Dave Grohl has revealed he was ready to disappear from the music world after his Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain’s death — until a strange moment on a quiet Irish road convinced him to keep going.
Trying to escape the grief following the tragic suicide of the frontman in April 1994, aged 27, the band’s drummer rented a car and drove the Ring of Kerry, hoping to vanish for a while.
Grohl said all he wanted to do was “disappear,” but then something stopped him in his tracks.
Speaking on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, he admitted: “When Nirvana ended, I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t know if I wanted to continue playing music. It made me sad to think of playing in another band. Losing Nirvana, losing Kurt was a really dark, emotional experience.”
As he travelled down a country road, he spotted a hitchhiker wearing a Kurt Cobain T‑shirt, and he saw it as a sign to get back into music.
He recounted: “As I was driving down this country road, I see a hitchhiker, and he had a Kurt Cobain T-shirt on.
“To me, I thought, this is the universe telling me, ‘You have to continue. You have to move on. You have to go forward.'”
Soon after, he formed Foo Fighters, who released their debut album in 1995.
He told the show: “Music has always been the love of my life; it’s helped me through some of my most difficult moments. And when I saw the kid with the Kurt Cobain T-shirt, I thought, I need to keep going. I have so much reverence and respect for the past, but I need to have a future.”
Tragedy struck again when the band’s beloved drummer, Taylor Hawkins, died suddenly in 2022, aged 50.
Amidst the tumultuous period in his life – which also included confessing he had fathered a child outside of his marriage – the 57-year-old musician underwent “70 weeks of therapy”.
He told The Guardian newspaper: “I’ve been in therapy six days a week for 70 weeks. I did the math the other day: over 430 sessions.”
More than three decades since the heavy rock band’s debut, Foo Fighters are preparing to unleash their 12th studio album, Your Favorite Toy, on April 24.