What did Kurt Cobain teach Dave Grohl about being a frontman?
Dave Grohl, perhaps the last true rockstar, has enjoyed a career more than fitting the tag. Starting life as a lover of all classic rock from The Beatles to Rush, Grohl quickly developed into a young drumming prodigy. This skill would see him exit the traditional life, dropping out of high school in his junior year to embark on a musical career that would make him one of the most influential rock musicians of all time, taking up a deserved place at the table next to those he called heroes.
Famously, he lied about his age when auditioning for the influential hardcore punk group Scream. Since he was 17 at the time, Grohl claimed he was a year older than he was in order to be considered. When he was eventually asked to join, the teenage drummer was surprised, so he dropped out of school, eager to get started. He said later: “I was 17 and extremely anxious to see the world, so I did it.”
This leap into the unknown would not only give Grohl invaluable experience but open the door to joining Nirvana, one of the most significant bands of all time. When playing in Scream, he became a fan of sludge heroes Melvins, who he would eventually become friends with. Later, for a 1990 show on the west coast, Melvins brought their friends Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic of Nirvana to watch the hardcore band.
When Scream broke up later that year, Grohl called Melvins’ leader Buzz Osborne for advice. During this chat, Osborne disclosed that Nirvana were looking for a drummer and gave Grohl the numbers for Cobain and Novoselic, who invited him to Seattle to audition. As fans know now, he passed with flying colours. Novoselic would later recall that within a couple of minutes, he and Cobain knew that Grohl was perfect for the job.
Grohl told Q in 2010: “I remember being in the same room with them and thinking, ‘What? That’s Nirvana? Are you kidding?’ Because on their record cover they looked like psycho lumberjacks… I was like, ‘What, that little dude and that big motherfucker? You’re kidding me’.” The stage was now set for history to be made. In 1991, Nirvana released their second album, the first to feature Grohl, Nevermind, and almost overnight, they became the biggest band on the planet.
Tragically, things would not end as everyone hoped for the grunge trio. The band released their hit third album, In Utero, in 1993, a much gloomier record than the previous, influenced by the darkness enveloping Cobain. Struggling with being championed as the voice of his generation, a heroin addiction and health problems such as depression, in April 1994, the Nirvana frontman took his own life, which immediately signified the end for the group. Naturally, this sent both Grohl and Novoselic into a bottomless pit of their own depression and changed their lives and careers forever.
After a period of focusing on personal and creative health, Grohl recorded what would become the first Foo Fighters album, and it was via this outfit, which he fronts as the lead singer, that he would step into the light once more. Grohl resoundingly showed that he is much more than just a drummer. As the creative figurehead of his own band, he confirmed himself as one of modern rock’s true greats.
Speaking to Channel 4 News in 2021, Grohl reflected on how his experience of being a frontman in Foo Fighters is different to Kurt Cobain’s in Nirvana. He attributed this to two things: how successful Nirvana were and the experience he learned from being in a band that became so enormous in the blink of an eye.
Grohl said: “When I was in Nirvana, I was the drummer, and I don’t even think you could see my face. I had so much hair as I was pounding the drums, like, you know, I was practically anonymous in that band, I could almost walk through the front door of a gig and not be recognised. So, my experience was so much different than someone like Kurt’s, you know, because Kurt had to bear the weight and responsibility of being the face of the band, and when your band becomes successful and popular as quickly as it happened to Nirvana, that’s a really difficult path to navigate.”
He added: “There’s no specifics, skills, or skillset or tools to deal with something like that; you have to really kind of hold on and hope that you make it through. So, after Nirvana… I learned a lot of things being in Nirvana, I learned a lot of what to do and what not to do, and I think I apply those things to the Foo Fighters now. So my experience of being a frontman, being the lead singer of a band, is much, much different than I think Kurt’s was in Nirvana”.
