Dave Grohl: Drummer, guitarist, storyteller, survivor
By NICK TAVARES
STATIC and FEEDBACK Editor
“Every page turns, it’s a lesson learned in time.”
I needed a book for the coffee shop. For the past few years, I’ve spent these dark and cold January days abstaining from drinking and, basically, resetting and recalibrating after the holidays. And one enjoyable way to spend those days is to bring a book to a coffee shop and set up with a latte and a sandwhich for an hour or so. And a book is a much better companion than a phone.
Because I wanted something a little lighter than one of the several depressing mid-century tomes that are currently waiting for me (which I will get to), a quick stop in a bookstore to see what I might find was in order. And almost immediately, Dave Grohl’s The Storyteller jumped out, sitting on a front table. Sold.
More than two years since its release, it’s not necessary for me to tell you how well-written this is. As a structured narrative, as a window into one of the more successful musicians of his or any generation and as just sheer entertainment, it succeeds on every level and ascends to the top tier of music biographies I’ve ever read (not to brag, but I have burned through a good number of them). And not surprisingly, he's funny as hell. It had been on my list for a while, but it was engrossing enough that it didn’t survive to see the next coffee shop afternoon.
Going through his life, from learning the drums in his living room to touring with Scream to the global insanity of Nirvana and eventually Foo Fighters, I kept thinking about how many times I would’ve quit along his path. He casually mentions being robbed or attacked, being confronted by authorities, having his passport stolen in foreign countries, and any one of those events happening once might’ve been enough to see me hightail it back to safety.
But that’s why he is where he is, and why I am where I am. Which is fine. I’m content, and we need a Dave Grohl in this world. And it’s a good thing we have him him, and that he’s up to the task.
Through the years, what have the Foo Fighters been to me? They’re as dependable as bands come. Every album is, at worst, solid. Every show is a high-energy blast, a blueprint for how a rock show should look, sound and feel. “Monkey Wrech” was an immediate favorite of mine when it was released in 1997 because it was a screaming blast of rock and roll, and it became a rallying cry years later when I sat down and realized what it meant. They’re always there, and they’re usually great.
And in that sense, it was easy to take them for granted — a remarkably drama-free rock band that can run ’em up and fill ’em in, so to speak. Which is what made Taylor Hawkins’ sudden death so shocking. It wasn’t that long before that they were rocking out on Bee Gees songs, making a horror movie and prepping for another year-long jaunt around the globe. And Hawkins, more than anyone, was what set Foo Fighters apart from just some glorified Grohl solo project. The two of them were a unit, tag-teaming every interview, trading off between the mic and the drums, as dynamic a pair as I can imagine. They even planted the seed that eventually got me into Rush with the greatest hall of fame induction speech ever. How could he just be gone?
Without Hawkins, my first thought was that that could be the end of the Foo Fighters. With Grohl and bassist Nate Mendel, the band has been a stable entity since Chris Shiftlett entered in 1999, along with Pat Smear returning and Rami Jaffe joining in 2005. But Hawkins was different. When Grohl broke his leg on stage in Sweden, it was Hawkins who fronted the band from the backline, running through covers by the Faces, Rolling Stones and Queen while medics tended to Grohl’s mangled femur. It was Grohl and Hawkins, alongside Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, who traded turns at the drums and up front when it was time to give Wembley Stadium a dose of Zeppelin magic.
To say the least, Hawkins wasn’t just another guy. He was half of that band. I wasn’t sure if they could continue. And to echo Led Zeppelin’s breakup in John Bonham’s wake, they certainly couldn’t continue as they were.
In the spirit of trying to re-enter this century musically, I hadn’t given But Here We Are, the new Foo Fighters record, any time beyond the first single. Chalk it up to the impersonal nature of a digital first impression, or just catching a song on the wrong day. I wasn’t invested, and there it sat.
But a few days ago in the car, I called it up, and this time, “Rescued” rang just a bit stronger, clarity poking through what had seemed clouded a few months earlier. And it started there. From the desperate opening verse, the album begins to process the loss of Hawkins, along with Kurt Cobain and his mother, Virginia, who passed away later in 2022. If there’s a main star of Grohl’s memoir outside of himself, it’s Virginia. Her support and encouragement and presence can’t be overstated, and I can’t fathom what that year must have been like for him.
So, in a recurring theme with Grohl’s life, he processed it through music, bringing the band back into the fold and stepping onto the drum stool himself. Hearing Grohl back behind the kit, working through his emotions on the skins, is a revelation and yet another reminder that he’s always had this otherworldly ability in his back pocket.
And the emotions throughout are raw. In “Hearing Voices,” he works through the truth that the disconnected sounds in his head aren’t coming back into physical form. The reality of the growing distance between him and his loved ones are expressed by the survivors left behind on “But Here We Are and “The Glass.” No matter what he might do, he comes to grips with the notion that he can’t rush his way through grief on “Nothing At All.”
By the time we reach “The Teacher,” the band, and especially Grohl, are restless. The multi-part suite moves through time and emotions, with an unseen antagonist consistently prodding Grohl to “wake up” and come to the door, before that dam finally breaks and the listener — and narrator — are assaulted by screaming, noise and static. However furious and painful and confusing everything has been, this is the aural equivalent, passing from artist to audience like an exorcism of raw, confused emotion. It is, at the right volume and the proper headspace, agonizing to hear. And then, suddenly, nothing.
It all stops. Silence. It is a jarring, emotional, excruciating event, a brilliant translation of the experience.
With a breath, the album resumes and we’ve returned to a space with just Grohl and his guitar, and acceptance. The band crashes in midway through the concluding “Rest,” with a return of that deafening feedback from the conclusion of “The Teacher,” before resolving back to a solo performance. After all the turbulence, with a guitar and something to say, Grohl remains.
“Love and trust, life is just a game of luck...”
As an album, But Here We Are moves a bit like 1997’s The Colour and the Shape, the last Foo Fighters record that saw Grohl on drums, before Hawkins joined the fold. Informed by the years and experience, both records move from shock and bargaining through to acceptance, in preparation for whatever the next chapter may be. If The Colour and the Shape was the album that cemented Foo Fighters as more than just “the band with the guy from Nirvana,” But Here We Are confirms, if there was any doubt at all, Grohl as a man whose ambition knows no bounds. And his results are often stunning. Amidst all this uncertainty, after decades of unbelievable stories and experiences and adventures, life came with a double helping of pain and confusion.
Not that Grohl has ever seemed short on ambition, but the prior year of nonstop unrest, with his band’s future seemingly snatched away from under him, only to be followed by having to slowly say goodbye to this pillar of support, to gather that all up and create this striking musical work goes beyond anything he’s done in his career so far. And I don’t enjoy thinking about what it took to get there.
I can’t recall another album that has tackled the immediacy of grief in such an arresting fashion, taking every stage of the process and giving it its time, before finally coming to that gut-churning conclusion that there isn’t any grand realization or revelation, beyond the present. Whoever is left here remains here, and it’s our job to carry on, bringing with us all the lessons and emotions granted by those who are gone.
And here he is, standing on stage or on the business end of the recording studio glass, notebook and guitar nearby, drums not far behind, bandmates and family at his side, thriving and surviving, taking all of these challenges and turning them back out into the world better than he found it. We’re not all up for that task. But I’m glad he is.
Jan. 26, 2024
Email Nick Tavares at nick@staticandfeedback.com