Grohl dave

Early years

When Dave was a child, his family (father James Grohl, mother of Virginia Wend and older sister Lisa) moved from Warren ( Ohio ) to Springfield ( Virginia ) - a suburb of the capital of the United States, Washington . Three years later, when David was six years old, his parents divorced ^[1] , and he remained to live with his mother.

An early influence on him as a musician was drummer Timothy Aldridge ’s drum guide for Treasure of the Earth. At the age of 12, Dave started learning to play the guitar. He quickly got tired of studying, and instead became self-taught, honing his abilities, playing in groups of his friends. Soon he became a guitarist in the punk-rock band Midtown ^[2] . A year later, in 1982 , Grohl and his sister went in the summer to visit their cousin Tracy in Evanstone, Illinois. Tracy introduced them into the world of punk, leading to concerts of a wide variety of punk bands. “Since then, we have been natural punks,” said Grohl. “We came home, bought Maximumrocknroll magazine and began to dive into it all” ^[2] .

In Virginia, Grol went to school at Thomas Jefferson, where he studied in the first and second year. He was elected vice-president of the first course. He also played pieces of songs by bands like Circle Jerks and Bad Brains as signals before the morning announcements on the school speakerphone. But later, Grohl and his mother decided that it was better for him to go to the Bishop Ayrton school in Alexandria, since his first school was hampered by his interest in marijuana. He studied in the new school all the first and part of the second year in 1984-1986 .

While at school, Grohl played in several local bands, including the guitar in a band called Freak Baby. While working in this group, Grol began to independently learn another instrument — the percussion instrument ^[3] . But since his house was too small for a full drum kit, he initially learned to play on pillows. When Freak Baby got rid of its bass player, Grohl decided to completely switch to drums, and his new band became known as Mission Impossible. In the years of his formation as a drummer, Grohl called his model, the one that most influenced him, Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. A little later, he even made a tattoo on his wrist, like Bonham’s - three intersecting circles ^[4] . Mission Impossible was soon renamed Fast, before breaking up, after which Grohl joined the hardcore-punk (post-punk influence) group Dain Bramage ^{[5] [6]} .

Scream (1986-1990)

At the age of 17, Grohl took the place of the drummer in the band Scream, popular in Washington, that had become vacant from Kent Stax. To win the selection for this place, Grohl lied that he was already 20 years old ^[7] . Surprisingly, the group invited him to take a free place. Grunted a little, Grohl accepted the invitation. Grohl dropped out of school, explaining this later: “I was 17 years old and terribly impatient to see the world, so I did” ^[8] . For the next four years, Grohl toured extensively with the group, recording a couple of live albums and two studio albums: No More Censorship and Fumble, on which Grohl himself wrote and sang the song Gods Look Down.

Playing Scream Grol became a fan of The Melvins and became friends with its members. In 1990, Buzz Osborne of The Melvins took on tour the friends of Kurt Cobain and Chris Novoselic ^[9] .

Nirvana (1990-1994)

A few months later, Scream unexpectedly collapsed due to the departure of the bass player, and Grohl called Buzz Osborne to ask him what to do. Knowing how much Kurt Cobain and Christa Novoselic had liked Grohl’s game, Osborne gave him Novoselic’s phone. He called Grohl to Seattle to attend Nirvana’s failed performance at Motor Sports Garage . It was the only Nirvana show where Dan Peters played drums. Later, Grohl admitted in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine that he spent most of that Nirvana gig on the street talking to friends. A little later, Grohl auditioned at Nirvana and was accepted as a permanent drummer ^[10] .

While Grohl joined Nirvana, the band has already recorded several demo tracks of songs that should have been released after their debut album Bleach , and recorded with producer Butch Vig in Wisconsin . Originally, the new album was scheduled to be released via Sub Pop . But the group decided to try to push their demos into some larger studio. The first months of work in Nirvana Grohl spent just traveling major labels. In the end, the deal was made with Sound City , and in the spring of 1991 the band began a studio recording of the album.

After his release, Nevermind exceeded all expectations by moving the group to the world elite. At the same time, Grol fought for his status in the group. Against the background of the fact that it was an outstanding drumming that largely determined the success of the group, he still felt like just another regular drummer from a long list of those who had already been to this place. But in his eyes, Nirvana was the band that recorded Bleach. His own presence changed the sound of that album completely. And, by his own admission, not always for the better. Although Grohl had been writing songs for several years, he decided to abandon their performance at Nirvana, so as not to spoil the band's “chemistry”. Instead, Grohl himself published on the tape a collection of Pocketwatch (1992) on the indie label Simple Machines . Instead of using the proper name, Grohl used the pseudonym "Late!".

In recent years, Nirvana's contribution to songwriting has increased. During the first months in Seattle, Cobain heard Grohl working on the Color Pictures of a Marigold song and two finished jams on it. Later, Grohl will record it on the tape as a Pocketwatch album, and during work on In Utero, he will rewrite the song, and the band will release this version on the back of the single Heart-Shaped Box , simply calling it Marigold . Earlier, when the band was working on In Utero , Grol worked on the lead guitar part in what later became the song Scentless Apprentice. At the end of 1993 , Cobain recognized that this guitar part was “hard rock type”, but ultimately he was satisfied with what came out (this is captured in the excerpt from the record With the Lights Out). Cobain said that he was agitated by the possibilities of Novoselic and Grohl to participate more in songwriting.

Anticipating their 1994 European tour, the group took down the studio Robert Lang for their next demo tapes. Cobain wasn’t in most of the three-day session, so Novoselic and Grohl worked on their own songs. Their duo finished work on several of the songs of Grohl, including the future songs of Foo Fighters: “Exhausted”, “Big Me”, “February Stars” and “Butterflies”. On the third day of the session, Cobain finally showed up, and the band recorded a demo of the song, later called “You Know You're You're Right”. This was the last studio recording of the group.

Foo Fighters (1994-present)

After Cobain’s death in April 1994, Grohl was at a crossroads, not knowing what to do or where to go. Only in October 1994, he again shot the studio of Robert Lang and recorded a demo for 15 tracks in a week. With the exception of the guitar part in X-Static, played by Greg Dully of The Afghan Whigs , Grohl recorded all the instrumental parts himself.

At the same time, Grohl wondered if he could be somewhere else a drummer. In November, he took part in a memorable performance by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on Saturday Night Live . Petty asked him for a permanent job, but Grohl understood that his future should be somewhere else and refused the invitation. Grohl’s name was also mentioned as a possible replacement for Pearl Jam drummer Dave Abbruses, and Grohl even showed up at two or three group performances in March 1995 during an Australian tour. However, Pearl Jam acquired ex-drummer Red Hot Chili Peppers Jack Irons, and Grohl had his own plans.

After sending out his demos, Grol discovered a great interest in himself from major labels. He recruited Pat Smaar and two members of the Sunny Day Real Estate group William Goldsmith (drums) and Nat Mendel (bass) as members of his new group session guitarist Nirvana. Instead of rewriting an already existing album, Grohl simply let him re-mix with Rob Schnapf and Tom Rothrock, and, as a result, the debut album Foo Fighters was released in July 1995.

During the break between the tours, the group recorded in the studio a cover version of the song Gary Nyuman Down in the Park. In February 1996, Grohl and his (at that time) wife, Jennifer Youngblood, played an episodic role in the X-Files series - the episode of Pusher (Pusher), season 3. The couple can be seen in the FBI building immediately after the criminal, nicknamed Pusher, who possesses paranormal abilities, used his fake pass - Grohl pauses for a second to look at his watch ^{[11] [12]} .

After more than a year of touring support for his album, Grohl returns home and begins work on the soundtrack for the Touch film, released in 1997. He finished all the recordings in two weeks and immediately joined the Foo Fighters to continue their work on new albums.

In the middle of the first studio session of the second Foo Fighters album, Grohl had differences with drummer Goldsmith. “Dave made me do the same song 96 times, and I had to work on another for 13 hours. It seemed that everything I was doing was not good enough for him or something. ” In addition, Goldsmith thought that the producers of the Capital label wanted Grohl to play the drums ^[13] .

When the album already seemed to be ready, Grohl took a copy to his house with the reduced “rough” notes, and, after listening to them, was unhappy with the result. He wrote a few more songs and recorded one himself in a studio in Washington. Inspired by the new work, Grohl without the knowledge of Goldsmith gathered the whole group in a studio in Los Angeles and rewrote everything completely. When the work was completed, Goldsmith was officially announced that he was fired.

All these efforts ended in May 1997 with the release of the second album of The Color and the Shape. He finally established for Foo Fighters the reputation of one of the main inhabitants of rocker radio stations. The album had several hits, such as “Everlong”, “My Hero” and “Monkey Wrench”. Just before the release of the album, former drummer Alanis Morisset Taylor Hawkins sat down to install Foo Fighters. Pat Smyr was later replaced by Grol’s former Scroll associate Franz Stahl. He, in turn, left the band before starting the recording of the third album ^[14] Foo Fighters and was replaced by guitarist Chris Shiflet, who by the beginning of the recording of the album One by One became a permanent member of the team.

