by Dave Grohl
WE DIDN’T HAVE TO DO THIS ANYMORE. WE WANTED TO DO THIS FOREVER.
This Is What I Wanted
“Mom . . . we’re having a girl.”
I heard my mother’s voice crack as she began to cry. “Oh, David . . . ,” she whispered. “Oh my goodness . . .” There was a long pause as she put down the phone to mop the tears of pride from her face, and as I stood in my backyard trying to process the words that had just come out of my mouth, it suddenly hit me. I was going to have a daughter. My mother was overjoyed. I was in shock.
I had always known that someday I would be a father, but in my mind, it would be long after this life of touring and traveling was over. As my father had said years before, “You know this isn’t going to last, right?” I had imagined that the music would somehow just stop, and I would begin a new life of domestic anonymity. I had seen others try to raise a family on the road (preach, Steve Perry!) but because of my traditional upbringing, I found that idea to be too rickety, without stability. The sight of a Pack ’n Play next to a table full of beer and Jägermeister always gave me the creeps.
It wasn’t until the Foo Fighters were invited to play at Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit in 2000 that I realized these two worlds could coexist. The Bridge School Benefit was an annual weekend-long concert organized by Neil and Pegi Young to raise money for the Bridge School, a nonprofit organization that Pegi started to find a place for their son Ben, who has cerebral palsy, and other children with severe speech and physical impairments to help them with language and communication needs. Each year the concert was held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre just outside of San Francisco, with incredible lineups including Springsteen, Dylan, McCartney, Petty, the Beach Boys, Pearl Jam, and Metallica (just to name a few), all playing acoustic sets as the students sat behind them onstage. These shows raised millions of dollars, and the feeling of love and joy at those events was beyond anything I had ever felt. Every single human being in attendance was there for the children, and I was convinced that the communal energy of that much positivity in one place had a healing power of its own.
The weekend always began with a barbecue at Neil’s house on Broken Arrow Ranch, a sprawling, rustic 140-acre paradise in Redwood City that he purchased in 1970, where he would invite all of the performers for a dinner the night before the concert. As we drove down the winding mountain roads deep in the redwoods toward his home, I pictured a formally catered event, tables lined with rock and roll royalty rattling their shiny silverware, laps lined with linen napkins, as they shared mythical folklore of yesteryear. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. When we arrived at the gate, there was a hand-painted sign that said DON’T SPOOK THE HORSE hanging from the dilapidated fence, and upon entering the property, there was still another ten-minute drive through winding hills before we saw the little house, lit up like a Christmas tree in the distance. Part Harry Potter, part Swiss Family Robinson, it looked like the work of a mad survivalist with a penchant for tree houses, complete with a bellower and a tall teepee in the yard. No valet parking, no reception, you just . . . walked right in.
Courtesy of Danny Clinch
As I shyly entered the kitchen, I was greeted with a warm hug from Pegi, who had been cutting vegetables by the sink. She offered me a coat from the mudroom in case it got cold outside but warned me to “check the pockets for mice.” David Crosby was sitting by the fireplace. Brian Wilson was wandering around lost, looking for his wife. Tom Petty’s band was on the porch, and Neil’s kids were hanging out with all of us. This was not a formal rock and roll event at all. This was a home. This was a family.
THIS WAS WHAT I WANTED, AND NOW I SAW THAT IT COULD BE POSSIBLE.
As my mother regained a bit of composure after hearing the news that she would have a granddaughter, I explained to her that, although I’d always known I would be a parent someday, I’d never for one second imagined having a girl. By no means am I a cigar-chomping, NASCAR-watching, Sunday-afternoon-armchair-quarterback kind of guy, but what could I ever offer a daughter? How to tune a kick drum and catalog her Slayer bootlegs? I was at a loss. And then, as she had always done, my mother imparted a little bit of her well-earned wisdom that has since proven to be one of my life’s most indisputable truths: “The relationship between a father and daughter can be one of the most special relationships in any girl’s life.” She knew this because of the relationship she had with her father, a military man of charm and wit who everyone loved dearly before his early passing when she was in her twenties. I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but from all that I’ve heard, he was a good man and indeed had that special connection to my mother. Though still terrified, I was slightly reassured. Maybe cataloging Slayer bootlegs together could be fun.
Courtesy of Danny Clinch
As the months flew by, Jordyn and I began to prepare for the new baby, readying her room, shopping for all the necessary gear, and eventually settling on the name Violet (after my mother’s mother, Violet Hanlon). I was given a library of books to study with subjects ranging from sleep training (which is a farce because ultimately they sleep-train you, making it impossible to sleep past six A.M. for the rest of your life) to swaddling (I’m bad enough at rolling joints; how could I successfully roll a child?) to how to change a diaper (something I may hold a land speed record in by this point). I was taking a crash course in fatherhood, or at least the logistical side of it.
