The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music published by Dey Street Books a HarperCollins imprint and out Oct. 5 / 2021, the book is described as a celebration of music and a collection of life stories from the legendary rocker.
From childhood mishaps and adolescent adventures to stories about his time in Nirvana and Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl is promising to cover his life’s craziest and most touching moments.
A collection of memories of a life lived loud. From his early days growing up in the suburbs of Washington, DC, to hitting the road at the age of 18, and all the music that followed, He can now share these adventures with the world, as seen and heard from behind the microphone.
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About The Author Dave Grohl
American rock musician, songwriter, and record producer David Eric Grohl (born January 14, 1969) is the founder of Foo Fighters, for whom he is the vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter. He was Nirvana’s drummer from 1990 to 1994.
After Kent Stax left Scream in 1987, Grohl took his place as the band’s 17-year-old drummer. After Scream disbanded in 1990, Grohl became the drummer for Nirvana. Nirvana’s second album, Nevermind (1991), was the first to include Grohl on drums and became a worldwide sensation.
Following the death of lead singer Kurt Cobain in April 1994, Grohl formed Foo Fighters as a one-man project. A full band was formed to tour and record under the Foo Fighters name in 1995, and they have released ten studio albums.
Dave Grohl is a drummer for the rock supergroup Them Crooked Vultures, as well as Queens of the Stone Age. He has been a member of Late! and Probot, among other bands.
Dave Grohl began directing Foo Fighters music videos in 1997 and produced his debut documentary, Sound City, in 2013. In 2014, the six-part miniseries Sonic Highways (that was followed by a sequel in 2021) and the feature film What Drives Us were released. Grohl published a book about his life and career, The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, in 2021.
In 2022, Grohl and the Foo Fighters appeared in the comedy horror Studio 666. Ken Micallef of Classic Rock Drummers called him one of the most important rock musicians of the previous 20 years in 2010.
Dave Grohl was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of Nirvana in 2014, and as a member of Foo Fighters in 2021.
About The Storyteller
On social media, Dave Grohl, the twice-inducted Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member for his work with Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, has chosen to discuss his life and music.
If it had not been for the pandemic, this book would never have happened.
The book was made possible after these stories came together on social media. Having lived through and witnessed a wide range of things, his stories range from the halcyon days of Nirvana to now as a Foo Fighter.
Clearly, this is a fantastic fan book, but it’s also an incredible study of the grunge era and rock scene in the 1980s and beyond.
The #1 New York Times Bestseller * One of Variety’s Best Music Books of 2021 * A Business Insider Best Memoirs of 2021 * NME’s Best Music Books of 2021.
So, I’ve written a book.
For years, I’ve been kicking the idea around and trying out a few dubious opportunities; “It’s a snap! I’ll get to work on editing the stories, which I’ll be doing on my own hand (rather than hiring someone to do it for me). I’ve chosen to write these tales as I have done previously.
I’m a huge lover of music, and I often feel the same joy when listening to my own songs that I used to get while reading my old school notes or hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a youngster.
It doesn’t imply I’m quitting my day job, but it does provide me with a venue to shed light on what it’s like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, who is living out his wild ambitions as a musician.
From hitting the road with Scream at the age of 18 to my years in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or performing at the Academy Awards, dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty, or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance encounter with Little Richard to flying halfway around the world for one fantastic night with my daughters…the list goes on.
I am looking forward to focusing the lens through which I view these experiences somewhat more clearly for you, with a lot of enthusiasm.
Details
Title: The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
Pages: 384 pages
Published: October 5, 2021
Publisher: HarperCollins
Language: English
Appropriate for ages: All ages
Contents
- Endpapers
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction: Turn It Up
- Part One: Setting the Scene
- DNA Doesn’t Lie
- The Heartbreak of Sandi
- The Scars Are on the Inside
- Tracey Is a Punk Rocker
- John Bonham Séance
- Part Two: The Buildup
- You’d Better Be Good
- Sure, I Wanna Be Your Dog!
- Every Day Is a Blank Page
- It’s a Forever Thing
- We Were Surrounded and There Was No Way Out
- The Divide
- Part Three: The Moment
- He’s Gone
- The Heartbreaker
- Sweet Virginia
- This Is What I Wanted
- Part Four: Cruising
- Crossing the Bridge to Washington
- Down Under DUI
- Life Was Picking Up Speed
- Swing Dancing with AC/DC
- Inspired, Yet Again
- Part Five: Living
- Bedtime Stories with Joan Jett
- The Daddy-Daughter Dance
- The Wisdom of Violet
- Conclusion: Another Step in the Crosswalk
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
The Storyteller – Plot
Many of us secretly desire to believe that being well-known is unpleasant and famous people are unhappy. Dave Grohl is here to reassure you that it’s really fantastic, as he is an avatar of suburban averageness and a happy puppy in human form. “Believe me,” he assures in his pleasant new book, “The Storyteller,” life as a rock star is “all that it’s cracked up to be and more.”
Be cautious if you’re searching for score-settling or dirt-dishing: “The Storyteller” isn’t that type of novel. Grohl spends considerably more time rhapsodizing about his failed cross-country trip to visit a strip club owned by metal gods Pantera (yes, Pantera has its own strip club and, yes, it’s in Texas) than he does on his entire first marriage, which he only alludes to.
Grohl was reared by a single mother who taught public school in Fairfax County, Va., and still is his closest friend. He is awkward-looking (“Barney Fife with a skateboard”) and prone to gaffes, according to his own admission.
He is run over by a car, struck with a golf club, thrown into the Potomac without a life jacket, and falls off the stage in Sweden throughout “The Storyteller.”
Otherwise, it’s a largely ideal childhood until Grohl falls in love with Sandi, a fellow sixth-grader who is more beautiful than Cheryl Tiegs. He was “the most beautiful girl in the world,” he remembers with delight, “or at least in our grade.” They have been dating for a week when she tells him rationally that she isn’t ready for a relationship.
Grohl’s life is devastated when his girlfriend, Sandi, who has already commissioned an altar to Sandi in her driveway, leaves him for a younger man. Grohl vows to devote his life to rock-and-roll and eventually local hardcore legends Scream after losing the love of his life.
He leaves high school to tour with them, ushering in a lengthy period of punk rock dues-paying that eventually leads to Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic, two-thirds of the up-and-coming band Nirvana, who are strangers in need of a new drummer.
“The Storyteller” is a restrained, yet powerful, account of Cobain’s final days and the rootless aftermath. “I was only twenty-five years old, with a whole life ahead of me, but I felt like my life had come to an end as well”. Grohl says about himself. “I was too young to fade away but too old to begin again.”
Dave Grohl formed his own band, Foo Fighters, and swiftly found a niche as the stadium rockers Nirvana never had an opportunity to achieve. The constant changes in the band’s membership might be evidence of something problematic beneath its apparent polish, but Grohl doesn’t dig any deeper.
Grohl was born in the suburbs and eventually returns there. He is committed to living as a devoted father in the San Fernando Valley, where he travels 16 time zones in two days so that he does not miss his daughter’s school dance. Even though his children abandon him to hang out with their friends, and he gets food poisoning on the flight home, Grohl says that he makes it on time and it’s a happy night he’ll remember forever.