Touring without a break constituted Grohl’s life with the increasing popularity of the Foo Fighters. During the rare pauses, he stayed in Los Angeles, then in Seattle, but eventually returned to Alexandria (Virginia). It was there that he turned the basement of his house into a studio, where he recorded the album There Is Nothing Left to Lose in 1999.

In 2000, the band attracted guitarist Queen Brian May to shine in on the cover version of Pink Floyd's Have a cigar - before that, Foo Fighters recorded this song for the backs of their singles. The friendship between the two groups led to the fact that Grohl and Taylor Hawkins were attracted to the Queen at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert in 2001. They joined Brian May and drummer Queen Roger Taylor to perform the song Tie Your Mother Down. Grohl played the vocal part of Freddie Mercury. In addition, Brian May participated in guitar recordings on the song “Tired of You” from the next album Foo Fighters, as well as on the unreleased song Knucklehead.

By the end of 2001, Foo Fighters returned to the studio to work on their fourth album. Four months later, work on the album paused, Grohl responded to an invitation to help the Queens of the Stone Age group record the album Songs for the Deaf. Grohl is seen in the video for the song “No One Knows”. After a short tour of North America, Britain and Japan with this team, Grohl felt satisfaction from the work done. It was only after this that he reconvened Foo Fighters to re-record his album at a studio in Virginia. The result was their fourth album, One by One. Although at first, Grohl was satisfied with him, later, in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine in 2005, he said that he did not like that record. “Four songs were good, but I never again played seven others in my life. We hurried and pissed away everything ”(“ We rushed into it, and we rushed out of it ”) ^[15] .

On November 23, 2002, Grohl as a musician achieved a unique success: on the Billboard Modern Rock chart, the song Foo Fighters “All My Life” pushed the recently released song Nirvana “You Know You're Right” in the first place. When the position of "All My Life" stopped growing, after a week the song "No One Knows" came out on top of the chart Queens of the Stone Age. Thus, from October 26, 2002 to March 1, 2003, Grohl was number one on the Billboard chart for 17 weeks, being a member of three different groups.

Grohl and Foo Fighters released their fifth album, In Your Honor, on June 14, 2005. Before recording, the group spent almost a year to move the studio from Virginia to a new room in a warehouse near Los Angeles, which was eventually named “Studio 606”. As a result of collaboration with John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin and other musicians, what came out on the album was a rejection of the band’s previous achievements. The album included two discs: with a rock version and with an acoustic version.

The sixth album of Foo Fighters "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace" was released on September 25, 2007. On November 2, 2009, Foo Fighters released their first Greatest Hits CD, consisting of 16 tracks, including the previously unreleased acoustic version of the song “Everlong” and two new ones - “Wheels” and “Word Forward”. They were produced by Butch Vig, who once produced the album Nevermind. By the way, Dave said later that the Greatest Hits Foo Fighters was a bit early release: “it may look like an obituary.” According to him, they have not yet written their best hits ^[16] .

Other projects

In addition to its main groups, Grohl was involved in other musical projects. In 1992, he played drums for the mini-album of the Buzz Osborne solo project King Buzzo (in the Kiss style). There, he was introduced as Dale Nixon - this pseudonym was also used by Greg Gene to record bass guitar on the Black Flag album “My War”. Grohl also released a Pocketwatch tape on the now-defunct independent label Simple Machines.

In 1993, Grohl was called to help recreate the music of the early The Beatles for the movie Backbeat ^[17] . Grohl played drums along with other stars, including Greg Dully from Afghan Whigs, independent producer Don Flemming, Mike Mills from REM, Thurstine Moore from Sonic Youth and Dave Pirner from Soul Asylum. The music video was filmed for the song “Money (That's What I Want)”, while Grol was with Nirvana on a European tour, the scenes with him were finished later.

Later, in 1994, Grohl played drums on two tracks for the Ball-Hog or Tugboat album by Mike Watt. In early 1995, Grohl and the Foo Fighters played their first US tour, opening the Watt show and forming his support group.

In the early 2000s, Grol recorded in his basement studio a few songs to his "metal" project. A few years later, he attracted his favorite metal vocalists of the 1980s to sing vocals - Lemmy from Motorhead, Conrad "Kronos" Lant from Venom, as well as Scott Weinrich and Max Cavalier from Sepultura. The project was published in 2004 under the pseudonym Probot ^{[18] [19]} .

