The 52-year-old father of three writes of the eclectic mix of musical introductions he experienced as a youngster—his mom cajoling him to drum onstage at their local jazz club and tagging along with his cousin to his first head-banging punk rock show. He reflects on performing through the U.S. and Europe as a teen before moving to Seattle, Wash., in the early ‘90s where he would find fairly quick and unsuspected acclaim with the history-making Kurt Cobain-fronted grunge group. Then, what started as a one-man project turned into Foo Fighters, who have continuously produced and performed music for more than 25 years. Storyteller is his documentation of the sounds that inspired him, the life he’s led in studios and in front of crowds and the relationships, musical and familial, he’s garnered and found love with. On October 30, the Foo Fighters will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (This doubles Grohl’s inclusion as Nirvana was enshrined in 2014.) But before the ceremony begins, the storyteller is reflecting on moments from his globetrotting musical journey, living through the COVID-19 pandemic and what books he’s recommending to readers. Growing up, you were a punk rocker but were hanging out at a jazz club with your mom. How did those two worlds make sense together? When I was young—9, 10, 11, 12 years old—I loved rock ’n’ roll. I had posters on my wall, and I imagined that rock ’n’ roll was what I saw in these posters, like lasers, big stages, big lights and big drum sets. That was my idea of it. The first time I ever saw a band play was a punk rock band from Chicago in a tiny dive bar across the street from Wrigley Field. I had never seen a live band before. It was the antithesis of my idea of rock ’n’ roll; it wasn’t lasers, smoke machines, wizards, dragons and giant drum sets. It was four guys on the stage who were playing four chords louder than a 747, and I was blown away. It changed my life because I realized that this was attainable. Then my mother started taking me to this jazz club in Washington, D.C., called One Step Down, and it was very similar in that the intimacy and the beautiful chaos of the music was what I enjoyed the most. This club maybe held 60 people [who] sat at tables dead-silent watching jazz musicians. There was an improvisational freedom to what they were doing that I thought was just as cool to experience as a punk rock singer screaming in your face. It was just bare expression, and that’s what I was really into. I mean, obviously these jazz musicians were much more formally trained than most of the bands I listened to, but I feel like their intention was the same, and that was to bring some sort of real pure emotion to the room. I loved both, to be honest. Talk about that first show in Chicago. I went with the daughter of my mother’s best friend from college. We consider them family just as much as other blood relatives. When we walked into the house and Tracey was dressed as a punk rocker, it wasn’t like the ones I’d seen on CHiPs and Quincy, M.E. She didn’t have some big purple Mohawk, crazy makeup and a big leather jacket. She had a shaved head and Doc Martens and tight black pants with a punk rock T-shirt. It was just like, Holy shit, that’s real. That’s what it’s supposed to be like.It was awakening. When she took me to that show, it was like a baptism. It was the first day of the rest of my life. Without that happening I don’t know where I would be; I might still be a musician, but I don’t think I would have the drive and determination that I do now. I realized that in order to do it you have to basically do it your own way. Just before Nirvana, you were traveling Europe with Scream. Nirvana quickly made it to MTV and played on the Saturday Night Live stage. What was the difference between those two time periods in your life? They weren’t too far apart, that’s the crazy thing. When I was 20 years old, I was touring through Europe playing in squats, living off of nothing and trying to get from one day to the next without the wheels falling off, and two years later I’m on SNL where David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, the B-52’s, DEVO and everybody has played. It was only a few years between those two parts of my life, but of course they’re a universe apart. That was the beginning of me feeling like I was living someone else’s life, like having an out-of-body experience watching these things happen to someone else, because I couldn’t believe that it was happening to me. Here I am at Saturday Night Live, my favorite television show of all time, my heroes, Lorne Michaels, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers and all of these amazing casts over the past 30 years. Every time I walk into that studio I pinch myself. It’s so hard to explain how strange it all was, because this was not meant to happen, Nirvana’s success. I don’t think anyone predicted that could happen. Every single day there was a bizarre new development, you just couldn’t process it. You just knocked Michael Jackson off the No. 1 slot … what?! There’s a U-Haul on the back of our van and [I am] still living in my friend Barrett’s back room with a futon and a lamp … what is going on? It was really hard to make sense of any of it, and still to this day, people ask me why that happened. I just say, “I don’t know.” You worked hard, you deserve it. I mean, I beat the shit out of the drums every night, but so do millions of other drummers around the world. I do know why people connected to Nirvana’s music; it was because Kurt’s songs were so great. Kurt’s lyrics, his melodies and his voice were undeniable. I’m watching my kids and their friends discover Nirvana the same way that someone did when that first record came out. That just goes to show the timeless quality of Kurt’s songs. They still work. The drummer at One Step Down, Lenny Robinson, gave you your