Dave Grohl

Early life

Grohl was born in Warren, Ohio, on January 14, 1969, the son of teacher Virginia Jean (née Hanlon) and newswriter James Harper Grohl. He is of German, Slovak (on his father's side), Irish, and English (on his mother's side) descent. His father, James, was a journalist and the special assistant to U.S. Senator Robert Taft Jr. James was described as "a talented political observer who possessed the ability to call every major election with uncanny accuracy". When he was a child, Grohl's family moved to Springfield, Virginia. When he was seven, his parents divorced, and he was subsequently raised by his mother. At the age of 12, he began learning to play guitar. He grew tired of lessons and instead taught himself, eventually playing in bands with friends. He said, "I was going in the direction of faster, louder, darker while my sister, Lisa, three years older, was getting seriously into new wave territory. We'd meet in the middle sometimes with Bowie and Siouxsie and the Banshees."

At 13, Grohl and his sister spent the summer at their cousin Tracey's house in Evanston, Illinois. Tracey introduced them to punk rock by taking the pair to shows by a variety of punk bands. His first concert was Naked Raygun at The Cubby Bear in Chicago in 1982. Grohl recalled, "From then on we were totally punk. We went home and bought Maximumrocknroll and tried to figure it all out." In Virginia, he attended Thomas Jefferson High School as a freshman, and was elected class vice president. In that capacity, he managed to play pieces of songs by punk bands like Circle Jerks and Bad Brains over the school intercom before his morning announcements. His mother decided he should transfer to Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria because his cannabis use was lowering his grades. He stayed there for two years, beginning with a repeat of his first year. After his second year, he transferred yet again to Annandale High School. While in high school, he played in several local bands, including a stint as guitarist in a band called Freak Baby, and taught himself to play drums. When Freak Baby fired its bass player and reshuffled its lineup, Grohl switched to drums. The reconstituted band renamed itself Mission Impossible.

Grohl said he did not take formal drum lessons; instead, he taught himself how to play the drums by listening to Rush and punk rock. Rush drummer Neil Peart was an early influence: "When I got 2112 when I was eight years old, it fucking changed the direction of my life. I heard the drums. It made me want to become a drummer." During his developing years as a drummer, Grohl cited John Bonham as his greatest influence, and eventually had Bonham's three-rings symbol tattooed on his right shoulder. Mission Impossible rebranded themselves Fast before breaking up, after which Grohl joined the hardcore punk band Dain Bramage in December 1985. In March 1987, Dain Bramage ended when Grohl quit without warning to join Scream, having produced the I Scream Not Coming Down LP. Many of Grohl's early influences were at the 9:30 Club, a music venue in Washington, D.C. In April 2010, he said, "I went to the 9:30 Club hundreds of times. I was always so excited to get there, and I was always bummed when it closed. I spent my teenage years at the club and saw some shows that changed my life."

Career

Scream (1986–1990)

As a teenager in Washington, D.C., Grohl briefly contemplated joining Gwar, a shock rock band that was seeking a drummer. At age 17, he auditioned for the local band Scream after the departure of the drummer, Kent Stax. Grohl lied about his age, claiming he was older. To his surprise, the band asked him to join, so he dropped out of high school in his junior year. He said: "I was 17 and extremely anxious to see the world, so I did it."

Over the next four years, Grohl toured extensively with Scream, recording a live album (their show of May 4, 1990, in Alzey, Germany, being released by Tobby Holzinger as Your Choice Live Series Vol.10) and two studio albums, No More Censorship and Fumble, for which Grohl wrote and sang "Gods Look Down". During a Toronto stop on their 1987 tour, Grohl played drums for Iggy Pop at a CD release party held at El Mocambo. In 1990, Scream unexpectedly disbanded mid-tour following the departure of their bassist, Skeeter Thompson.

Nirvana (1990–1994)

While playing in Scream, Grohl became a fan of the Melvins and eventually befriended them. During a 1990 tour stop on the West Coast, the Melvins guitarist Buzz Osborne took his friends Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic, members of Nirvana, to see a Scream performance. In October 2010, Grohl told Q, "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.'" Following the breakup of Scream, Grohl called Osborne for advice. Osborne informed him that Nirvana was seeking a drummer, and gave Grohl the phone numbers of Cobain and Novoselic, who invited Grohl to Seattle to audition. Grohl soon joined.