Also in 2003, Grol sat down to install to play for the second eponymous album of the English post-punk band Killing Joke. This event surprised Nirvana fans - the fact is that Nirvana has long been accused of copying the main reef of Come As You Are from the song Killing Jokes "Eighties" (1984). Be that as it may, these disputes could not disrupt the collaboration between the groups. In the late 1990s, Foo Fighters sang the Killing Joke song “Requiem” and was even invited by band singer Jazz Coleman to perform a song in New Zealand in 2003.

In 2004, Grol played drums on several tracks of the band Nine Inch Nails for their 2005 album "With Teeth". He also played in the song “Bad Boyfriend” for the group Garbage in the 2005 album “Bleed Like me”.

In June 2008, Grohl was a special guest of Paul McCartney at a concert at the Liverpool Anfield Stadium ^[20] . Grohl participated in McCartney's band on vocals and playing the guitar in the song “Band on the Run”, as well as on the drums in “Back in the USSR” and “I Saw Her Standing There” ^[21] .

Grohl played drums in the songs of Prodigy ^[22] "Run With The Wolves" and "Stand Up" in 2009 in the album Invaders Must Die.

Personal life

Grohl is married twice. The first time on the photographer Jennifer Youngblood from 1993 to 1997 ^[23] . After the divorce, Grohl had a relationship with Louis Post from Veruca Salt, Hole bassist Melissa Auf Der Mauer, and professional snowboarder .

In August 2003, he married a second time at his home in Los Angeles - Jordin Blum. Among the guests were producer Clive Davis, actor Jack Black and Nirvana's associate Krist Novoselic.

On April 15, 2005, their first child was born - daughter Violet May. She was named after maternal grandmother Dave. Earlier that year, Foo Fighters member Taylor Hawkins said in an interview: "We are going on a European tour in January and February, but we have to go home by March, because Dave and his wife will have a child." “But it seems I should not have said this,” he added. Grohl said that he was playing his daughter’s music when she wasn’t born yet, noting that “she likes the Beatles, she slides down under the Beach Boys and kicks under Mozart.” In April 2009, Grolov was born the second child - daughter Harper Willow ^[24] , in August 2014 - the third daughter Ophelia ^[25] .

In May 2006, Grohl sent a letter of support to two miners in Australia who were stuck in a mine after collapse. In the first days after the accident, one of them asked to pull down an iPod with a recorded Foo Fighters album “In Your Honor” to them. Grohl’s letter said: “Although half the world divides us, my heart is with you both. Keep in mind that when you get out, you’ll be waiting for two tickets to any Foo Fighters concert anywhere and two cold beers. Agreed? ” ^[26] . In October 2006, one of the miners accepted the invitation by drinking a glass of beer with Grol after an acoustic concert at the Sydney Opera House ^[27] .

In August 2009, Grol was handed the key to the city of Warren in Ohio. One of the streets in this city is named David Grohl Alley ^{[28] [29]} .

Legal issues

On January 23, 2000, during the Foo Fighters tour of Australia, Grol was arrested by the local police for drunk driving when he was returning from a concert in the city of Gold Coast. Grohl was pulled from behind the wheel of his moped, and checked by a tester. He was fined $ 400 and was denied Australian driving permission for three months. According to the results of this incident, Grohl said: “So, people, I think, if this story is what it teaches, do not go after a couple of beers, even if you feel completely normal, as I did” ^{[30] [31]} .

By Nirvana

• 1991 - Nevermind
• 1993 - In Utero
• 1994 - MTV Unplugged in New York

Foo Fighters

• 1995 - Foo Fighters
• 1997 - The Color and the Shape
• 1999 - There Is Nothing Left to Lose
• 2002 - One by One
• 2005 - In Your Honor
• 2007 - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
• 2009 - Greatest Hits
• 2011 - Wasting Light
• 2014 - Sonic Highways
• 2017 - Concrete and Gold

As part of KIlling Joke

• 2003 - Killing Joke

As part of Probot

• 2004 - Probot

Queens of the Stone Age

• 2002 - Songs For The Deaf
• 2013 - ... Like Clockwork

Them Crooked Vultures

• 2009 - Them Crooked Vultures

• Russian site Foo Fighters
• www.foofighters.com - the official site of the rock band Foo Fighters
• Interview of Dave Grohl to Billboard 2012