Rating: 5/5
When you’re a musician, one of the biggest parts of your job is touring. Going out on stage every night to hundreds of thousands of screaming fans who are all singing your words back to you. Running around to every corner of the stage, feeding off the energy of the audience. It’s a beautiful moment for two and a half hours, and then you get to go and do it all over again in a new city for months on end. But what happens when a global pandemic hits, putting a pause on live music with no end in sight? If you’re Dave Grohl, you put pen to paper and write.
Grohl, who is best known as the former drummer of Nirvana and lead singer of Foo Fighters, said when COVID-19 hit he was faced with “life’s greatest fear: Nothing to do.” And at the risk of going stir-crazy from not performing or touring, he decided to write a book. Enter: The Storyteller.
In his new memoir, Grohl chronicles everything from his early years living in Virginia where he first learned to play drums on pillows, to his decision to leave school and become the drummer for punk band Scream, to the eventual mainstream success he achieved with Nirvana and Foo Fighters. In between, he shares his discovery of punk rock music as a kid, wild touring tales and fatherhood. He interjects a number of different stories, with about 4-5 mini stories per chapter, that all some how connect back to the main one that the chapter started with. It can sometimes feel a little jumpy, but then again, the book is called The Storyteller.
What makes this book special is at its core, it’s not about Dave the drummer from Nirvana or Dave the singer of the Foo Fighters. It’s about Dave the person. Grohl writes his reflections in an honest and humbling way, that in some parts you forget that he’s this incredibly successful artist, and you begin to see a more human side to him. These moments are told as if you were just two people having coffee and saying ‘hey remember when…’
On the flip side, Grohl recounts a lot of celebrity encounters that want to make you go, ‘oh my god, as if!’ Including, but not limited to, Paul McCartney visiting Dave’s newborn and before leaving, playing Lady Madonna on the piano. Joan Jett reading bedtime stories to his daughters. While as the drummer for Scream, Iggy Pop inviting him to play drums at a promo release party at the Rivoli in Toronto. Playing SNL with Tom Petty. And while all of these moments can earn you major bragging rights, Grohl instead ends each story with so much gratitude for how all of these artists played a part in inspiring him to be the musician he has become today.
The Storyteller is an engaging, insightful, funny and emotional memoir that reinforces that you can go after whatever you want in life. And that even though it’s not an easy road, if your passion is there, you can make it happen.