A Nice Pair: Dave Grohl

Today’s A Nice Pair has a couple of Dave Grohl’s firsts in common. We’re pairing his first book, The Storyteller, with the self-titled debut album by the Foo Fighters.

Dave has always been a storyteller and he lays his life out on the page in his memoir. In his own words, “Though I have never been one to collect “stuff,” I do collect moments. So, in that respect, my life flashes before my eyes and through my ears every single day. In this book, I’ve captured some of them, as best I can. These memories, from all over my life, are full of music, of course. And they can be loud at times. Turn it up. Listen with me.”

The Foo Fighters first album was completely written and recorded by Dave Grohl with the assistance of producer Barrett Jones. He’d written lots of songs over the years but never had the confidence to share them until Nirvana disintegrated after Kurt Cobain’s death and Grohl was navigating his way through a crippling depression and trying to find a direction in life. Though it was mostly a critical and commercial success, most of the lyrics on Foo Fighters are nonsensical lines written by Grohl in the 20 minutes before recording began, though Grohl said the gibberish was deliberate, given that “there was too much to say” following Cobain’s death. In hindsight, he said “the things you write down spur of the moment are most revealing. Now I look at them and some of them seem to actually have meaning.”