Dave Grohl is not the type of person who would be considered nasty or intimidating. If you ran into Grohl in a pub, he’d probably buy you a drink and talk music all night. That is the version of Grohl that he has molded himself into over the years. His days as Nirvana’s mild-mannered drummer nearly led to him leaving the grunge icons.
Grohl would most likely never have had the opportunity to perform with Kurt Cobain if time had not changed. Cobain was forming Nirvana in the Seattle underground. But Grohl was immersing himself in every type of punk rock he could find, eventually joining the band Scream.
Dave Grohl has been looking forward to a life of corn dog dinners and cheap weed for the rest of his life. But he was allowed to jam with the band. It was when longtime drummer Chad Channing was not producing the beats they desired. Compared to Scream’s position on the musical totem pole, Grohl’s invitation to join Nirvana was probably equivalent to joining the underground Beatles.
Grohl’s contributions to the band were largely due to how hard he hit the drums, without compromising his sound in the slightest. Cobain may have been living out his John Lennon fantasies behind the fretboard. But Grohl was the group’s resident ‘John Bonham‘, leathering the hell out of his drums. He left more than a few drum techs in a cold sweat whenever he played onstage.
As the band’s popularity grew following the success of Nevermind, there was talk about Cobain firing Grohl halfway through one of their tours. Cobain wanted to reduce the massive sound of the drums, which prompted Grohl to almost quit the band in protest.
Beginning with a few rumblings about Grohl’s dismissal that he heard between two shows, the drummer recalled being embarrassed about his position in the band. By the time the group arrived, Grohl was ready to put everything on the line. He threatened to leave the group if they didn’t like what he was doing.
Grohl would eventually confront the band about it. He said, “I spoke with Krist [Novoselic] and said, ‘Is this really what you guys want to do? Because if that’s what you want, maybe just let me know and we can call it a day. I eventually spoke with Kurt, and he said, “No, that’s not what we want to do.” I just felt it was up to you guys to choose the drummer you wanted, and they decided I should stay.”
Granted, there was always more going on behind the scenes than Grohl knew. After becoming addicted to heroin while working on the album In Utero, Cobain began to withdraw. He didn’t enjoy the band’s new stadium tour and eventually died after entering rehab in between two legs of their touring cycle.
Grohl eventually found himself without a band. Foo Fighters would be his way of healing his musical broken heart, putting the drums front and center, just as they were during Nevermind’s glory days. Grohl has been the driving force behind Nirvana’s best moments. But his heightened performances were sometimes too much for Cobain to handle.
