by Dave Grohl
It was that night that I had stepped out onto that crosswalk, and there was no turning back.
As the band quietly filed out of the dressing room, I was left alone in my chair to reflect and slowly put the jagged pieces of this lifelong puzzle back together. I thought of the long drives that my mother and I would take in our old 1976 Ford Maverick sedan, singing along to AM radio, where I first heard the sound of two voices in harmony forming a chord. This was the spark that ignited my fascination with music. I thought of the glorious instrumental fury of Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein,” my first record, purchased at the drugstore and played on the record player that my mother brought home from school until its old needle wore out. I thought of the Silvertone guitar with the amp built into the case that I played every day after school, strumming along to my Beatles songbook, learning the beauty of composition and arrangement. And I thought of the old pillows that I substituted for drums on my bedroom floor, thrashing away to my favorite punk rock records until my hands were bloody.
Each tear another memory. Each memory another step in the crosswalk.
Maybe my séance had worked after all. It had been thirty years since I begged the universe for this blessing as I knelt before the flickering candlelight of the altar that I’d constructed in my carport. Maybe this was all just a matter of manifesting desire, believing that anything is possible if you devote yourself to it entirely. Maybe it was the audacity of faith in oneself. Maybe I had sold my soul. These things could all be true, but I knew that if it weren’t for the epiphany that I had that night at the Cubby Bear, I never would have dared to try.
I surely never would have taken the chance and made that phone call to audition for my favorite local band, Scream, setting off a chain of events that would change my life forever. Had I never seen that flyer on the bulletin board at my local music shop, I undoubtedly would have followed an entirely different path, but I saw a door open before me, and rather than stay within the comfort of my tiny bedroom, I decided to dive through it, leaving a life of stability and security behind. Though still bound to my youth, I was ready to be free. I was ready to bet everything on this burning passion that raged inside of me, and I made a commitment to honor it. When I was seventeen years old, music had become my counselor when I needed guidance, my friend when I felt alone, my father when I needed love, my preacher when I needed hope, and my partner when I needed to belong. That night when I saw the B-52s dance their mess around on Saturday Night Live in a quirky, hyperactive blur, I connected to something and knew that I would never live a life of conventionality. I was not destined to fade into the sleepy suburban streets of Springfield, Virginia, just another trench coat at the bus stop. I was born to let my freak flag fly and celebrate all of life’s beautiful eccentricities. I had to break away from the norm.
Another memory, another step in the crosswalk.
With my mother’s blessing, I was let go. Through her limitless empathy and understanding, she recognized my purpose and granted me the freedom to wander, no matter how far. Life soon became a lesson in survival, and home was a hard floor, but I was LIVING, and music was my food when there was none to eat. With my feet up on the dashboard, I watched the world fly by through a dirty windshield and learned to surrender to the unpredictability of a life without design, to rely on a road map with no destination, letting it take me wherever it might lead, never knowing what was around the next corner but faithfully relying on the music to keep me alive in the event that everything fell apart and I had to start over.
And start over I did.
It seemed like only yesterday that I’d spent those long nights on that dirty couch in Olympia, Washington, tucked away in my sleeping bag thousands of miles from home, waiting on my next dream. I was a stranger in a stranger’s house yet again, but the ringing in my ears from the sound we made together in that little barn outside of town lulled me to sleep each night and kept my fire raging. My faithful divining rod had led me to yet another well, one so deep that it eventually overflowed and drowned us all. I was lost without a lifeboat.
I could have sunk. I could have given up. I could have gone home. But surrender was never in my DNA.
As I heard the room next door begin to fill with the usual parade of after-show guests, I gathered myself and prepared to join them. I could hear their voices, and I recognized them all. These were the voices of the people who had carried me through these years. An extended family that has become my new tribe.
I entered the room and saw Gus Brandt, handing out drinks and passes, always doing his best to make sure that everyone felt welcome in our chaotic little world. From broken guitars to broken limbs, Gus had taken care of me for decades, part therapist, part big brother, part bodyguard. He had become my beacon when I felt lost in a sea of strangers, my shelter when I needed protection, and I could always confide to him my innermost turmoil. Though not a musician, his love of music was equal to, if not more intense than, my own, and without his shoulder to rest upon, I would never make it to the next song, the next city, the next stage. He is always there, and I am grateful for his protection.
I saw Rami Jaffee, my faithful confidant, gliding around the room with the grace and nonchalance of a gypsy maître d’, spreading his vibe as the true “good times” ambassador of the Foo Fighters. Though he was tucked away in the corner of the stage every night, his addition to the band over the years had proved invaluable, and he had introduced an element of musicality that had taken us to another level album after album. But beyond his proficiency as a musician, his friendship had become a joy every day, a welcome break in the Groundhog Day monotony of life on the road. And each night after the curtains are closed and the audience has wandered home, Rami and I will climb aboard our shared tour bus and drink, smoke, and dance as we race down the highway to our next destination. Though he joined the band a decade after its inception, deep down he was one of us from the beginning, and I am grateful for his comfort.
