Grohl Born: From Nirvana's Drums to Foo Fighters' Stage

Dave Grohl was 17 when he auditioned for Nirvana by playing so hard he broke the drum kit. They hired him on the spot. Born on January 14, 1969, in Warren, Ohio, and raised in Springfield, Virginia, Grohl taught himself to play drums by hitting pillows with sticks along to Beatles records. He joined the Washington, D.C., hardcore band Scream at 17, touring in a van and sleeping on floors. When Scream's bassist quit mid-tour in Los Angeles, Buzz Osborne of the Melvins connected Grohl with Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic. Grohl drove to Seattle and auditioned. Within three years, Nirvana had released "Nevermind," which knocked Michael Jackson off the top of the charts and redefined popular music. Cobain was dead by April 1994, and the most talked-about band in the world was over. Most drummers would have disappeared into session work or depression. Grohl went home to Virginia, bought a four-track recorder, and recorded every instrument himself in a basement. He played guitar, bass, drums, and sang, layering tracks alone. He mailed the cassette to labels under the name Foo Fighters, named after World War II pilots' slang for unidentified flying objects. Capitol Records signed him. He assembled a band to play the songs live. The first album came out in 1995. The Foo Fighters went on to become one of the most successful rock bands of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, selling over 30 million albums and winning multiple Grammy Awards. Grohl has also drummed for Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, and numerous other projects. The band has now been together far longer than Nirvana ever was.