Kurt Cobain - Despite impressing Cobain and Novaselic with his drumming chops and becoming
one of the biggest drummers of the 90’s with his work on Nevermind and In-Utero, Cobain
and Grohl’s relationship went through a lot of ups and downs.
Grohl would be the band’s sixth drummer by the time he joined the group.
By the time Grohl joined the group in 1990 the band already released their debut record
Bleach and were wanting a new drummer with Cobain telling an interviewer Krist [Novoselic]
and I have been playing together for about four and a half years now with a few different
drummers.
Dave has been in the band for about a year.
This is the first time we've felt like a very definite unit.
The band is finally complete because all the other drummers we had pretty much sucked."
Despite musically sharing similar interests there was always a feeling of tension even
from the early days as Grohl told the big issue in 2021 , "When I first met Kurt [Cobain]
and Krist ... musically, it was a match made in heaven.
But personally, it was a bit off, to be honest.
Of course we loved each other.
We were friends.
But, you know, there was a dysfunction in Nirvana that a band like Foo Fighters doesn't
have."
As the years went on Grohl and Cobain’s relationship only grew strained.
In 2005 Grohl told Rolling Stone I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this, but there
were times when Kurt was really unhappy with the way I played drums.
I could hear him talking about how much he thought I sucked.
But he’d never say it to me.
If I’d confront him about it – ‘Is there a problem?
If you want me to leave, just ask’ – he’d say ‘No, no, no.’
Most of that happened later, around ‘In Utero’ (the band’s last studio album,
released in 1993).
That’s when I think Kurt became unhappy with what was happening in the band.”
He would reveal that as the band began rehearsals for their final studio album in-utero he overheard
Kurt wanting to hire a new drummer in Dan Peters and fire Grohl during a plane ride.
Grohl offered to quit the band only to be reassured by the band’s manager they wanted
him to stay on as the drummer.
In 200 Adding to the tension was Cobain’s substance abuse.
Grohl would tell Howard Stern in 2011 that things came apart in the band at the end as
there were two camps, those who did drugs and those who didn’t.
He was part of the camp that didn’t.
Cobain would suffer a near fatal overdose in Rome, Italy in March of 1994 after the
band cancelled their tour.
Grohl would write in his book Storyteller upon hearing of Cobain’s near fatal overdose
in Italy, one month before his death “He was gone.
The shy young man who had offered me an apple upon our first introduction at the Seattle
airport was gone.
My quiet, introverted roommate who I'd shared a tiny little apartment with in Olympia was
gone.
The loving father who played with his beautiful baby daughter backstage every night before
each show was gone.
I was overcome with a more profound sadness than I had ever imagined."
Courtney Love - The feud between Courtney Love and Dave Grohl would last for nearly
two decades, especially after the demise of Nirvana in the mid 90’s.
It’s been said that Grohl has written several songs directed at love including I’ll Stick
Around, Stacked Actors and Let It Die.
The feud would escalate in the early 2000’s as both Love and Grohl and former nirvana
Bassist Krist Novaselic sued and countersued each other regarding business over Nirvana’s
royalties and unreleased material.
Things got so ugly between the pair that Grohl and Novaselic tried to get a judge to order
Courtney Love to get a psychiatric evaluation.
Love would later accused Grohl of hitting on her daughter Frances Bean something even
her daughter denied every appended.
Things appeared to finally cool down during Nirvana’s induction into the rock n’ roll
hall of fame in 2014 when Grohl and Love hugged on stage.
William Goldsmith - Dave Grohl would start his own band Foo Fighters in the mid 90’s
and while he played almost all of the instruments on the group’s first album, he needed a
band to hit the road to support the record.
He would end up enlisting the rhythm section of the group Sunny Day Real Estate who had
just broken up.
This included bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith.
While the tour seemed to be fine, it was the recording sessions for the group’s second
record The Colour and the Shape where Goldsmith and Grohl clashed.
Due to Grohl’s drumming background, he revealed in the 2011 documentary Back and Forth, that
when he’s writing a song, he already has an idea of what the drummer should be playing
so Goldsmith was under extra scrutiny during the writing and recording of the album.
