At the time the book was written Grohl lived in Encino California where he wants defined as a place where “porn stars become grocery clerks and rock stars come to die“
Grohl discusses his family history and that he was born in Ohio but later moved to Springfield Virginia for his dad to work in DC. His parents split when he was still in elementary school and his mom had to work some nights and weekends in addition to her teaching job. Grohl just assumed that’s how things were. He then discusses seeing the B52s on SNL and getting blown away. In the same chapter he talks about his grade school “bands”.
The author then spends some time talking about the roots of punk in the USA. An interesting paragraph about the last Sex Pistols show in Sam Francisco. The following paragraph blew me away, so here it is verbatim.
On Independence Day weekend 83 Grohl attended the Rock Against Reagan concert at the Washington Mall headlined by the Dead Kennedys. He said “it was incredible, it was like Apocalypse Now. “
The author later talks about the punk bands in the DC area. After seeing The Clash play the four young Rastafarian jazz fusion named Mind Power became Bad Brains and played hard and fast. He also talks about Minor Threat.
Grohl is later influenced by Led Zeppelin and that plays a role in his band Dain Bramage that ended in 86.
Whilst still playing for Dain Bramage, Grohl had an audition for Scream, an already seasoned touring rock punk band. He crushed the audition after learning twenty of their songs. He later turned them down after feeling remorseful to the guys in BD. He was later asked to play for Gwar, “a Richmond Virginia based heavy metal collective whose outlandish sci-go monster costumes and gory over-the-top theatrics made Kiss look like The Osmonds”. Grohl later reconsidered Screams offer and accepted. He toured around the US and even Europe after dropping out of high school. They lost their bass player when they were in LA and was told to audition for a band called, you guessed it, Nirvana. This was 1990. One year before Nevermind and 4 years before KC kissed the business end of a shotgun.
The author goes then goes through a chapter discussing Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic’s youth. He then talks about Grohl dating L7s bassist Jennifer Finch during their UK tour. He then writes about Grohl living with Kurt in Olympia. Dave says Olympia seemed stuck in the 50s and 60’s. “ I liked Olympia, but it was sorta like Washington DC‘s retarded stepbrother“
Brannigan then talks about Nirvana signing with Geffen and recording the LP Nevermind. He gives insight into how much of a monster the LP along with the single Teen Spirit will become and how exhausted they were during their European tour. He discusses Cobains heroin habit and Courtney Love.
He then talks about recording In Utero with Steve Albini. The band loved it but the record company didn’t. It was remastered and was less raw. They then toured the US in 93 after adding Pat Smear on guitar. In 94 they toured Europe but Cobain ended the tour early in March. A few days later he was in a coma in Rome after popping a whack load of Rohypnol pills. He came out of the coma but within a month you know the story.
Grohl discusses how he put together a solo demo in which he layer out all the tracks himself on all instruments and vocals. This eventually became The Foo Fighters album on Roswell Records which Grohl owns.
During the production of their second LP, The Colour and the Shape, Grohl was served with his divorce papers. Production had been going poorly so they took a break and he went back to Virginia where he wrote Everlong, probably one the bands signature songs.
Their third album There Is Nothing Left to Lose was recorded in Dave’s basement. It included Learn to Fly. During the time that they worked on their fourth album they did a tour of the UK but that was cut short by their drummers overdose. Taylor Hawkins did not die but was in a coma for a few days. They eventually got the album out but the band almost broke up. Grohl looks back at One by One and says it only had four good songs. That year was not a waste individually as he played with Queens of the Stone Age, David Bowie, the Bangles and a favourite of mine, Killing Joke. He does talk briefly about the Quebec band Voivod.
After One by One, Grohl did a side project LP called Probot. He laid down all the tracks except the lyrics/vocals and asked various metal head lead singers to come up with their own lyrics and put their own vocals down. He got Snake from Voivod, Mike Dean from Corrosion of Conformity, Kurt Brecht of D.R.I. as well as Lemmy from Motörhead.
The bands fifth album was In Your Honor was a double album. Half rock and half acoustic. Grohl talks about the fact that he was asked to tour with Bob Dylan in Canada at the time and he was wow we don’t open for anyone but fucking eh.
All in all a really great book especially if you were into punk or just the Foo Fighters. If you are just a Nirvana fan than there are many other books that you should forward to reading.
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