Dave Grohl has never made much of a secret about how seriously Kurt Cobain’s suicide affected him. Now, the former drummer of Nirvana has revealed touching insight into how he felt writing about his ex-bandmates death as part of his memoir The Storyteller.
“First of all, I knew what people wanted me to write,” Grohl told Amanpour & Co, explaining that the final chapter about Cobain’s death was the biggest challenge of crafting the memoir.
“I think that people have a lot of unanswered questions — as do I. So I decided to write in a much broader emotional sense — the process of loss or grief and mourning, and how that’s determined and how it differs from person to person. Yeah, it was a tough one to write,” he continued.
Grohl joined Cobain and Krist Novoselic in Nirvana from 1990 until Cobain’s untimely death in 1994. Grohl has said in the past that Cobain was far more than a bandmate to him, and has called Cobain’s death was one of his “life’s greatest heartbreaks”. The Foo Fighters front man has spoken openly and extensively about the pain he has felt since Cobain’s passing, so he knew that fans would expect some insight into the matter is his memoir.
“I was scared to write it,” Grohl said of the chapter that touches on Cobain’s death. “It’s one thing to write about getting stitches when you’re 12 years old or it’s one thing to write about taking your kids to the daddy-daughter dance. It’s another thing to write about something that you’ve barely spoken about with people close to you. I mean, I revealed some things in that story that I’ve never told my closest friends. I was scared to write it.”
Earlier this month Grohl spoke about Cobain’s death during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show and revealed that a hitchhiker wearing a Kurt Cobain T-shirt helped him come to terms with his friends death.
“When Kurt died and it all ended I didn’t know what to do with my life. I couldn’t listen to music anymore because it hurt too much so I tried to escape and went to Ireland to soul search.
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“I was trying to figure out my life when I picked up a hitchhiker who was wearing a Kurt Cobain t-shirt and I thought, ‘Even in this remote place I can’t outrun life’.
“So I went home and started over with the Foo Fighters. I needed to survive and get on with life.”
Dave Grohl’s memoir The Storyteller is out now. You can find out more about the book, and where to purchase it here.
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Watch ‘ The Man Who Sold The World’ (MTV Unplugged) by Nirvana:
