Dave Grohl became estranged from his father when he chose to become a musician.
The 52-year-old star has recalled how his late newswriter dad, James Grohl, “wouldn’t allow” him to become a rock star because he was failing at school and it caused a major rift between the pair.
Speaking at London’s Savoy Theatre this week to promote his new memoir ‘The Storyteller: Tales Of Life And Music’, he said: “Around the time of my parents’ divorce I discovered music. I learned to play the drums.
“I even tried my hand at being a promoter. I was not allowed to play music because my grades were so bad. My father would say to me, ‘Don’t call yourself a musician just because you play an instrument’.
“So I wasn’t allowed to be a musician. We had that painfully awkward conversation about what I was going to do with my life. I didn’t know what to say but I knew this was it. I wrote a runaway note. This began the separation between my father and I.
“He called me the next morning and said, ‘Don’t ever do that again’. And I said, ‘I don’t have to.'”
The Foo Fighters frontman also recalled how he was broke when he joined Nirvana with late Grunge legend Kurt Cobain and had to ration himself to three “corn dogs” a day.
He shared: “There was no food. There was a gas station across the road that sold three corn dogs for 99 cents. I learnt to budget three corn dogs a day. We were writing songs every day. Kurt was so prolific.”
Kurt died by suicide in 1994, aged 27, and Dave admitted he was so “numb”, he couldn’t listen to music, let alone play instruments.
He admitted: “When Kurt died, I was lost. I was totally numb. I turned off the radio, I put my instruments away and I couldn’t bear it. I needed to disappear and get away.”
The ‘Learn to Fly’ hitmaker formed Foo Fighters a short while following the dissolution of Nirvana – also comprising Krist Novoselic – and admitted the group saved his life.
Dave added: “I picked 15 of my favourite songs I had written and recorded by myself. I called it Foo Fighters because I wanted people to think it was a band. I handed them out to 100 people. And I thought, this is it. This is what will save my life.”