Nirvana had already recorded several demos for the follow-up to their 1989 debut album, Bleach, and had spent time recording with the producer Butch Vig in Wisconsin. Initially, the plan was to release the album on Sub Pop, but Nirvana received a great deal of interest based on the demos. Grohl spent the initial months with Nirvana traveling to various labels to discuss record deals, and signed with DGC Records.

In early 1991, the band entered Sound City Studios in Los Angeles to record Nevermind, which is depicted in Grohl's 2013 documentary Sound City. Nevermind (1991) exceeded all expectations and became a worldwide commercial success. At the same time, Grohl was compiling and recording his own material, which he released on a cassette, Pocketwatch in 1992, on the indie label Simple Machines. Grohl released the cassette under the pseudonym "Late!"

In the later years with Nirvana, Grohl's songwriting contributions to the band increased. In Grohl's initial months in Olympia, Washington, Cobain overheard him working on the song "Color Pictures of a Marigold", and the two subsequently worked on it together. Grohl later recorded the song for the Pocketwatch cassette. Grohl said in a 2014 episode of Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways that Cobain reacted by kissing him upon first hearing a demo of "Alone + Easy Target" that Grohl had recently recorded.

During the sessions for In Utero, Nirvana rerecorded "Color Pictures of a Marigold" and released it as a B-side on the "Heart-Shaped Box" single, retitled "Marigold". Grohl also contributed the riff for "Scentless Apprentice". Cobain said in a 1993 interview with MTV that he initially thought the riff was "kind of boneheaded", but was gratified at how the song developed, a process captured in part in a demo on the Nirvana box set With the Lights Out. Cobain said that he was excited at the possibility of having Novoselic and Grohl contribute more to the band's songwriting.

Foo Fighters (1994–present)

Following Cobain's death, Grohl went into isolation and retreated for several months, unsure of what to do next, and moved to County Kerry, Ireland. In a 2022 interview, Grohl said:

I was still in Seattle, and I just felt, "I gotta get out." I [had to] go somewhere where I could just disappear and sort through my life, and try to figure out what to do next... I was winding around these country roads – so beautiful – and I was finding peace… and I come upon this hitchhiker, and I was considering picking him up, and I saw that he had a Kurt Cobain T-shirt. And to me that meant: "You can't outrun this thing, so it's time … to push through and find some sort of continuation." So I flew home and I immediately started recording those Foo Fighters songs.

In October 1994, he scheduled studio time at Robert Lang Studios and quickly recorded a fifteen-track demo. With the exception of a single guitar part on "X-Static" played by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, Grohl performed all of the instruments himself.

Grohl wondered if his future might be in drumming for other bands. In November, Grohl took a brief turn with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, including a performance on Saturday Night Live. He declined an invitation to become Petty's permanent drummer. Grohl was also rumored as a possible replacement for Pearl Jam drummer Dave Abbruzzese and performed with the band for a song or two at three shows during Pearl Jam's March 1995 Australian tour. However, by then, Pearl Jam had already settled on ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons, and Grohl had other solo plans.

After his demo received interest from major labels, Grohl was signed by Gary Gersh, Nirvana's A&R rep-turned-president of Capitol Records. Grohl did not want the effort to be considered the start of a solo career, so he recruited other band members: former Germs and touring Nirvana guitarist Pat Smear and two members of the recently disbanded Sunny Day Real Estate: William Goldsmith (drums) and Nate Mendel (bass). He and Novoselic decided against Novoselic joining; Grohl said it would have felt "really natural" for them to work together again, but would have been uncomfortable for the other band members and placed more pressure on Grohl. Grohl's demo was remixed by Rob Schnapf and Tom Rothrock and released in July 1995 as Foo Fighters' self-titled debut album. During a break between tours, the band entered the studio and recorded a cover of Gary Numan's "Down in the Park". In February 1996, Grohl and his then-wife Jennifer Youngblood made a brief cameo appearance on The X-Files third-season episode "Pusher".

Other work

Musical projects and contributions

Grohl frequently participates in music projects apart from his main bands. In 1992, he played drums on Buzz Osborne's Kiss-styled solo-EP King Buzzo; he was credited as "Dale Nixon", a pseudonym that Greg Ginn adopted to play bass on Black Flag's My War. He also released the music cassette Pocketwatch under the pseudonym Late! on the now-defunct indie label Simple Machines.

In 1993, Grohl was recruited to help recreate the music of the Beatles' early years for the movie Backbeat. In 1993–94, he played drums in the Backbeat Band, an alternative rock supergroup that also included Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, indie producer Don Fleming, Mike Mills of R.E.M., Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum.

In 1994, Grohl played drums on two tracks for Mike Watt's Ball-Hog or Tugboat?. In early 1995, Grohl and Foo Fighters played their first US tour: the Ring Spiel Tour, opening for Watt and also playing, alongside Eddie Vedder, in Watt's supporting band.

In January 1997, Grohl played a few songs with David Bowie for Bowie's 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden.

In the early 2000s, Grohl spent time in his basement studio writing and recording several songs for Probot, a heavy metal music project, recruiting his favorite metal vocalists from the 1980s, including Lemmy of Motörhead, Conrad Lant from Venom, King Diamond, Scott Weinrich, Snake of Voivod and Max Cavalera of Sepultura. Probot released an album in 2004.

In 2003, Grohl stepped behind the kit to perform on Killing Joke's second self-titled album. This surprised some fans of Nirvana, which had been accused of plagiarizing the opening riff of "Come as You Are" from Killing Joke's 1984 song "Eighties". However, the controversy failed to create a lasting rift between the bands. Foo Fighters covered Killing Joke's "Requiem" during the late 1990s, and were joined by Killing Joke singer Jaz Coleman for a performance of the song at a show in New Zealand in 2003. Also in 2003, at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards, Grohl performed in an ad hoc supergroup with Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, and Steven Van Zandt in tribute to the recently deceased singer/guitarist Joe Strummer.

Television

Since his first appearance in 1992, Grohl has been a musical guest on Saturday Night Live 15 times—more than any other musician. He has appeared with Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Them Crooked Vultures, Mick Jagger, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Grohl has also appeared in several sketches on SNL. On October 13, 2007, he performed in the SNL Digital Short "People Getting Punched Just Before Eating". On February 6, 2010, he appeared as a middle-aged punk rock drummer reuniting the group "Crisis of Conformity" (fronted by Fred Armisen) after 25 years in a skit later on in the episode. On April 9, 2011, he appeared in the SNL Digital Short "Helen Mirren's Magical Bosom" and the sketch "Bongo's Clown Room".

In mid-2010, Grohl added his name to the list of contributing rock star voice cameos for Cartoon Network's heavy metal parody/tribute show, Metalocalypse. He voiced the controversial Syrian dictator, Abdule Malik, in the season 3 finale, Doublebookedklok.

In February 2013, Grohl filled in as host of Chelsea Lately for a week. Guests included Elton John, who disclosed on the E! show that he would appear with Grohl on the next Queens of the Stone Age album. Grohl had previously hosted the show during the first week of December 2012 as part of "Celebrity Guest Host Week".

On May 20, 2015, David Letterman selected Grohl and the Foo Fighters to play "Everlong" as the last musical guest on the final episode of Late Show with David Letterman. On December 1, 2015, Grohl appeared on an episode of The Muppets where he competed in a "drum off" with Animal.

Grohl appeared in the 50th anniversary season of Sesame Street in February 2019. On January 28, it was announced that the first authorized Dave Grohl documentary will be released via The Coda Collection. On October 8, Grohl was the guest storyteller on CBeebies Bedtime Story, reading a story based on the Beatles song "Octopus's Garden".

Filmmaking

Grohl directed the Foo Fighters music videos for "Monkey Wrench" (1997), "My Hero" (1998), "All My Life" (2002), "White Limo" (2011), and "Rope" (2011), as well as all the music videos from the Sonic Highways and Concrete and Gold era. Outside of Foo Fighters, he also filmed the music video for Soundgarden's "By Crooked Steps" (2014).

In 2013, Grohl produced and directed the documentary Sound City, about the history of the famed Sound City Studios recording studios in Van Nuys. The film, Grohl's feature-length directorial debut, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Accompanying the release of Sonic Highways, Grohl directed an eight-part documentary miniseries of the same name that chronicles the album's development and recording across eight different American cities. It premiered on HBO on October 17, 2014.

In 2021, Grohl directed What Drives Us, a feature-length documentary on van touring. It was released on April 30, 2021, on the Coda Collection via Amazon Prime.

Cal Jam

Inspired by California Jam, to celebrate the release of Foo Fighters' ninth studio album Concrete and Gold and begin their North American tour, Cal Jam 17, a music festival curated by Grohl and Foo Fighters, was held from October 6–7, 2017 at Glen Helen Amphitheater, with 27,800 attendees, 3,100 campers, and nine arrests. Cal Jam 18, held October 5–6, 2018 in San Bernardino, California, featured the Foo Fighters and a Nirvana reunion.

Musicianship and equipment

Grohl is a self-taught musician and cannot read musical notation, and instead plays only by ear. His drum kit, designed by Drum Workshop, features five different sized tom-tom drums ranging from 5x8 inches to 16x18 inches, a 19-inch crash cymbal, two 20-inch crash cymbals, an 18-inch China cymbal, a 24-inch ride cymbal, and a standard kick drum, snare drum, and hi-hat.

Grohl's primary recording guitar is an original cherry red Gibson Trini Lopez Standard that he bought in the early 1990s, while still with Nirvana, because he liked the different style of headstock and the diamond-shaped sound holes on what was otherwise an ES-335. Onstage during early Foo Fighters tours, Grohl played two Gibson Les Pauls, then relied primarily on a pair of black Gibson Explorers while touring for The Colour and the Shape, There is Nothing Left to Lose, and One by One.

Since 2017, Grohl's primary stage guitar has been his signature model Pelham Blue Gibson DG-335, which was designed by Gibson based on the Trini Lopez Standard specs, but in different colors, with a stop tailpiece instead of the Trini Lopez's trapeze tailpiece and PAF-style "Burstbucker" pickups. For the Foo Fighters' return in 2023, Grohl also began playing a DG-335 in a white finish, matching the aesthetics of But Here We Are. His primary acoustic guitar is a black Elvis Presley model Gibson Dove.

On early Foo Fighter records, Grohl used a 100-watt Marshall JCM800 amplifier along with a ProCo TurboRAT distortion pedal. He added a Boss DM-2 delay effect pedal and an MXR Micro Amp for the band's follow-up album. From There is Nothing Left to Lose onwards, Grohl has used a Vox AC30 for clean and slightly-overdriven tones and a succession of Mesa/Boogie amplifiers for fully distorted sounds. These included the Maverick and Heartbreaker models, and later on the Dual Rectifier Road King. After Wasting Light, Grohl added Fender Tonemaster and Hot Rod Deluxe models to his rig. Effects pedals he has added in the new millennium include the Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man delay, MXR Phase 90, and Xotic Effects EP Booster.

Advocacy, philanthropy and views

In May 2006, Grohl sent a note of support to the two trapped miners in the Beaconsfield mine collapse in Tasmania, Australia, who had survived the initial rockfall. In the initial days following the collapse, one of the men requested an iPod with the Foo Fighters album In Your Honor. In October 2006, one of the miners took up his offer, joining Grohl for a drink after a Foo Fighters acoustic concert at the Sydney Opera House. Following the event, Grohl wrote "Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners", an instrumental piece, which was included on Foo Fighters' 2007 release Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and features Kaki King.

