survived not from the $7 a day that you were making, it was the music that kept you alive. And I still feel that way. I mean, if I didn’t have it, I don’t know what I would do.

SREENIVASAN: So, you get an opportunity to come up and try out to be the drummer for Nirvana, way before they were a household name. They’d already put out one album, but before we know it. And the band puts out this album, but before everyone hears it, you obviously — you figure out that there’s something in “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that is different about a song and you go into what it was like to — I think you were in a hotel room where you saw it on MTV the first time. Tell me about that.

GROHL: Well, first of all, you know, I — there weren’t such massive expectations for our band. And when we recorded “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, I remember thinking, wow, this sounds huge, but not like what it became at all. Nobody did. And that it happened really, really quickly. And the video — I mean, honestly, the video is what changed the game.

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GROHL: You know what, we were on tour just as we always had been. We were in our van. We were loading our equipment into this club, playing and then, getting back in the van and leaving. When that video came out, all of a sudden, the 300-capacity club had 300 more people outside. And then, the 500-capacity club had 500 more people outside. And it got to the point where I would sit down on my drum stool and the first thing I do is look for the exit. I’m like, OK, there’s going to be a riot. How am I going to get out of here? There’s going to be a riot. But it was the video. And I think, you know, not only was the song great, Kurt’s lyrics, his voice. Kurt was the greatest songwriter of our generation. And — but that video — and then you make a video, I always say, you want to know how to sell a million records, make a video where you’re burning down your high school.

SREENIVASAN: So, I — what is it — you know, you have written a lot of songs yourself. You have been around a lot of great songwriters. And what makes you heap that kind of praise on Kurt? What makes great songwriter?

GROHL: I mean, I don’t know. I think that it just happens sometimes. I think his simplicity and the — you know, the beautiful, direct language in his lyrics, which I would consider poetry. His specific lens, his perspective on life, he was very open to writing about his own pain, which I think millions of people could relate to and connect with. And I think it’s a number of things. But because it was just him, that was it. It was just him.

SREENIVASAN: You said that you wrote the chapter about loss and about Kurt last, why?

GROHL: Because I was scared to write it. I mean, you know, it’s one thing to write about getting stitches when you’re 12 years old or it’s one thing to write about, you know, taking your kids to the daddy daughter dance. It’s another thing to write about something that you have barely spoken about with people close to you. I mean, I revealed some things in that story that I have never told my closest friends. I was scared to write it. I mean, you know, first of all, I knew what people wanted me to write. I think that people have a lot of unanswered questions, as do I. So, I decided to write in a much broader emotional sense that, you know, the process of loss or grief and mourning and how that’s determined and how it differs from person to person. So, yes, it was just — it was a tough one to write.

SREENIVASAN: You write that after the loss, you really kind of took some time for yourself and tried to process this. And the book finds you like literally on a remote corner of the planet, in the middle of some rural part of Ireland that’s gorgeous, what happened there?

GROHL: Well, after Kurt died and Nirvana was over, our worlds were just turned upside down. I don’t know if anyone knew how to continue or what to do next. I personally didn’t have any interest in music. I put my instruments away. It was hard for me to listen to the radio, which was very unlike me. And after a few months, I decided I would go on this kind of soul-searching trip to find the middle of nowhere. I just wanted to be away from everyone and everything. So, I went to one of my favorite places. The Ring of Kerry in Ireland where I’ve been before. And I mean, it’s entirely remote. There’s nothing there. It’s just country roads and beautiful scenery. And I was there driving down a country road, and I saw a hitchhiker in the distance and I thought maybe, I’ll pick him up. And as I got closer and closer, I noticed that he had a Kurt Cobain T-shirt on. So, even in the middle of nowhere, I had Kurt sort of looking back at me and that’s when I realized I can’t outrun this. I have to go home. I have to get the instruments back in my lap and I have to keep playing music because it saved my life my entire life and I think that it might do it again. And I went home and started the Foo Fighters.

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SREENIVASAN: That first album, you practically played everything, I think, except for one portion of one track. So, what is the instrument you identify most with? I mean, obviously, you’re known as an exceptional drummer, but you’re also a guitarist, you’re also a singer.

GROHL: First of all, I’d take singer off that list because I basically just run around screaming for three hours a night. So, we could take that one off. So, it’s guitarist or drummer. You know, the guitar was my first instrument and there’s nothing like sitting around with a guitar in your lap all day long. But drumming, drumming, is — I mean, I feel like I’m dancing when I’m drumming. I don’t have to think. I can just do it. And whatever is in my heart just winds up in my hands. There’s not a whole lot of thought, which is probably why I prefer it. But I really love the physicality of drumming. And I do have this sort of internal rhythm that I have had my entire life. When I was a kid, I used to do this little exercise to challenge with myself. Whenever we would drive up to Ohio from Virginia to visit my grandparents, we would go through these long tunnels in Pennsylvania, like through the mountains. And there would be a song on the radio and I would be listening to it and see a tunnel coming up and then, we’d go in the tunnel, lose the radio and I try to hold the beat like this and then, once we came out of the tunnel see if I was still on the beat. And I would still be on the beat. Like, this is how weird I am. But, I mean, as far as drumming, I think drumming is one of those things that — I mean, I will do it at drop of a hat, at the opening of an envelope, I could be your cousin’s bar mitzvah. I don’t care. Like I will play the drum. If I see a drum set, I’m going to play on those drums.

SREENIVASAN: You know, there are so many stories in this book about when you meet these people, sometimes who are your idols and sometimes who are just people you know and respect in the music world. From, you know, Little Richard to Lemmy from Motorhead to Paul McCartney who kind of becomes your friend. And — but all the way throughout these stories, there’s like this giddy teen quality that comes out where you’re still — I mean, you described being nervous around these people and you wonder what it’s going to be like and all the things that any fan would be like around somebody that they really looked up to.

GROHL: Yes. I mean, can you imagine? Like that’s the way — honestly, as I was writing, I started thinking, am I writing this from the perspective of someone who is having an out of body experience every day? Because it’s just too crazy. Like I can’t believe it’s happening to me. I can’t believe I’m like having dinner with ACDC. I can’t believe that, you know, Paul is over at the house and playing my piano. Things like that. It never grows old. You don’t get used to it. I don’t think you should get used to it, but, dude, really, like if you’re face to face with Little Richard, you’re OK with that? No, you’re not OK with that. But the great thing about all of these experiences is that you’re reminded that music is flesh and bone. Like this is real life. These are real people. This is — it kind of — it’s reassuring. Like, oh, good, life actually happened. This isn’t just an allusion. And so, you know, what I’m jamming with any of these people or hanging out with these people, I try to remind myself like, OK, we’re all human beings here. Does it make — am I nervous, absolutely. Like jamming with Prince, you’re going to be nervous, believe me. Like that’s going to make you nervous. And, you know, you try to get down in like a really sort of human way. But ultimately, you know, it’s reassuring to see that these people are people as well, and that’s what I love the most about it.

SREENIVASAN: Dave, if the book tells you nothing else, it tells you that you, Dave Grohl, have been an incredibly lucky man for this long. So —

GROHL: Hallelujah, dude. I mean, I remember, when my — when Nirvana first got popular, my dad said, you know this isn’t going to last, right? And I’m like, no, why would it? That’s crazy. And then, 10 years later, he’s like, you know this isn’t going to last, right? I’m like, no, why not? And so, I still — believe me, every single day I wake up, I’m lucky to be alive, I’m lucky to play music. I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

SREENIVASAN: Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, thanks so much for joining us.

GROHL: Thanks a lot, man. It’s good to see you.