Dave Grohl still doesn't play Nirvana records 24 years after Kurt Cobain’s death
Foo Fighters lynchpin Dave Grohl says he still struggles to listen to his former band Nirvana.
In a wide-ranging interview with GQ Magazine, Dave said that in the aftermath of Kurt’s death in April 1994 he stopped imbibing music altogether.
“For years I couldn’t even listen to any music, let alone a Nirvana song,” Dave explained. “When Kurt died, every time the radio came on, it broke my heart.”
Although almost a quarter of a century has passed, Dave said he still doesn’t play Nirvana’s music but when he does hear it out and about it brings the memories flooding back.
“I don’t put Nirvana records on, no. Although they are always on somewhere. I get in the car, they’re on. I go into a shop, they’re on,” Dave said.
“For me, it’s so personal. I remember everything about those records; I remember the shorts I was wearing when we recorded them or that it snowed that day. Still, I go back and find new meanings to Kurt’s lyrics. Not to seem revisionist, but there are times when it hits me. You go, ‘Wow, I didn’t realise he was feeling that way at the time.’”
Reflecting back on how Nirvana shaped him, Dave added: “Nirvana, for me, was a personal revolution. I was 21. You remember being 21? You think you know it all. But you don’t. I thought I knew everything. And being in Nirvana showed me how little I really knew.
“They were some of the greatest highs of my life, but also, of course, one of the biggest lows. Those experiences became a footing or a foundation on how to survive.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Dave said he was “ashamed” of President Donald Trump, explaining: “I’ve probably travelled internationally more than our current president and the one thing I understand that he doesn’t is that the world isn’t as big as you think it is. It is all in your neighbourhood.
“India, Asia, Iceland aren’t other solar systems. I am ashamed of our president. I feel apologetic for it when I travel.”
He continued: “Listen, who cares what I think about guns or religion, but the thing about Trump that stings the most is this: he just seems like a massive jerk. Right?
“I know a lot of wonderful people who don’t share my politics and you can bet tomorrow night in the stadium not everyone will share the same opinion or hold the same views. But when I sing ‘My Hero’ they will all sing it with me. In the three hours that I am on stage, none of that matters.”
Foo Fighters play three sold out shows in Manchester and London next month.