He has worn a White Knot ribbon, a symbol of support for same-sex marriage, to various events; when questioned about the knot, he responded, "I believe in love and I believe in equality and I believe in marriage equality." Grohl's gay rights activism dates back to the early 1990s, when Nirvana performed at a benefit to raise money to fight Oregon Ballot Measure 9, which forbade governments in Oregon from promoting or facilitating homosexuality. Grohl participated in two counter-protests against the Westboro Baptist Church for their anti-gay stance: in 2011, by performing "Keep It Clean" on the back of a flatbed truck and in 2015, by Rickrolling them.

Despite growing up with a firearm, Grohl is an advocate for gun control. In a 2008 interview, Grohl said he had never used cocaine, heroin, or speed, and that he had stopped smoking cannabis and taking LSD at the age of 20. He contributed to a 2009 anti-drug video for the BBC. He has described himself as a coffee addict who drinks an average of six cups of coffee every morning; in 2009, he was admitted to a hospital with chest pains caused by a caffeine overdose.

Grohl supported Barack Obama's 2012 presidential campaign and performed "My Hero" at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Foo Fighters supported Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign and played at the "Celebrating America" concert during Biden's inauguration in 2021. In 2018, he said that Donald Trump "seems like a massive jerk". After Trump used the band's song "My Hero" at a rally in 2024 without their permission, a Foo Fighters spokesperson announced that the band would donate any royalties from the usage to the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign.

Personal life

In 1994, Grohl married Jennifer Leigh Youngblood, a photographer from Grosse Pointe, Michigan. They separated in December 1996 and divorced in 1997; Grohl admitted to infidelity. After divorcing Youngblood, Grohl briefly dated snowboarder Tina Basich. Basich ended the relationship after discovering his infidelity. From 1999 to 2001, Grohl dated former Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur. In 2003, he married Jordyn Blum; they had met at the Sunset Marquis Whiskey Bar in West Hollywood, California. They reside in Los Angeles and have three daughters, born in 2006, 2009, and 2014.

In September 2024, Grohl announced that he had fathered a daughter outside his marriage and asked his family for forgiveness. In March 2025, it was reported that Blum was willing to forgive Grohl and they were working on saving their marriage.

In a June 2011 interview, Grohl revealed that he was going deaf in his left ear due to decades of performing on stage. During his appearance on The Howard Stern Show in February 2022, he stated that he has hearing loss and that this has an impact on both his daily life and life as a musician; his tinnitus has forced him to read lips for about 20 years, a situation that became more difficult when people began wearing face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. When playing, he refuses to use in-ear monitors despite their ability to protect his ears because it "removes you from the natural atmosphere sound".

In 2012, Stereogum estimated Grohl as the third-wealthiest drummer, behind Ringo Starr and Phil Collins, with a fortune of $260 million. From 1993 to 1997, Grohl owned a house in Shoreline, Washington. In 2015, Grohl sold his 3,088-square-foot (286.9 m2) beachfront house in Oxnard, California, for $2.9 million.

Honors

In August 2009, Grohl was given the key to the city of Warren, Ohio, his birthplace, and performed the songs "Everlong", "Times Like These", and "My Hero". A roadway in downtown Warren named "David Grohl Alley" has been dedicated to him with murals by local artists.

In 2012, Grohl's hometown of Warren unveiled oversized 902 lb (409 kg) drumsticks, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest drumsticks in the world. They were also displayed on July 7, 2012, at a concert at the Warren Amphitheater. Grohl's first solo Rolling Stone cover story was published on December 4, 2014. In 2016, Grohl was ranked 27th on the list of the best drummers of all time by Rolling Stone. Grohl received the George and Ira Gershwin Award in 2024.

Discography

Solo

Pocketwatch (1992; as Late!)

Probot (2004; as Probot)

with Scream

No More Censorship (1988)

Fumble (1993)

with Nirvana

Nevermind (1991)

In Utero (1993)

with Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters (1995)

The Colour and the Shape (1997)

There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999)

One by One (2002)

In Your Honor (2005)

Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)

Wasting Light (2011)

Sonic Highways (2014)

Concrete and Gold (2017)

Medicine at Midnight (2021)

But Here We Are (2023)

Your Favorite Toy (2026)

with Queens of the Stone Age

Songs for the Deaf (2002)

with Them Crooked Vultures

Them Crooked Vultures (2009)

Filmography