Two of music’s greatest drummers-turned-frontmen have sat down for a one-on-one chat, with Dave Grohl and Ringo Starr discussing the loss of their iconic bandmates.
For many years, both Dave Grohl and Ringo Starr lived in the shadows of their band’s most famous frontman. For Grohl, it was Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, while Ringo served as the drummer for The Beatles, which saw John Lennon up the front on most occasions.
While Grohl kicked off the Foo Fighters following the passing of Cobain, Ringo began a solo career after The Beatles broke up in 1970. Now, only a few years after the pair became friends, the two drummers-turned-frontmen have sat down for a chat which has seen them discuss their former bandmates.
Taking part in the conversation for Rolling Stone, the pair began to discuss these great losses when Ringo Starr was asked about his initial opinions on Nirvana back in the day.
Check out Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’:
“Absolutely great, and the man himself [Kurt Cobain] had so much emotion,” he recalled. “That’s what I loved. I’m an emotional guy.
“No one can doubt Nirvana, ever. And who knew he’d end up where he ended up. I don’t think anyone who listened to music with any courage could doubt him, ’cause he was courageous.
“I don’t know the end story, and it’s not about him, and we lose a lot of people in our business early. And you think, ‘How harsh must it have been?’ I mean, ‘Why don’t you call me?’ You never know.
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“This is the famous 27-year syndrome. A lot of them went by 27, like it’s that number — what, had they got it all in by then? Or maybe that’s just the way God planned it; I don’t know.”
Continuing on, Ringo opened up about the day that he found out that John Lennon had been killed back in December of 1980.
“When John went, I was in the Bahamas,” he recalled. “I was getting a phone call from my stepkids in L.A. saying, ‘Something’s happened to John.’ And then they called and said, ‘John’s dead.’ And I didn’t know what to do.
“And I still well up that some bastard shot him. But I just said, ‘We’ve got to get a plane.’ We got a plane to New York, and you don’t know what you can do. We went to the apartment. ‘Anything we can do?’ And Yoko just said, ‘Well, you just play with Sean. Keep Sean busy.’ And that’s what we did. That’s what you think: ‘What do you do now?'”
Check out ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon:
As the conversation went on, Dave Grohl also addressed the topic of whether performing some of Kurt Cobain’s old songs helped him process the loss of his bandmate.
“Well, I realized when Kurt died that there’s no right or wrong way to grieve,” he explained. “It takes funny turns. You’ll be numb.
“You’ll remember the good things, then you’ll turn and remember some dark times. I stayed away from music for a while. I wouldn’t even turn on the radio. And then I eventually realized that music was the one thing that actually made me feel better. And music was gonna help me through that. So I started writing songs and recording them by myself.
“And it’s also difficult when one of your friends or someone that you’re very close to, in real life, has become something more than a human being to others. So you sit in an interview and someone asks you these questions that are really emotional, that you’d never ask another stranger.”
While April of 2019 marked 25 years since the passing of Kurt Cobain, December of 2020 will serve as 40 years since John Lennon was taken from us.
Check out Ringo Starr & Paul McCartney performing ‘Grow Old With Me’ by John Lennon:
