51 pages • 1 hour read
Dave GrohlThe Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
Dave GrohlNonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “The Moment”
Chapter 12 Summary: “He’s Gone”
Grohl’s life changed forever when he received a phone call telling him that Kurt died. He knew he would “never see his strange, flat fingers or his skinny elbows, or his piercing blue eyes” (181) again. Grohl was overcome with a deep sadness when suddenly, he received another call saying Kurt was still alive. Over a month later, Kurt was pronounced dead, and the finality of it was real. Grohl says these conflicting reports have affected him to this day, causing him to relive the hope of receiving a second call with better news each time he experiences a loss.
After he processed his grief healthily the first time, Grohl found himself unable to feel it when Kurt actually died. The idea of Kurt dying so young and having been such an amazing friend, father, artist, and person, left Grohl terrified of feeling the pain of loss again. After Kurt’s death, Grohl found himself struggling to cope. Today, Grohl knows that he will “always be that guy from Nirvana, and [he is] proud of it” (185). Although he only knew Kurt for a few years, the time changed Grohl—and the world—forever.
Grohl recounts another significant death in his life: that of his childhood best friend, Jimmy Swanson. In 2008, Grohl received news that Jimmy had died in his sleep. Grohl feels as if this death caused a part of him to die as well, because Jimmy was someone Grohl experienced most of his firsts in life with and who was always there for him. Grohl sees both Jimmy and Kurt as family and states that the bonds laid out by chosen family can sometimes be stronger than blood ties. He believes that people are to some extent programmed to grieve for their biological family, but that grieving for friends is quite a unique process: “But with friends, you design your own relationship, which in turn designs your grief, which can be felt even deeper when they are gone. Those can be roots that are much harder to pull” (187). Grohl looks back on these deaths and feels that he has grown and learned to remember his friends and smile, rather than grieve. Whenever Grohl sits in front of a drum set, he still sees Kurt standing in front of him, and when he visits Virginia, he feels the memories of Jimmy everywhere he goes. The chapter begins with a photo of Kurt smiling and ends with a photo of Jimmy shyly staring into the camera.
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Heartbreaker”
In 1994, Grohl received a phone call: Tom Petty wanted him to play drums for his SNL show. Grohl was blown away by the request and wondered why Tom Petty would choose him above anyone else. A year had passed since Kurt’s death, and Grohl was busy recording what would soon “become the first Foo Fighters record” (193) after a long moratorium from playing music at all. Over the previous year, Grohl had felt as if he was going in circles, unable to move forward or launch into another band after the rare gift that was Nirvana. Grohl decided to go to the Ring of Kerry in Ireland, a place he felt immediately connected to when he visited with his Irish mother a couple of years earlier. Although he was attempting to avoid his pain, Grohl found himself confronted with it when he saw a boy wearing a Kurt Cobain T-shirt on the side of the road. Realizing his past was a part of him and not something he could outrun, Grohl headed back to the United States.
As a young teenager, Grohl used to record his own music on cassette tapes using an old multitracking method of overlapping sounds. Grohl began recording again after grieving the deaths of Kurt and Jimmy, booking six days at Robert Lang Studios in Washington State. He gathered old recordings from his youth including some made with his old friend Barrett Jones, and he called Barrett to invite him to record with him. After recording 15 songs with Barrett, Grohl was getting his confidence back and agreed to perform with Tom Petty. Grohl made 100 copies of his new music and, inspired by his interest in UFOs, decided to name his new, currently solo group Foo Fighters after the “unexplained glowing balls of light” (199) seen by the military in the 1940s. Grohl met Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and found them to be relaxed, welcoming, and cool. Grohl enjoyed his short time with the band and was reminded of the joy and lightness that he once loved about music. Tom Petty offered to have Grohl join the band, but Grohl decided to risk it with his cassettes instead. He ends the chapter with a few lines from Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a Dream.”
Chapter 14 Summary: “Sweet Virginia”
Grohl skips ahead to when the second Foo Fighters album was released, in 1996. He was in the middle of buying a large plot of land in Virginia, where he grew up. Grohl asked his real estate agent for a 400-acre property, once again showing his naïve side. When she took him to a 100-acre property, he was shocked by its size of and was “humbled by the awe-inspiring beauty” (211). After seeing several more properties, Grohl realized he was not yet ready to settle into this comfortable life. He opted to buy a small house in a town and convert its basement into a recording studio.
As the Foo Fighters hit their stride and recorded their first album, several members came and went. Nate Mendel, the band’s bassist, quit for a day but came back, much to Grohl’s relief. Drummer Taylor Hawkins were Grohl are especially close, and as Grohl awaited the closing on his new home, he and Taylor took a trip to Los Angeles together. Grohl also recalls playing at Ozzfest at this time and having to follow Pantera, “the undisputed kings of metal” (214). After the show, Pantera invited the Foo Fighters to their private strip club in Dallas. The band made a special detour to go there, but Grohl lost his wallet and they never made it inside. Ten years later, Grohl was at a surf store with his daughter Violet when the cashier informed him that her parents had found his wallet. Grohl got his wallet back shortly thereafter, complete with mementos from that time of his life.
Grohl made his way back to Virginia and moved into his new house with his lifelong best friend Jimmy Swanson. His basement recording studio was completed the next spring. Soon after, the rest of the band moved into the house, and together they relaxed, smoked, and recorded music. The studio was minimalistic, which lent the same effect to the music the band made there. By that summer, the band had made what Grohl considers their best album: There Is Nothing Left to Lose. Grohl feels an immense sense of pride in the band’s ability to create their success from nothing. This was the first time in his adult life that he was making music solely because he wanted to, never because he had to.
Chapter 15 Summary: “This Is What I Wanted”
Grohl always envisioned family life and rockstar life as separate entities, never meant to combine. It was not until the Foo Fighters performed for the Neil Young Bridge School Benefit in 2000 that Grohl realized the two could co-exist. The benefit helped raise money for a school for children with special needs, like Neil Young’s son, Ben. Each year before the show, all the performing artists are invited to Neil Young’s home in the woods for a barbecue. When Grohl arrived in 2000, he found people like Brian Wilson and David Crosby inside, just hanging out. Neil Young’s kids were there as well, and Grohl realized that a musician could also lead a wholesome home life.
Grohl skips forward to 2006, when he was preparing for the birth of his first daughter, Violet, with his wife, Jordyn. He would talk to Violet in the womb and look forward to holding her. When the day finally arrived, Violet came out crying but stopped when she heard her father’s voice speaking to her. Grohl experienced the purest form of love he had ever known and found himself with the new challenge of “balancing the new life with the old” (235). As the years passed, Grohl learned to adjust to the pain and guilt of leaving his daughter behind on tour and soon found himself ready for another child. Three years after Violet, Harper was born, named after Grohl’s father and grandfather. Grohl started taking his children on tour, bringing home with him wherever he went.
When his third daughter, Ophelia, was born, Grohl invited Paul McCartney to his house to meet her. Despite his own fame, Grohl felt humbled by Paul’s presence in his home. Paul surprised Grohl with an impromptu performance of “Lady Madonna, and the next day, Grohl heard Harper playing the same song. Grohl felt as if he finally found what he wanted in life. Days later, Grohl’s father passed away, but not before Grohl flew out to visit him one last time. Despite their lack of communication throughout their lives, the two talked and assured their love for one another.
Part 3 Analysis
Grohl juxtaposes the gains in his life with the losses he experienced along the way, illustrating that the moments that change one’s life are not just the good times. Kurt Cobain and Jimmy Swanson, two best friends of Grohl’s, shaped his life both in their presence and in their deaths. Kurt’s death came as a shock to Grohl, especially after being mistakenly informed of his death once and effectively needing to grieve twice. With Kurt’s death, Grohl felt like he lost a piece of himself, a pattern that follows with later losses. When his lifelong best friend Jimmy dies, Grohl feels incomplete because his feelings for Jimmy were “a forever thing” (133). Grohl’s father’s death is also noted in the memoir, and although the two were never close, Grohl did visit his father before his death. They each confessed their love to one another after a lifetime of resentment and distance. These stories about loss emphasize the impact of human connection and relationships, whether positive or negative. Just as Grohl’s life and personality are framed by the people he knew, Grohl frames his chapter on grief with a photo of Kurt in the beginning, and a photo of Jimmy at the end.
Some of these huge moments arrive in the form of crossroads and difficult decisions, such leaving home to tour with Scream, or the decision to leave Scream for Nirvana. He finds himself at a crossroads again after Kurt’s death and the end of Nirvana, unable to bring himself to play music publicly for a year. Part 3 emphasizes the role of others in overcoming our grief in helping us find our path, underlining the book’s theme of people inspiring people. Grohl’s life circles back to his home state when he moves back to Virginia and in with his best friend Jimmy, and he begins having opportunities to meet and perform for important figures. Grohl pays homage to all of the musicians who inspired him to continue his music career and pursue his own sound, like Tom Petty and Pantera. Notably, the theme of people inspiring people is not simply about music, but about him growing into the man he wants to be. Similar to earlier chapters where his favorite musicians turn out to be friendly and down-to-earth, Tom Petty treats him like an old friend. Likewise, when he realizes rockstars like Neil Young, David Crosby, and Brian Wilson are family men, he learns that he doesn’t have to choose between his career and the family he’s always wanted.
As a father, he feels a new, deep and powerful love for his children, which tells him he’s on the right path. As with his career, fatherhood presents him with constant life-changing moments. His children present another crossroads for him, requiring him to balance fatherhood with a successful career as a musician. Grohl learns to “[balance] the new life with the old” (235), and feels more fulfilled than ever by his children. This perfect balance is represented by Paul McCartney’s visit to the family, one of the few celebrity interactions that’s mentioned outside of a performance context. Rather than family life stifling his career, it provides a new mode of connection between Grohl and other artists, and he gets the once-in-a-lifetime experience of a private performance of “Lady Madonna” because of a shared love and reverence for family between the two men.
Unlock all 51 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: