Dave Grohl, Times Like His

by Martin James

  On July 12, Novoselic and Grohl played live together for the first time since Cobain’s death. The performance was as a part of the Stink Puffs; a band led by ten-year-old Simon Timony. This came about through Timony’s friendship with Cobain. The young musician had sent a copy of his own EP to Cobain as a present, a fact that Cobain acknowledged in the liner notes of Incesticide. Timony had then met Nirvana during the band’s Fall 1993 tour and even joined them onstage for one of the gigs.

  The Stinky Puffs gig was on the opening night of the Yo Yo A Go Go Festival, held in Olympia. Talking in 1997, Sheenah Fair, Timony’s mother explained that she had initially approached Novoselic to join the band on stage. But then Grohl also joined in, unannounced.

  “I saw Dave checking out Krist (Novoselic) just about to go on,” Fair said. “And I said, ‘Dude, get a drum set. Come on, come on with us. This’ll be good, it’ll be good for you.’ He’s like, ‘I’m gonna fuck it up – I don’t even know your music!’” Eventually, Grohl did agree to go on, and though their appearance was unannounced, the media on hand for the opening night of the festival insured instant coverage of the event. “One journalist said that Simon had performed a mass healing,” says Fair. “And that’s really how it felt.” (19) The set was recorded and gained a full release the following year.

  The first post-Cobain Nirvana release came in the shape of the MTV Unplugged In New York set which had been recorded on November 18 at Sony Music Studios. Initially it had been intended as a double album entitled Verse Chorus Verse whereby one set was to be culled from that MTV performance, while the other was to be a career-spanning compilation of the band’s live show. It was a plan that was aimed at meeting the demand for live recordings of the band that had spurned a huge global bootlegging operation. Indeed, the MTV set was already widely available on bootleg.

  Soon after the announcement of the live double, Geffen were forced to issue a retraction. The MTV show would now be issued alone. The reason was simple, both Grohl and Novoselic had found the process of going through the old tapes too emotionally draining. Although they had decided on which songs were to be used, and the performances they were to be taken from, the duo decided that it was simply too soon after Cobain’s death to mix the album properly.

  MTV Unplugged was released on November 1, entering the US Billboard charts at #1 while hitting #2 in the UK charts. Even before Cobain’s death the acoustic performance was charged with a strangely chilling undercurrent. However, post-suicide, it became drenched in poignancy. Everything from the choice of covers, to Cobain’s own lyrics (again) were carefully picked over by fans and critics looking for clues about his death. “As things are,” wrote Andrew Mueller in Melody Maker, “Unplugged… is at best gut-twistingly poignant, and often nigh unbearable.”

  Perhaps the most telling cover version on the set was David Bowie’s ‘Man Who Sold The World’. Once a sub-metal world domination fantasy for Bowie, before turning pantomime pop song for Lulu, Nirvana’s version came over like a confessional. Here was Cobain, wracked with guilt for being undeserving of the attention heaped upon him post-Nevermind, holding a mirror to himself. Unlike Bowie however, Cobain was unable to hide his feelings behind a series of personas. It was impossible to listen to the set without thinking of what could have been.

  Interestingly, Grohl played bass on the band’s version of The Vaselines’ ‘Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For a Sunbeam’ – another song choice that seemed to offer some kind of hint at Cobain’s state of mind. Later in November the long awaited full-length video, Live! Tonight! Sold Out! was finally released to almost predictable rave reviews. A week later Grohl once again took up his drumsticks, this time to drum for Tom Petty on Saturday Night Live. He subsequently considered joining Petty’s band full time.

  “Right after Kurt died, I was getting all these offers from other bands to come and play drums for them, and frankly I was a little offended,” he said in 1997. “So I lay low for a while, but after you’ve been in the dance for so long, it just doesn’t make sense to stop.” (20)

  Grohl didn’t stop. He was starting to formulate ideas for his very own band, to be called Foo Fighters. Also refusing to stop, however, was the Nirvana machine. Certainly posthumous releases were a part of the healing process for both Grohl and Novoselic. However, in the years that followed Cobain’s death, these records would turn into battle grounds between the remaining members of Nirvana and Courtney Love. Furthermore, with the exception of the live set From The Muddy Banks of the Wishkah (which came out in September 1996), future Nirvana activity attracted as much publicity for these disputes as for the actual music itself.

  The protracted legal wrangles – during which Grohl was once described as “the group’s sixth drummer” – centred around who ultimately controlled Nirvana and the band’s back catalogue. Details of the disputes – in the form of court papers pored over by the world’s media (particularly that surrounding a box-set to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Nevermind) – highlighted the severity of the internal band arguments. Some observers suggested that Nirvana must have been on the verge of splitting up just before Cobain’s death anyway. Other reports claimed Cobain was recording with members of other bands, including REM – although this is not a concrete precursor to a Nirvana split, as Grohl’s own solo recordings and extra-curricular gigging proved. After months of very public and acrimonious disputes, Grohl, Novoselic and Love settled out of court.

  “At the end of the day, it’s just not worth all the pain and the anguish,” Grohl told MTV News. “God, I had to get up at 9am to do a deposition today, and it’s just not worth that to me because my contribution has been made. The band is over and forever that music will be there. There are times when I honestly don’t give a shit who’s running the cash register. I’ll always be the guy who played drums in that band, and to me that’s more important than control or power or money or whatever.” Finally, in October 2002, Geffen issued a retrospective compilation, a career-spanning set simply called Nirvana.

  There is no doubting Nirvana’s legacy. They introduced a breathtaking new spin on the rock lexicon and created a collection of era-defining songs. However, Grohl’s own input has often been underplayed. There was surely more to Grohl’s role than simply hitting the skins according to Cobain’s instructions.

  His precise, hard-hitting drumming gave the band a hitherto unknown rhythmical clarity that complemented Cobain’s songs. His well-tuned ear for a catchy melody and haunting harmony plus his own backing vocals all added invaluably to the mix.

  Some have argued that Grohl was the necessary final piece in the creative jigsaw, without which Nirvana might never have attained the level of success they did. That is open to debate of course. At the same time, it is all too easy to put down the group’s greatness to just one individual. That Grohl is regarded as just another drummer is perhaps one of the cruellest drummer jokes of all.

  Notes

  1. Territorial Pissings – The Battles Behind Nirvana’s New Album by Michael Azzerad (Musician) 1993

  2. In My Head I’m So Ugly by Everett True (Melody Maker) July 1992

  3. Love Will Tear Us Apart by Keithe Cameron (NME) August 1992

  4. ibid

  5. Eyewitness Nirvana: The Day-By-Day Chronicle by Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna (Thunders Mouth/ Carlton Books) 2000

  6. news item by Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna (Rollingstone.com) April 10, 2003

  7. Come As You Are – The Story of Nirvana by Michael Azzerad (Main Street Books)1993

  8. Verse Chorus Verse: The Recording History of Nirvana by Gillian G. Gaar (Goldmine)1997

  9. ibid

  10. ibid

  11. ibid

  12. ibid

  13. Dance of Days – Two Decades of Punk in the Nations Capital by Mark Anderson and Mark Jenkins (Soft Skull Press) 2001

  14. news item, no bi-line (Washington Post)1993

  15. Dave Grohl Feature by Eric Brace (www.unomas.com/features/foofighters.html)

  16. ibid

>   17. Womb at the Top by Sharon O’Connell (Melody Maker) September 1993.

  18. Nevermind Ten Years After by David Fricke (Rollingstone.com) 2001

  19. Verse Chorus Verse: The Recording History of Nirvana by Gillian G. Gaar (Goldmine)1997

  20. Dave Grohl Feature by Eric Brace (www.unomas.com/features/foofighters.html)

  4

  ALONE AND AN EASY TARGET

  How do you know if the drum riser is level?

  The drummer drools from both corners of his mouth.

  In the chaos that followed Cobain’s death, Grohl contributed to a recording session that was to inadvertently shape his next move. It was May 29, a week before Grohl’s MTV performance with the Backbeat Band, and both he and Pat Smear had agreed to contribute to an album by long-time friend Mike Watt.