There was Chris Shiflett, the man who saved our band in our most desperate time of need when we were without a guitarist and required dire musical rescue. Though our paths had coincidentally crossed at a Scream gig in Santa Barbara ten years before his fateful audition (the only time we ever attempted such a thing), we had lived parallel lives up until that point, playing in punk rock bands with friends and living out of vans on pennies, with the music and adventure being the only real rewards. Before he had even played a note, I knew that he would fit in perfectly because he would appreciate every moment of being in this band, and I am grateful for his gratefulness.
Tearing through the room like an F5 tornado of hyperactive joy was Taylor Hawkins, my brother from another mother, my best friend, a man for whom I would take a bullet. Upon first meeting, our bond was immediate, and we grew closer with every day, every song, every note that we ever played together. I am not afraid to say that our chance meeting was a kind of love at first sight, igniting a musical “twin flame” that still burns to this day. Together, we have become an unstoppable duo, onstage and off, in pursuit of any and all adventure we can find. We are absolutely meant to be, and I am grateful that we found each other in this lifetime.
There was Nate Mendel, my voice of reason, my barometer, the one who I could always turn to when I needed grounding. If it weren’t for that chance meeting at my Thanksgiving dinner in 1994, huddled around a Ouija board to contact the spirits of my haunted house in Seattle, the world would have never known the Foo Fighters of today. We had built this thing together from the ground up, cleared countless obstacles, and somehow remained relatively intact. Though I rarely communicate it, his role in my life is indispensable, and I don’t know what I would do without him. I am grateful for his dedication and loyalty.
Then there was Pat Smear. The man who once was my punk rock hero and who became not only a bandmate, twice, but a trusted anchor in my life. From the minute he strolled into Nirvana’s rehearsal space in 1993 and gave the band another year of life, Pat was always there to walk
through the fire with me, no matter the highs or lows. He was always present for my life’s greatest challenges, and with his wisdom and wit, he gave me reassurance that I could make it through anything. That WE could make it through anything. I hoped that we would be shoulder to shoulder from the day we met, and I have stood happily in his shadow ever since. Every night onstage when I look to my left and see the thick plumes of smoke wafting from his smile, I feel safe, eternally grateful for his loving and sagacious spirit.
As a band, we had each become a whirring wheel in a thunderous clock, only ticking because the spinning teeth of one gear met with those of another, locking us into synchronized movement. Without this, our pendulum would stop. The revolving door that had once plagued our early years had now been locked, and we had become a forever thing. Once you’re in, you’re in for life. The stability and security that we had all longed for as children of divorce and teenage rebellion were now found in a barrage of distorted guitars and laser-lit stages. We had become a family.
Holding court in the far corner of the room with a glass of champagne in her delicate hand was my beautiful wife, Jordyn, the mother of my children, the queen of my world, the weight in my scale that keeps the arm from tipping. Our paths had crossed at a time when I thought I was doomed to live forever in the past, but through her strength and clarity, she showed me a future. Together, we created my life’s greatest achievement, my family. And, as our family grew, my appreciation for life did as well. With each child born, I was born again, and with each step that they took, I retraced my own. Violet, Harper, and Ophelia gave me life in return, and words cannot express my gratitude to them. Fatherhood eclipsed any dream, any wish, any song I had ever written, and as the years went by I discovered the true meaning of love. I no longer just live for myself; I live for them.
But it was the voices that could not be heard that were perhaps the loudest in the room.
Jimmy should have been here, I thought. He was the first person I played my Naked Raygun record for in 1982 upon returning home from my trip to Chicago, and the moment we dropped the needle on that primitive slab of vinyl, we embarked on a new musical journey together as allies in the unorthodox world of punk rock. We were two misfits in a sea of conformity who created our own world, our own language, our own universe, through our obsession with music. No matter how far out I was, he always understood me and embraced my weirdness, just as I embraced his. I looked up to him as the older brother I never had, and so much of who I am came from who he was. We were inseparable, sharing everything together our entire lives, and it broke my heart that I couldn’t share this moment with him. But deep down I knew he would have appreciated this victory, because it belonged to both of us.
“This will never last,” my father had once told me, and it very well may have been this challenge that drove me to ensure that it did. We had struggled our entire lives to connect, but even in his absence I was shaped by his presence, for better or worse. I had let go of any resentment toward him long ago and had forgiven him for his shortcomings as a parent, ultimately lightening the burden of our relationship, leaving us to become good friends. As his child, I had inherited more than just basic physical attributes from him: we had the same hands, the same knees, the same arms. I have to believe that my ability to decipher sound and play music by ear was handed down from his blessed genetic code, and it was he whom I had to thank for this most precious gift. Something that he surely recognized as I became a man.
I know that he would have been proud, and I wished that he were alive to close this circle beside me.
And Kurt.
If only he could have seen the joy that his music brought to the world, maybe he could have found his own. My life was forever changed by Kurt, something I never had the chance to say while he was still with us, and not thanking him for that is a regret I will have to live with until we are somehow reunited. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of our time together, and when we meet in my dreams there’s always a feeling of happiness and calm, almost as if he’s just been hiding, waiting to return.
Though they’re no longer with us, I still carry these people in my heart everywhere I go, just as they once carried me, and it is their faces that I see every night just before the houselights go out and I am hit with the roar of applause. It belongs to them as much as it does to me. Had they just hung on a little longer, I thought, maybe they would have joined in this celebration, another reunion of lifelong friends bound by years of deep connection.
But standing in the middle of it all was the irrefutable matriarch of this extended family, the person who every one of those forty thousand screaming fans had just sung “Happy Birthday” to earlier that night: my mother. As she stood on the stage beside me while the entire stadium rang out in thundering chorus, I was overcome with emotion, knowing that this woman who had worked tirelessly to raise two children on her own—struggling to make ends meet, working multiple jobs, living paycheck to paycheck—and devoted her entire life to the benefit of others as a public school teacher was finally getting the appreciation she deserved. It goes without saying that none of us would have been there if it weren’t for her. She had given me life not once but twice, by allowing me the freedom to become who I wanted to be, ultimately releasing me to my own destiny. Through her faith in me, she gave me the courage and the confidence to have faith in myself. Through her passion and conviction, she taught me to live with passion and conviction of my own. And through her unconditional love for me, she showed me how to love others unconditionally. She could have given up. She could have gone home. But surrender was never in her DNA either.
She was forever my hero and greatest inspiration; I owed all of this to her.
That crosswalk had taken a lifetime to travel, but I was grateful for every step, still that same little boy with a guitar and a dream. Because I still forget that I’ve aged. My head and my heart still seem to play this cruel trick on me, deceiving me with the illusion of youth as I greet the world every day through the idealistic, mischievous eyes of a rebellious child who constantly seeks adventure and magic. I still find happiness and appreciation in the most basic, simple things. And as I collect more little lines and scars, I still wear them with a certain pride, as they almost serve as a trail of bread crumbs, strewn across a path that someday I will rely upon to find my way back to where I started.
My tears had now dried, and I carefully entered the room on my two battered crutches to a giant communal embrace. The circle was now complete, and we had all made it to the other side of the crosswalk together, everyone grateful for life, music, and the people we love.
AND SURVIVAL.
Courtesy of Andreas Neumann
Courtesy of Magdalena Wosinska
Acknowledgments
When the world closed its doors in March 2020, I was faced with my life’s greatest fear:
Nothing to do.
As a restless, creative spirit, the thought of sitting on a couch watching bad soap operas while waiting for the stadiums to reopen sent me into an existential tailspin. Who was I without my music? What was my purpose in life without an instrument in my hands? Did life have a greater meaning outside of preparing spaghetti and meatballs twice a week for the world’s most captious food critics, my children? I had to think of something fast, not just to bide my time, but to take advantage of this break from my never-ending, exhausting schedule.
So I decided to write a book.
Having never had the time (or courage) to attempt such a gargantuan undertaking, I wandered into the process with the attitude that I’ve taken with most things in my life: “You fake it till you make it.” After all, I am the child of two brilliant writers. How hard could it be? I can do this all by myself! I thought.
Boy, was I wrong.
Without the amazing people at Dey Street/HarperCollins, this almost-four-hundred-page beast never would have made it into your hands. Who on earth would trust a high school dropout turned punk rock drummer to write a book about corn
dogs and Motörhead? I’ll tell you who. Publisher Liate Stehlik, who allowed me the honor of telling my story (or at least a tenth of it) to the world. Thank you. Someday I’ll have to tell you the rest. Jeanne Reina for designing the cover and making my hangover look so regal. (Next time catch me before the party.) Ben Steinberg for being in my corner between rounds, along with Heidi Richter, Kendra Newton, Christine Edwards, Renata De Oliveira, Angela Boutin, Rachel Meyers, and Pam Barricklow. Perfect grammar courtesy of Peter Kispert.
But if there is one person who made this experience a joy, it is the most amazing Carrie Thornton. From the moment we met, I knew she was the person to guide me through this process, and she did, every step of the way. Our mutual love of music, Virginia, and ridiculous eighties goth culture was a match made in heaven, and I could not have asked for a more perfect chaperone to walk me through the best and worst days of my life. I could share this with only you, and I am forever indebted. We made a great team, but we also made great friends, and once that happens it’s no longer work, it’s pleasure. Thank you, Carrie. For your patience, your wisdom, and your care. You’re stuck with me now. (Insert standing ovation here.)
Because once you’re in, you’re in. My manager, John Silva, can attest to this. After thirty-one years together, I cannot imagine life without his ravaged vocal cords screaming through my phone receiver every morning. I wouldn’t have it any other way. John Cutcliffe (who I have never heard scream) has also been there from day one, and I feel blessed to have shared the last three decades of adventure with his ultimate badass cool. But without the wicked genius of Kristen Welsh, the loving introspection of Gaby Skolnek, and the lifelong devotion of Michael Meisel, I would surely not be here today. The entire SAM team should be knighted. Go tell the queen.
Steve Martin (not the funny one) should be thanked for his twenty-six years of service in the publicity room of our Death Star, and there is no one more qualified in this galaxy. Look in the front pocket of your airplane seat. If there’s a band feature in the complimentary magazine, it’s probably his doing.