only drum lesson. You write about one of your daughters wanting to play the drums and you teaching her. What’s the difference between being a student and a teacher? I think I was terrible at both [laughs]. First of all, I was a terrible student in school. I probably have ADD, which has gone undiagnosed for 52 years. There was something about the hum of fluorescent lights that just put me in a coma, so I didn’t have much interest in it, which is sad considering my mother is an English teacher. [I] learned everything by ear; that one drum lesson [and] two guitar lessons was it, everything else I learned just from listening to records. I think it’s harder to teach someone to play by ear than it is to play notes on a page. I did some aural training with my daughter where I make her listen to something and say, “OK, can you hear that sound? That is the kick drum. Can you hear this sound? That’s the snare, and this sound is [the] high hat.” I got her to the point where she could play [AC/DC’s] “Back in Black.” She played for a few months and then was like, “Eh, fuck that.” I don’t think you should pressure your child into becoming a musician or playing any instrument. If they gravitate toward an instrument and they find it in their identity that they want to become a musician, well, then you support them and facilitate that, show them a lot of love and get out of the way. If they want to do it, they should do it. If not, it shouldn’t be required. How is your family? They’re great. When school’s not in session, they come out on the road. It’s like a big crazy family trip with some Foo Fighters music thrown in. They’re awesome. They’re in school, they’re growing, they’re learning [and] becoming these wonderful individuals and I’m incredibly proud of them. What’s the past year or two been like considering COVID, school and music? I wasn’t playing music. When everything shut down, we were doing what most people did—online learning, trying to remain safe and making sure everyone’s happy and healthy, [both] friends and family. It was wonderful to have time away from the music and really focus on family, especially at this period in their lives. This was a good time for us to really lock ourselves into a house for a year-and-a-half, but I always knew that at some point the world would open back up again and I’d have to go back to work. They totally understand my job, I don’t think they consider it unusual because they’ve grown up with that. I’m a very lucky man that I’m surrounded by these brilliant kids [daughters Violet, Harper and Ophelia]. How are Foo Fighters? You recently released a disco record. Yes, we did [laughs]. Everybody got a little weird during the pandemic; we got a lot weird. We were so desperate to feel creative or prolific or productive, we’re like, “Fuck it! Let’s make a disco record.” It was fun. But as with most things that our band does, there’s not a boardroom of executives making these decisions for us. It’s a couple of us smoking cigarettes in the parking lot like, “You know what we should do? Let’s record a Bee Gees song.” That’s still how we work. But the band is great. This was the longest time we’ve ever taken away from touring, so when we came back to playing shows again it was with this new energy, which I think stems from not realizing what you’ve got until it’s gone and appreciating every night that you set foot onstage. So right now we’re on fire. The band is playing better than we’ve ever played, the audiences are absolutely bananas and we [still] love it after 26 years. We still love it and each other. There’s a video of you explaining to Pharrell Williams how many Nirvana drum breaks were inspired by old disco records. That’s absolutely true. Growing up outside of Washington, D.C., [it] is a very musical city. Most people just consider Nashville, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and maybe Austin, Texas, as these music capitals, but D.C. had an incredibly important and prolific local scene. Part of that was the D.C. go-go scene, it’s like a funk scene. You walk down the street and hear people playing go-go beats on paint buckets on street corners. Everywhere you went in Washington, D.C., there was rhythm, there was groove. As a drummer, listening to go-go bands like Trouble Funk, Rare Essence and Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers, it’s entirely percussion-driven music, and I loved it. I was into the simple, effective power of funk and disco drumming. A lot of it’s not flash, it’s just meat and potatoes, four on the floor. But when it’s done with feel and swing, I mean, there’s nothing better. I grew up loving the Gap Band, Cameo and the Brothers Johnson. Though I didn’t play that type of music, I did try to implement some of that feel in what we did. There’s a little bit of swing in Nirvana, there’s a little bit of funk in Nirvana, but I don’t think people really realized until I told Pharrell. As an author now, what books do you recommend to readers and artists? If you want to learn about the Washington, D.C., underground punk rock community, there’s a book called Banned in DC [named after the Bad Brains song] by a woman named Cynthia Connolly. It’s filled with beautiful descriptions and accounts of that scene back then. It’s pretty great. [And] I was a huge Michael Crichton fan, I burned through pretty much his entire catalog and always loved it. One guy [in my band is] reading a [John] Mellencamp book, another guy is reading a Sebastian Bach book. I do think that if you’re going to point yourself in any direction as a musician, rather than just go for the practical, informational, logistical rock bios, find a book that focuses on the lineage of music, so then you’ll understand the foundation of everything that came from it. I think it’s important to know where this music comes from and why. You just have to hunt it down and find it.