  Watt had been bassist with legendary hardcore act Minutemen, who regrouped as fIREHOSE after the death of singer-guitarist D Boon in a 1985 van accident. In the early 1980s, Minutemen were considered to be the peers of Husker Du and Meat Puppets, doing much to subvert the traditional rock music structure and push the alternative scene. Just as the band were verging on mass popularity (they regularly played with REM and were expected to join the Georgia band’s rise to international fame) the band’s singer/ songwriter (and Watt’s best friend) was killed.

  Following a brief period in which Watt considered giving up music altogether, he formed the band fIREHOSE from the ashes of Minutemen. The debut album picked up where the previous band had left off and pretty soon numerous major labels were courting them. They eventually signed to Columbia, releasing a total of seven albums before their eventual break up in 1994.

  Both Grohl and Smear had been huge fans of Watt’s bands. Such was his repute among the underground community that he even guested on the Sonic Youth side project Ciccone Youth and with bass duo DOS. He would also briefly join Perry Farrell’s first post-Jane’s Addiction project, Porno for Pyros.

  Watt’s debut solo album was in fact a huge collaboration with musicians he had worked with, or become associated with over the years. The fifty strong line-up of guests read like a who’s who of alt-rock, ranging from Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), Henry Rollins and Sonic Youth to Flea, Perry Farrell and Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum). Grohl and Smear were the icing on the all-star cake.

  Of course, the similarities between Watt’s and Grohl’s situation were remarkably similar. Both had experienced the loss of their band’s singer and songwriter, both had been forced to face up to the idea of quitting music altogether and both had finally found solace in music. However, there was another factor that brought added poignancy to the collaborations; Pat Smear had also suffered the loss of a friend who happened to be an irreplaceable member of his band The Germs; singer Darby Crash (aka Paul Beahm).

  Punk band The Germs had formed in Los Angeles in 1977 with a line up that included Belinda Carlisle on drums! Their debut single, ‘Forming’, is often cited as being the first example of US punk’s metamorphosis into hardcore. Following the band’s one and only album GI, The Germs disbanded, only to reform a few months later in 1980. A week after their first reunion concert, however, Crash died from a heroin overdose. He’d just recorded the song ‘Suicide Madness’.

  If the line up for Watt’s album, Ball-Hog or Tug Boat?, had seemed a little like a post-tragedy self-help group, then the inclusion of Flea, whose friend and original guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hillel Slovak, had also died of a heroin overdose, only added to this.

  In fact, this project was an important part of Grohl’s grieving process. Despite the fact that Watt was actually accused by cynics of being insensitive to the recent loss of Cobain, the sessions for Ball-Hog or Tug Boat? were extremely helpful to Grohl who realised that his life would remain in music after collaborating with so many musicians he admired.

  Talking about the tragic common ground that existed between himself and Grohl (and Novoselic), Watt noted: “Krist grew up with [Kurt], so it was like me and D Boon in a way. When you lose your guy, it’s fucked. And some English paper accused me of not dealing with Kurt’s death. It was a really weird thing. But we did get talking about it after we’d recorded a little bit. The big difference was, me and D Boon were not famous, and Krist and Kurt are. I guess it was the first time [Grohl and Krist] played together on a record since [Nirvana], and it got blown all out of proportion. Whereas me and D Boon were little enough for it to be a private thing for us. It never has gotten to be private for Krist or Dave. Dave’s going to come out with his new band, and he’s going to have to deal with this thing, over and over again, where, man, I was turning people on to D Boon. A lot of the dudes didn’t know about us – we were little. Punk was little, so I got to turn people onto D Boon.” (1)

  Ironically, Watts received a huge amount of criticism from the press for employing so many well-known artists. He was, the media harshly claimed, simply hitching a ride on their coattails to launch his own solo career. It is unlikely that any single member of his line-up of guests would have agreed with this sentiment. Put simply, Watt was, and still is, a legend.

  For the album, which was released in February 1995, Grohl played drums on ‘Big Train’ and ‘Against The 70s’ while Smear supplied vocals to ‘Forever’ and ‘One Reporter’s Opinion’. During the session, however, Grohl gave Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder a copy of the two-track demo he had made at Robert Lang’s Studio at the same time as Nirvana’s ‘You Know You’re Right’ was recorded.

