The Storyteller

by Dave Grohl

  As the years went by, I curated quite a collection of these little blurred memoirs all over my body. A little mark here, a little mark there, until I was finally blessed with the opportunity to be legitimately tattooed by an Italian artist named Andrea Ganora who lived in a legendary squat in Amsterdam by the name of Van Hall. An old two-story factory, the building had been overtaken and occupied by a small group of punk rockers from all over Europe in late 1987. Dutch, Germans, Italians—it was a tight-knit community of friends who converted the cold, cavernous building into their home, replete with a live music venue downstairs (where I coincidentally made my first live record, SCREAM Live! at Van Hall, in 1988). When I was eighteen years old it became a virtual home base for Scream. Andrea was the resident tattooist, and most of Van Hall’s occupants proudly sported his work. He was a true artist, but unlike the sterile, laboratory-like environment of most sanctioned tattoo establishments, his studio was his bedroom, and his tattoo gun was made from an old doorbell machine. We smoked joint after joint and listened to punk and metal records as our laughter and the electric buzz of his tattoo gun filled the room. To this day, I can still vividly remember the thrill of that first “real” tattoo and am reminded of his thick Italian accent and the sweet smell of hash every time I look in the mirror at the gift he gave to me that night. Thirty-three years later, its color has yet to fade.

  Before long, my Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous honeymoon on Pear Street was over, and I returned to rationing corn dogs and cursing the incessant tapping of the turtle terrarium night after night, head buried in the dirty cushions of that old couch. Lesson learned. The season turned dark, and homesickness began to set in. I had left my friends, my family, my sweet Virginia behind for . . . this. The cruel Pacific Northwest winter weather and lack of sunlight only deepened the feeling of depression looming in the shadows, but fortunately I still had one thing keeping me from retreating back home: the music. As dysfunctional as Nirvana could be at times, there was an unspoken focus once we put our instruments on and the amps began to glow. WE WANTED TO BE GREAT. Or, as Kurt once said to music executive and titan Donnie Ienner while being courted in his New York City high-rise office, “We want to be the biggest band in the world.” (I thought he was kidding.) Our rehearsal space was a barnlike structure that had been converted into a demo studio, thirty minutes north of Olympia in a suburb of Tacoma. One small step above an old, damp basement, it had heat and a small PA system (not to mention some rather questionable shag carpeting), so it served our simple needs well. Kurt and I would excitedly make the trek five days a week in a Datsun B210 that was somehow gifted to him by an old woman, barely managing to make it up Interstate 5 without the wheels falling off (one actually did once, lug nuts scattered about the gravel driveway in the dark). Our music was the one thing that took my mind off the shortcomings of this new life I had fallen into, the one thing that made it all worthwhile. Every rehearsal began with a “noise jam,” which became a sort of improvisational exercise in dynamics, ultimately honing our collective instinct and making it so that song structure didn’t necessarily need to be verbally arranged; it would just happen, almost the way a flock of blackbirds gracefully ebbs and flows in a hypnotic wave over a country field in the winter. This method was instrumental in the quiet/loud dynamic that we became known for, though we hardly invented it. That credit was due to our heroes the Pixies, who were hugely influential to us. We had adopted their simple trademark in more than a few of our new songs: tight, simple verses that explode into giant, screaming choruses. A sonic juxtaposition with ferocious results, most notably “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

  As the long winter turned to spring, we spent countless hours in that makeshift studio preparing songs for what would become the album now known as Nevermind. Unlike the bands I had been in before, Nirvana didn’t play shows often, for fear of burning out the local audience, so most of our energy was directed at being ready to record once we finally decided on a label and producer. Kurt was remarkably prolific, seeming to have a new song idea almost every week, so there was always a feeling of forward motion, never being stuck or stagnant creatively. At night, after he closed his bedroom door, I would hear the quiet strumming of a guitar from his room and would wait to see his light go out from the comfort of my dirty old couch. Every day, I couldn’t wait to hear whether he had something new once we arrived at rehearsal and plugged in. Whether he was writing music or entries in his now-famous journals, his need to create was astonishing, though he was practically secretive about it. His songs would sneak up on you, take you by surprise. And they were never prefaced with “Hey, I wrote something great!” They would just . . . appear.

