The ex-Nirvana drummer reveals his feelings about his former band’s music
“For years I couldn’t even listen to any music, let alone a Nirvana song”, Grohl opens up to British GQ on how difficult it still is to listen to Nirvana, even almost 25 years after the band fell apart.
Although today Dave Grohl is now a bona fide rockstar post-Nirvana era thanks to his massive success with the Foo Fighters, he will always be known as the young energetic drummer for the Kurt Cobain-fronted 90s grunge rock icon, Nirvana.
The Seattle-based group was arguably one of the greatest bands of the 90s and sadly, had the most tragic end when Cobain committed suicide in 1994.
“When Kurt died, every time the radio came on, it broke my heart,” Grohl shares.
“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. 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,” Grohl added. “Not to seem revisionist, but there are times when it hits me. You go, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize he was feeling that way at the time.’”
Understandably, Grohl still finds it difficult to enjoy Nirvana’s music as it is tied down with many emotional experiences in his early days in the music industry. He says “those experiences became a footing or a foundation on how to survive.”