  However, this didn’t necessarily mark the beginning of Grohl’s solo career. Even at this stage he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to make music anymore. Drumming for other people in one-off projects was one thing, but pouring the emotional energy required for making music with a band was another thing entirely. Indeed, he even contemplated joining Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers band as a full-time member.

  “I was this close to joining,” he says. “It was so much fun. I was really scared. I was most afraid that they had watched (MTV’s) Unplugged and decided to get me from seeing that. But when we rehearsed, they treated me like I was in the band. It was such an honour. But I figured that I was twenty-six-years-old and didn’t want to become a drummer for hire at that age.” (2)

  The final boost his spirit needed came from an unlikely source. Seattle band 7 Year Bitch had also lost a member of their band. In a postcard to Grohl, they urged him not to give up. “After Kurt’s death, I was about as confused as I’ve ever been. To continue almost seemed in vain. I was always going to be ‘that guy from Kurt Cobain’s band’ and I knew that. I wasn’t even sure if I had the desire to make music anymore. That fucking letter [from 7 Year Bitch] saved my life, because as much as I missed Kurt, and as much as I felt so lost, I knew that there was only one thing that I was truly cut out to do and that was music. I know that sounds so incredibly corny, but I honestly felt that. I decided to do what I had always wanted to do since the first time I’d recorded a song all by myself. I was going to book a week in a twenty four track studio, choose the best stuff I’d ever written out of the thirty-to-forty songs that had piled up, and really concentrate on them in a real studio.” (3)

  So Grohl and Jones started to trawl through the tapes he’d demo-ed over the last few years and came up with a final list of fifteen. The next step was to book time in Robert Lang’s Studio. The sessions took place between October 17 and 23, 1994. By this stage Grohl was so used to the recording process whereby he played everything, that he was able to work extremely quickly, recording them in the same order that they would eventually appear on the finished album. The first track ‘This Is A Call’ took a mere forty-five minutes to record.

  “It became this little game,” he said at the time. “I was running from room to room, still sweating and shaking from playing drums and I’d pick up the guitar and put down a track, do the bass, maybe do another guitar part, have a sip of coffee and then go in and do the next song. We were done with the music in the first two days.” (4)

  Tracks recorded d
uring this session were ‘Alone + Easy Target’, ‘Good Grief’, ‘Exhausted’, ‘Podunk’ and ‘Floaty’, originally recorded at Barrett’s studios in 1992. From 1993 he recorded ‘Big Me’, ‘Weenie Beenie’, ‘For All The Cows’, ‘X-Static’, ‘Wattershed’ and ‘Butterflies’. While ‘This Is A Call’, ‘I’ll Stick Around’ and ‘Oh, George’ were all demo-ed in 1994. Grohl also recorded a new version of ‘Winnebego’ from the Pocketwatch tape. Grohl played all instruments, except for ‘X-Static’, which featured guitar by Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli (whom Grohl had worked with in the Backbeat Band).

  “He’d do a whole song in about forty minutes,” said Dulli. “I was completely fascinated by it. He could do it because he has perfect time. He’d lay down a perfect drumbeat and work off that. He’d play drums, run out and play bass, and then put two guitar layers over the top and sing it. I was just watching him record, and he asked me if I wanted to play. I didn’t even get out of my chair. He just handed me a guitar.” (5)

  “The first four hours was spent getting sounds,” wrote Grohl in 1995. This was a cinch for Barrett, whom I’d asked to produce since he was the one person in the world I felt comfortable singing in front of. By five o’clock we were ready to record. Over the past six years, Barrett and I had perfected our own method of recording. Start with drums, listen to playback while humming tune in head to make sure arrangement is correct, put down two or three guitar tracks – mind you, all amplifiers and everything are ready to go before recording begins – do bass track and move on to next songs, saving vocals for last.”

  Interestingly, of the songs recorded, three had actually been written in period since Cobain’s death. These were ‘This Is A Call’, ‘Oh George’ and ‘I’ll Stick Around’. ‘This Is A Call’ had actually been written on a mini-electric guitar while Grohl was on his honeymoon in Dublin. He’d married long time girlfriend, photographer Jennifer Youngblood in 1993.