One day toward the end of Jordyn’s pregnancy, my manager called and asked, “Hey, you wanna write songs with John Fogerty?” As it would be for any rock and roll lover who grew up in the seventies, the answer was an excited “Duh.” I was told to meet John at his house up in the hills for a songwriting session a few days later. As he opened the door to his home studio, I was face-to-face with the legend himself, exactly as you would imagine him to be: flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots. We talked awhile, trading jokes and telling horror stories of our rocky pasts, and when the guitars finally came out, he started singing lyrics off the top of his head based on the intimate conversation we’d just had. His trademark voice, so raw and soulful, was right in front of my face, but so powerful it sounded like it was coming straight out of a stadium PA. It was a beautiful moment that made me realize why he is considered such an American treasure: because he is real.
Courtesy of Danny Clinch
After jamming awhile, we walked down to his kitchen for bowls of minestrone and SunChips (if John Fogerty hadn’t been sitting there, I would have sworn I was home sick from school), but I watched the clock intently, knowing that I only had until four thirty before I had to leave. After lunch he asked, “Welp . . . wanna jam a little more?” but I regretfully told him that I couldn’t stay because I had an appointment I had to go to with my expecting wife. “Where you goin’?” he asked. “Breast-feeding class,” I said with a hint of embarrassment in my voice, to which he smiled and said, “Can I come?”
Night after night I would speak to Violet in the womb (no matter how strange that may seem to some people) because I was looking forward to the day when I would hold her in my arms, no longer just talking to my wife’s pajamas like a fucking lunatic. When the day finally came, I was nervously packing up the car to go to the hospital when I noticed a huge rainbow overhead, something that happens maybe once every thousand years in Los Angeles. I was immediately calmed. Yes, it sounds nauseatingly romantic, but yes, it’s true, and I took it as a sign.
After a long and difficult labor, Violet was born to the sound of the Beatles in the background, and she arrived screaming with a predetermined vocal capacity that made the Foo Fighters sound like the Carpenters. Once she was cleaned up and put under the little Arby’s heat-lamp bed, I put my face close to hers, stared into her gigantic blue eyes, and said, “Hey, Violet, it’s Dad.” She immediately stopped screaming and her eyes locked with mine. She recognized my voice. We stared at each other in silence, our first introduction, and I smiled and talked to her as if I had known her my whole life. I am happy to say that,
still to this day, when we lock eyes it’s the same feeling.
This was a love I had never experienced before. There is an inevitable insecurity that comes along with being a famous musician that makes you question love. Do they love me? Or do they love “it”? You are showered with superficial love and adoration on a regular basis, giving you something similar to a sugar high, but your heart crashes once the rush dies off. Is it possible for someone to see a musician without the instrument being a part of their identity? Or is that a part of the identity that the other loves? Regardless, it’s a dangerous and slippery slope to question love, but one thing is for certain: there is nothing purer than the unconditional love between a parent and their child.
Once the delivery was over and we were led to our hospital room for the night, Jordyn was famished, so I went down to the cafeteria to find her something to eat. I scoured for something that she might actually be able to stomach but retreated back to our room empty-handed, opting to perhaps order from the Jerry’s Deli across the street. I walked across the hall to the nurse station, where there was one nurse on duty, a large woman with Hulk Hogan’s build who barked at me in a thick eastern European accent, “CAN I HELP YOU?” “Yes . . . um, can you tell me if Jerry’s Deli delivers here?” She stared at me with her ice-cold eyes and growled, “I AM NOT AT LIBERTY TO DISCLOSE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT WHO IS DELIVERED HERE.” I smiled, realizing that she’d misunderstood my question, and said, “Hahaha . . . no . . . does JERRY’S DELI deliver here?” Looking like she was about to leap over her computer and strangle me with her giant, professional-wrestling hands, she raised her volume and repeated, “I TOLD YOU! I AM NOT AT LIBERTY TO DISCLOSE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT WHO IS DELIVERED HERE!!!” I scurried away in fear, walked across the street, and ordered a sandwich for Jordyn while standing next to Jennifer Lopez.
Another night in Los Angeles.
My mother was right, being a father to a daughter was indeed the most special relationship of my life. I was soon well versed in the art of a smudgeless pedicure, how to tie the perfect ponytail, and how to identify every Disney princess just by the color of her dress. This was easy, I thought.
THEN CAME THE HARD PART: BALANCING THE NEW LIFE WITH THE OLD.
I remember the first time I had to leave Violet behind for tour. I stood above her crib as she slept, and I began to cry. How could I possibly leave this little miracle behind? I had to tear myself away, and so began a lifetime of leaving half of my heart at home. At this point, all of the band members were procreating like rabbits, and our tour itineraries were now dictated by people who couldn’t even chew solid food yet, so what had been six-week tours were whittled down to two weeks at the most. As much as touring in a rock band is hands-down the best fucking job on earth, it can be exhausting, but the minute you set foot back in your house after a few weeks away, you are handed a screaming baby and are officially on daddy duty 24/7. This, of course, is partly to relieve your wife of the maternal duties that she was overwhelmed with from sunrise to sunset while you were out shotgunning beers with your best friends (cue slight resentment) but more so because you feel the need to overcompensate for your absence. You are forever haunted by the fear that the time away from your child will leave them with lifelong psychological repercussions, so when you’re home, you are HOME. Tour, home, tour, home, tour, home . . . after a few years of that, you begin to find the balance, and you realize that the two worlds CAN coexist. So why not do it again?
This time, it’ll be a boy, I thought.
Having already mastered the role of “dad who knows every word to every Little Mermaid song,” I was now ready to try my hand at raising a son. And I already had the name picked out: Harper Bonebrake Grohl, named after my father’s uncle, Harper Bonebrake (we called him Uncle Buzz).
The Bonebrake family tree can be traced all the way back to Johann Christian Beinbrech, who was baptized in Switzerland on February 9, 1642, eventually immigrating to Germany and fathering eleven children. It was his grandson Daniel Beinbrech who bravely traveled to America by ship and settled in a wilderness called Pigeon Hills around York, Pennsylvania, in September 1762.
Numerous offspring and various spellings followed (Pinebreck, Bonbright) until the most awesome “Bonebrake” moniker was landed on with Daniel’s son Peter, who was an American Revolutionary soldier who had nine children of his own. By 1768, the name was set in stone and carried all the way to the birth of my uncle Buzz and my grandmother Ruth Viola Bonebrake in 1909, to their parents Harper and Emma. In turn, my father was named James Harper Grohl, so in keeping with tradition, I decided to name my son Harper as well. (We proudly have a Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, Henry G. Bonebrake, and the drummer of Los Angeles punk legends X, D. J. Bonebrake, in the family tree as well.)
“Mom . . . we’re having another girl.”
To be clear, I truly never had any gender preference, but I did really want to name a child Harper Bonebrake Grohl. So, we named her Harper (never got the Bonebrake past the goalie) and she was born only two days after Violet’s third birthday. The feeling of overwhelming paternal love was renewed, and now I had two daughters to fawn over, Violet walking and talking at a level far beyond her age, and Harper (my spitting image) cooing in my lap, never without a smile. This was a home. This was a family. This is what I wanted.
As I watched every step of their development, it was hard not to think about my parents doing the same. I have very few memories of these years in my life, most of them with my mother, who showered me with unconditional love, and not so much with my father. My parents divorced when I was only six years old, leaving me to be raised by my mother, and I had a hard time grasping this separation now as a father myself. How could he not want to spend every waking minute bouncing me on his lap, pushing me on the swing, or reading me stories every night before bed? Was it that he didn’t want to? Or that he didn’t know how? Perhaps this was the crux of my fear of being an absent parent, my overcompensation every time I returned home after being away. As lucky as I was to be raised by my amazing mother, I was seeing how the broken relationship with my father and his absence in my childhood had some lifelong psychological repercussions, and that I was desperate to not create those for my own children.
We began to travel the world with our daughters, and I no longer felt strange about a backstage full of children (though they were in their own dressing room so they wouldn’t be playing next to the beer and Jägermeister), because no matter where on the planet we were, if we were together, it was home. The life that my father warned would never last had blossomed into what I had witnessed that night at Neil Young’s house: music and family intertwined. It was possible after all.
Courtesy of Jordyn Blum
Courtesy of Jordyn Blum
So, why not do it one more time?
This time, I didn’t even question that it was going to be a girl. By the time news came that we were having another child, I was already singing every line to Frozen and had assumed the role of concierge, bodyguard, therapist, line cook, and personal stylist. What on earth would I do with a boy? I wouldn’t know where to start. Though, number three was different. Jordyn and I were officially outnumbered. Shit was getting real.
Ophelia was born just down the hall from where I once ran for my life from that Slovakian Hulk Hogan in Crocs and baby-blue scrubs, and a few days after we brought her home, we invited Paul McCartney and his wife Nancy over to the house to see the baby. This was a monumental occasion for more than a million reasons, but I did notice one thing that will stick with me forever. Violet and Harper obviously knew that Paul was a musician in a band called the Beatles but at their tender ages had no idea what that meant in the pantheon of music history. To them, Paul was just our musician friend Paul, and I saw that when those mythical preconceptions are taken away, there is a purity of spirit, an unconditional love. I, of course, spent the hour before his arrival hiding the mountains of Beatles stuff I had in the house (you never know how much Beatles memo
rabilia you have until a Beatle comes to visit), but the kids were without any inflated sense of who he really was.
As they were leaving and we were saying our goodbyes, Paul noticed the piano down the hall and couldn’t resist. He sat down and started playing “Lady Madonna” as I stood in shock, hearing a voice the world adores echo throughout my own house, now filled with my own family. Harper disappeared for a moment and returned with a coffee cup that she had filled with spare change and placed it on the piano as a tip jar for Sir Paul. We fell about the room laughing, and he invited her to sit on the bench next to him for a piano lesson, her first. He showed her the keys, and which note each one was, and they began to play together while Paul sang, We’re playing a song . . . we’re playing a song . . .
The next morning as I was making breakfast in the kitchen, I heard the piano again, that same melody that Paul and Harper had played the night before. I peeked around the corner and saw Harper by herself on the bench, her tiny hands playing those same chords in perfect time, and I knew exactly what she was feeling: inspired by Paul. Because I once had felt the same. Though, the difference was that the sound of his voice was coming from the tiny turntable on my bedroom floor, not right beside me on the piano bench as I played along with him.