By Nicole VilleneuveHe's become one of the biggest figures in contemporary music, a celebrated and sought-after singer, songwriter, guitarist, and drummer who is widely known as one of the nicest guys in rock. Dave Grohl, a hyperactive and heavy-handed drummer from Virginia via Ohio, rose to prominence in the early '90s when Nirvana's Nevermind exploded from the fertile Seattle punk and indie scene to become, however reluctantly, not only the biggest record of its time, but a catalyst and signifier of the emergence of the underground into the mainstream. When Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain took his own life in 1994, Grohl briefly retreated, not sure if he would continue to make music. But he barely had a choice: almost immediately, offers from the likes of Tom Petty and Mike Watt started pouring in, but Grohl wasn't sure his destiny was behind a drum kit and he tried fronting a band instead. Sixteen years later, he's made the Foo Fighters a stadium-sized modern rock act, collaborating with countless peers and heroes along the way and, years past the hurt of his past, returning to work with his Nevermind producer and bass player on the Foo Fighters' mighty new album, Wasting Light.
1969 to 1981
On January 14, 1969, David Eric Grohl is born in Warren, Ohio to parents Jim and Virginia. The couple, already parents to three-year-old Lisa, are both Ohio natives and meet through the community theatre scene. Jim, described by Dave as a conservative, is a classically trained flautist and unofficial jazz aficionado who works as a politics journalist for the Washington-based news service Scripps Howard. He would later become a primary speech writer for the Republic National Convention. Virginia, a liberal, is a gifted singer who works as a high school English teacher.
Three years after Dave is born, the family relocates to Springfield, Virginia, a suburb of Washington DC, just as Watergate starts to unravel. Proximity to the nation's political hub would not only be instrumental to Grohl senior's career, but its early '80s hardcore scene would later prove an essential part of Dave's formation. When Grohl is six years old, his parents divorce; it's a rather ineffectual event for Grohl, and he and his sister continue living with their mother, who would throughout the Grohl children's younger years bring home the school's record player so they could listen to music.
Dave inherits his parents' love of performing and as a child acts in theatre groups. By the time he's ten, he starts making songs on a one-stringed guitar, accompanied by a friend banging on cookware. At 12, Grohl gets his first electric guitar and is enrolled in lessons, but boredom quickly sets in and he quits. He continues to learn by ear, figuring out popular songs with his friends. He starts writing his own songs, too, and records them on his cassette player. By 1981, Grohl and his friends are playing in cover bands around town.
1982 to 1986
As they do every summer, in 1982, Grohl and his sister travel to Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, to stay with their relatives for a few weeks. As they arrive and their aunt greets them at the door, their teenage cousin Tracy follows shortly behind, coming from the upstairs of the home. Her new appearance — edgy with a near-shaved head and chains — immediately leaves an impression on the Grohls. During their stay, Tracy takes them to numerous punk shows, including one by Chicago punk favourites Naked Raygun at a club called the Cubby Bear. It leaves a mark on Grohl, the intimacy and energy of it informing his perception of rock music. Of this summer, Dave will years later tell Michael Azerrad in the book Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, "From then on we were totally punk. We went home and bought [now-legendary San Francisco-based punk fanzine] Maximumrocknroll and tried to figure it all out."
Now in his first year at Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Virginia, Grohl, liked in all social circles, is elected vice president of his class. He is also now fully immersed in punk. He does the morning announcements and sneaks snippets of songs by Bad Brains, one of his new favourites, over the school's PA system, broadcasting to his peers. He tries to give himself a tattoo — his first — of the iconic four-bar Black Flag logo with a needle and pen ink, but stops at three bars. Grohl comes to learn that the scene in which he's finding an identity has its roots in his own backyard and becomes all the more obsessed; he sets out to become part of it, frequenting shows in DC. In 1983, Grohl attends a show by touchstone hardcore band Scream. He finds out they're from his hometown and instantly considers them heroes.
In 1984, Grohl joins a punk band called Freak Baby after meeting its other members at a Void show in DC and finding out they need a guitarist. The band plays some local shows and then, in the fall, heads into Laundry Room Studio to record a demo with Barret Jones. The original Laundry Room Studio was, fittingly, located in the laundry room of the basement of Jones's Arlington, Virginia home. Freak Baby would sell cassettes at shows and at a local record store. This would be Grohl's first recording in a four-track studio and the first of many sessions he'd commit to tape with Jones.
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Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-03-29 16:46:27Was this proofread? There are multiple sections that are written in the wrong tense and mention old albums as "coming soon." If you're going to copy and paste then at least make sure it fits!
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-03-30 18:37:24hokspgo
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-01 18:23:09Yeah, proofreading is horrible. It's Jenny Toomey, not Jenny Tooney, that co-founded Simple Machines.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-04 11:23:51Yeah, what the first guy said. This is typical for Exclaim though, unfortunately.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-12 09:50:57that's nothing! when they first posted this article, it still contained the editor's notes! You guys do sit around and write all day, right? Perhaps you should have higher standards than the average blog.
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