The sessions proved to be expensive and time consuming as Grohl was unhappy with the quality
of the music initially.
The band decided to take a break over the Christmas holidays in 1996 and reconvene in
the new year.The band minus Goldsmith reconnected in Los Angeles in February of 1997 to re-record
the entire album.
Grohl re-recorded all of the drum parts with the exception of two songs including “Doll”
and “Up in Arms.”
Grohl and Norton didn’t feel as if the drumming was up to snuff and Goldsmith who was up in
Seattle at the time, even contacted the band to see if he should fly down to LA, but Grohl
told him was busy doing overdubs.
Nate Mendel would break the news to Goldsmith that Grohl was re-recording most of the drum
parts.
Angered and upset, Goldsmith left the band by the end of 1997, even though Grohl wanted
him to tour with the group.
Upon hearing the final versions of the drum tracks on the sophomore record, Goldsmith
told the Daily Mail in 2017, “The versions Dave did were very similar.
I am not saying I am an amazing drummer – the work that I did was not bad.”
Since the split Goldsmith has claimed Grohl has never reached out to him to talk about
what happened.
Noel Gallagher - The members of Foo Fighters have long expressed their fondness for the
british band oasis.
They had shared some of the same festival bills with oasis during the 2000’s but after
the band’s breakup in 2009 Foo Fighters would express their hope that the Gallagher
brothers would make up and reunite Oasis.
In 2019 at the Reading Festival Foo Fighters would tell the audience that they should sign
a petition to get Oasis backtogether, which was met with a positive reception from the
audience.
Noel Gallagher who was now playing with the his band The High Flying Birds got wind of
the story and told an audience during a gig in California that they should start a petition
to breakup foo fighters and in an interview around the time criticized foo fighters music
as he stated here.
Taylor Hawkins - Despite being the best of friends the bandmates also had some bumpy
times, most notably during the recording of the group’s fourth album One by One.
It was in 2001 the band was out on the road playing some shows in Europe when Hawkins
suffered a near fatal overdose following a gig.
In the documentary Back and Forth Hawkins revealed that once the band assembled to record
One by One the band was not gelling in the studios and Grohl was splitting his time between
the Foo’s and playing drums in Queens of the Stone Age.
Grohl was upset that Hawkins hadn’t seen him play in Queens of the Stone Age and Hawkins
was upset that Grohl was acting selfish.
The band would play Coachella in 2002 and planned for the gig to be their last.
But following the gig, the band gave recording their fourth album another shot and the band
kept going for the next two decades.
The Cult - Unbeknownst to a lot of people there existed some bad blood between The Cult
and Dave Grohl.
It all stemmed from an interview Grohl gave around the year 2000 when the cult were working
on their comeback album Beyond Good and Evil.
Grohl told alternative press that around the new millennium he went to concert the Cult
were playing on a dare.
He would add he thought the band’s music was overprioduced and their live show was
so tortuous he wanted to shoot himself.
The Cult frontman Ian Astbury got wind of the comments and it was during the recording
of Beyond Good and Evil they had tentatively titled one song ‘Bring Me The Head of Dave
Grohl.’
The members of the Cult were taken aback by the comments considering they were big fans
of Grohl.
They of course didn’t use the title when the song came out.
Then 16 years later while the Cult and Foo Fighters were playing the same festival on
the same day in Portugal Astbury revealed Grohl buried the hatchet telling vanyaland:
“He walked into our dressing room, walked straight up to me, and said, ‘Hi, I’m
David Grohl.
It’s really nice to meet you.
Because I’m not sure what happened in the past, but hopefully we can put all that behind
us, and I just want to say great to meet you.’
I shook the man’s hand.
I have no problem with him.
He’s an incredible artist.
There’s room for everybody.
If you don’t like it, don’t listen to it.
But don’t put down a fellow artist, ever.
I’m sure there have been times when I’ve said slight things about artists and later
have gone away and gone, like, ‘Why did I say that?
Was I jealous?
Was it just a brain fart?'”