  When I joined Nirvana in September 1990, the band had already recorded a new batch of songs with their previous drummer, Chad Channing, which were intended to be their next Sub Pop release. Songs like “In Bloom,” “Imodium” (which became “Breed”), “Lithium,” and “Polly” had all been recorded earlier that year by a young, up-and-coming producer from Madison, Wisconsin, named Butch Vig. Showcasing Kurt’s ever-evolving songwriting ability, these songs had a new, mature sense of melody and lyric; they had outgrown the previous material and promised great things to come. Simply put, Nirvana was becoming Nirvana. Paired with Butch’s mega-fucking-rock sound, it was this recording that was responsible for most of the industry “buzz” around the band, eventually igniting an ensuing feeding frenzy of interest. These songs would have been an embarrassment of riches for most bands to fall back on, but Kurt kept writing, and the new songs kept coming. “Come As You Are,” “Drain You,” “On a Plain,” “Territorial Pissings,” and of course “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Usually beginning with a riff from Kurt, Krist Novoselic and I would follow his lead with our practiced intuition, serving as the engine room to his screaming vision. Hell, my job was easy! I could always tell when a chorus was coming by watching Kurt’s dirty Converse sneaker as it moved closer and closer to the distortion pedal, and just before he stomped on the button, I would blast into a single-stroke snare roll with all of my might, like a fuse burning fast into the heart of a bomb, signaling the change. The subsequent eruption would often send chills up my neck, as the undeniable power of our collective sound was becoming almost too big for that tiny little space. THESE SONGS WOULDN’T BE OUR SECRET FOR LONG. They would soon sneak up on everyone and take the world by surprise.

  The decision to sign with the David Geffen Company was a no-brainer. Following in the footsteps of legendary New York noise heroes Sonic Youth, we hired their manager, John Silva, and trusted that any major-label record company brave enough to endorse Sonic Youth’s experimental brand of no wave was definitely a safe place for a band like us. The final piece of the puzzle was to find a producer who would do these new songs justice. Someone who could take them to the next level while retaining the same raw power that filled our rehearsal space night after night. David Briggs of Neil Young fame was considered, as we were lifelong fans of Neil’s work, and David’s sense for capturing the unpolished, imperfect essence of human performance was much aligned with our ragged sound. Don Dixon was also considered, having made more than a few of our favorite records with REM and the Smithereens; his catalog of song-based albums boasted an undeniable attention to songwriting, craft, and arrangement. Perfect for Kurt’s ever-evolving sense of melody and lyric. But ultimately, Butch Vig was our guy. First of all, there is no easier hang than a Butch Vig hang. The word “chill” doesn’t even begin to describe his Midwest Zen demeanor. Just. Fucking. Cool. How he manages to amplify every musical element tenfold without making it feel like work is beyond me, but if the magic that was captured at Smart Studios with his first Nirvana session was any indication, we were well on our way to making something that would eclipse any and all expectations, including our own.

  With the help of our new partner in crime John Silva and the wonderful people at DGC, we began the process of booking a recording session. At the time, Butch was working on an album with a young band fro
m Chicago by the name of Smashing Pumpkins, so while we waited for him to become available, it was back to the barn day after day, woodshedding our collection of material to be as prepared as possible when the call came. We wouldn’t have much time (or money) to fuck around in the studio, maybe twelve days, so it was important that these songs be recorded quickly. I mean, let’s face it, we weren’t making a Genesis record here. And to capture the energy of the band in one take, we had to have our shit together. Which we did. As frustrating as it was to have to wait—another corn dog, another night on the couch with that fucking turtle—there was now light at the end of the tunnel.

  The discussion eventually turned to choice of studio—if not the most important element, certainly a defining factor in the outcome of any album. Recording studios are like lovers. No two are the same, and not one is perfect. Some you love to hate, and others you hate to love. The trick is to find one that will bring you out of yourself. Seattle had its share of amazing studios, of course, but there was talk of a place in Van Nuys, California, that had an amazing drum room, had a classic recording console, and (most important) was cheap as fuck: Sound City. Famous for decades of legendary albums, it seemed the perfect fit with its gritty, no-nonsense, analog aesthetic. Not to mention, it was closer to the Hollywood Geffen headquarters, and I’m pretty sure they wanted to keep an eye on us to make sure we weren’t pulling another great rock and roll swindle, à la the Sex Pistols (something we actually considered at one point). Can’t blame them, really. The risk factor was maybe a notch higher than with our label mates Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, but little did they know, we meant business.

  Once the dates were finally set (May 2–19), we began the final preparations to make our thousand-mile trek down to Los Angeles. A few more rehearsals, a few more boom box recordings of new song ideas, and we were good to go. Well, almost good to go. We needed gas money. We hastily booked a last-minute show at a small club in downtown Seattle called the OK Hotel, hoping that it would pull enough dough to fill our tanks and get us to Sound City without breaking down on the side of the highway. It was April 17, 1991, and the small room was thankfully packed with sweaty kids waiting to hear their favorite Nirvana songs. “School,” “Negative Creep,” “About a Girl,” “Floyd the Barber”—these were all familiar to the die-hard fans who adored Nirvana’s first album, Bleach, so we delivered them with our usual manic abandon, beating our instruments to within an inch of their lives as the crowd sang every word. Just like every other Nirvana show I had played, it was practically transcendent. But, rather than just stick with the trusted back catalog, that night we decided to try a new song that no one in that room had ever heard before. A song we had written over the winter in that cold little barn in Tacoma. Kurt approached the mike and announced, “This song is called ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’” Crickets. He then launched into the opening riff, and as Krist and I broke into the song, the room absolutely exploded. Bodies bouncing, people on top of people, a sea of denim and wet flannel before us. Reassuring, to say the least, and certainly not the response we’d expected (though we’d certainly hoped for it). THIS WAS NO ORDINARY NEW SONG. This was something else. And maybe, just maybe, all of those months starving, freezing, longing for my friends and family back in Virginia while suffering the oppressive, gray Pacific Northwest winter in that filthy little apartment, had been a test of my own strength and perseverance, the music being my only consolation and reward. Maybe that was enough. Maybe that sea of denim and wet flannel at the lip of the stage was all I needed to survive. If it had all ended there, maybe I would have happily returned to Virginia a changed man.

  As Kurt and I packed the old Datsun for the drive to Los Angeles, I knew deep down that I wouldn’t be coming back. With my duffel bag over my shoulder, I took one last look at the tiny room I had called home for the past seven months, trying to burn every single detail into my mind, so as to never lose the memory or significance of this place in my life. To ensure that whatever would follow these days had been built here. And as I closed the door to leave, my heart was again bursting with a feeling of finality, like a needle digging into your skin, leaving blurred memoirs of moments that will never fade. A little mark here, a little mark there, permanent reminders of moments past.

  AFTER ALL, IT’S A FOREVER THING.

  We Were Surrounded and There Was No Way Out

  WE WERE SURROUNDED, AND THERE WAS NO WAY OUT.

  With fear in his eyes, our panicked tour manager/soundman, Monty Lee Wilkes, poked his sweaty head through the dressing room door and nervously exclaimed, “There’s a bunch of dudes outside that want to fucking kill you guys. So, just lock the door and stay in here until I come back, okay? When you hear my knock, open up and I’ll rush you to the cab waiting in the alley.”

  Welcome to the fall of 1991.

  Trees nightclub in the Deep Ellum district of downtown Dallas, Texas, was just another stop on the North American leg of our “Nevermind” tour, which boasted a streamlined itinerary of thirty exhausting shows in a short forty days. With a max capacity of around six hundred people, this relatively new club was similar to most of the other venues that were booked for that tour: cramped, a low stage, limited PA and lights, and a small dressing room in the back to prepare for (and recover from) another cathartic performance. As intimate as Trees may seem in hindsight, it was actually one of the bigger rooms booked for us on that trip, since we were more accustomed to playing much smaller places like the Moon in New Haven, Connecticut, where we had squeezed 100 people into its tiny, low-ceilinged room just a few weeks before, or J.C. Dobbs in Philadelphia, which was sold out with 125 paying customers a few days after that, or even the 9:30 Club in DC, where we had surely exceeded their official capacity of 199 a few days later. No strangers to a Saturday night sweatbox, these sardine-can-sized clubs were commonplace for Nirvana, so the sudden jump to much larger, 600- to 1,000-capacity venues like the Masquerade in Atlanta, St. Andrews Hall in Detroit, and now Trees in Dallas felt like slipping on a pair of Andre the Giant’s tighty-whities: a bit roomy round the sensitive bits.

  Traveling in our newly rented passenger van with a trailer full of gear hitched behind, the band and three crew members spent most days driving, reading, listening to music, and trying to get a little nap in here and there on our crowded bench seats, terminally exhausted from the show the night before. Fortunately, this time there were hotel rooms along the way. Thank god. A luxurious upgrade from my days in Scream, where we either slept in the van, crashed at the house of some random stranger we had met at the gig, or sometimes resorted to laying out our sleeping bags on the beer-soaked stage we had just rocked hours before for a good night’s sleep (yes, I have cuddled up to my drum set on numerous occasions). There was also a considerable pay raise. Double, actually! The jump from my $7.50-a-day Scream per diem to Nirvana’s $15 made me feel rich beyond my wildest dreams. Not that I was necessarily ready to put a down a deposit on a house in the Hamptons just yet, but I had finally graduated from generic cigarettes to actual Marlboros, and that made me feel like a fucking king. At twenty-two years old, I had finally reached a much-anticipated milestone in my life, traveling the world comfortably with a band that was selling out show after show to rave reviews and quickly gaining popularity. Albeit, maybe a bit too quickly.

  Courtesy of Charles Peterson

  Nirvana’s Nevermind was released September 24, 1991, just a few days after the first show of the tour, and within a week I had already noticed a change. Not only in the size of the crowds that we were drawing to the shows, but in the TYPE of crowds. They were no longer made up of Sub Pop fans and college radio junkies coming to hear their favorite songs from the band’s first record, Bleach; there was suddenly an influx of people who seemed a bit more . . . mainstream. The usual uniform of Salvation Army flannels and Doc Martens was now met with designer-brand jeans and sports jerseys, similar to what suburban kids I grew up with in Springfield wore. The “Smells Like Teen Spirit” single, which was released two
weeks before the album, had quickly found its way out of our native territory and into the hands of a much broader audience, driving more and more people to come see what all the fuss was about. That audience was growing at a rapid pace. There were often more people outside of the venues than inside them. THE SECRET WAS OUT.

  As the keynote speaker of the South by Southwest music conference in 2013, I addressed this ethical crossroads in my speech:

  Where do you go from there? As an artist raised in the ethically suffocating punk rock underground, conditioned to reject conformity, to resist all corporate influence and expectation, where do you go? How do you deal with that kind of success? How do you now DEFINE success? Is it still the reward of playing a song from beginning to end without making a mistake? Is it still finding that new chord or scale that makes you forget all your troubles? How do you process going from being one of “us” to one of “them”?

  I felt a certain tug-of-war within. As a little boy, I had discovered rock and roll on the AM radio in my mother’s car, singing along to 1970s Top 40 music, but I was now conflicted about the idea of having a Top 40 hit myself. All of those years being a “punk rocker,” renouncing mainstream music, crying “sellout” to any band that moved even slightly toward mainstream success, had turned my music-loving heart into a confused and callused lump within my cynical chest. I had become jaded and judgmental, often not knowing what was okay to “like” or “dislike” based on the rules of cool culture in the punk scene (yes, there were rules, as fucking ridiculous as that may seem in a scene that championed expressive freedom). Yet, I also rejoiced in the fact that more and more people were showing up to share this music I loved and took so much pride in making and playing. It was an ethical dilemma, one that would prove both inspiring and destructive to the band.