Having never heard the song, I followed along as best I could but had to wonder why the hell he was going to all the trouble of teaching me something that no one would ever hear. Maybe he was just lonely and wanted to jam? Maybe he was graciously making some no-name kid’s dream come true by inviting me to play along with him, knowing that it was a story I would get to tell for the rest of my life? As strange as it seemed, I kept focused on his strumming hand and locked into the arrangement, banging it out like we WERE in a sold-out stadium. We ended in unison on a triumphant final crash.
I was recently on a long road trip with my brother, Ken, and The Storyteller is the only one of the several audiobooks we listened to that I liked enough to want to log. Read engagingly and conversationally by Dave Grohl himself, he comes across as a likeable guy; and as he’s about the same age as me and my brother, the cultural touchstones Grohl references were all familiar to us and cemented rapport. Listening to this memoir is like talking to a stranger at a bar — a stranger with an interesting catalogue of stories dealing with coincidences and celebrity encounters (that opening passage is about being asked to jam with Iggy Pop at the Rivoli in Toronto when Grohl was the unknown teenage drummer for the indie punk band Scream: Grohl has countless stories like this) — and because he is a stranger, it’s understandable that he doesn’t get too personal; Grohl is also talking to strangers here, not a therapist or trusted confidante. This might not be what Nirvana (or even Foo Fighters) fans are looking for, and I had enough moments of irk to think of this as a 3.5 star “read”, but Grohl is just so undeniably likeable that I’m rounding up to four.
I noticed Paul McCartney out of the corner of my eye, chatting away with friends, and I couldn’t help but stare. There. He. Was. I don’t know what it feels like to see a UFO. I don’t know what it feels like to see a ghost. I don’t know what it feels like to see Bigfoot. But I know what it feels like to see Paul McCartney, and if that’s not a supernatural event, then I don’t know what is. I tried to avert my eyes, but it was no use. I was mesmerized.
Most of my moments of irk are referenced by this passage (which comes from a bonus story after the credits in the audiobook). I see many other reviewers were put off by Grohl’s habit of jumping around in time, which really didn’t bother me until this story — of being invited to the celebrity tribute concert for George Harrison and feeling out of place at the VIP afterparty until he saw some familiar faces. And when he mentions Paul McCartney here, it’s because it was the first time they met, even though we had already heard many stories of the two of them becoming the best of friends over the years (Sir Paul even gave Grohl’s daughter an impromptu piano lesson while visiting his home), and I realised I had no idea where in the timeline of Grohl's career this story occurred. More context would have helped.
I was also irked by Grohl’s persistent insistence that he’s surprised every time “real” celebrities know who he is. Just as he apparently couldn’t believe that Dhani Harrison would give him box seats to the tribute concert and access to that “Valhalla” of an afterparty, Grohl was shocked when Tom Petty asked him to back him on drums for an SNL performance, didn’t understand why he would be asked to play Blackbird at the 2016 Oscars (which Paul McCartney declared to be “cheeky” with a finger wag), or that Elton John would get out of his car and walk down the sidewalk to shake Grohl’s hand in London. Yes, Mr Grohl, just as you get excited to meet Little Richard and Joan Jett, it’s hard to believe that you’re always surprised when other musicians are excited to meet you.
And I was also a little irked to realise that Grohl is a bit flaky. He believes that he manifested his eventual success during a teenaged ceremony before his literal shrine to John Bonham, he used a ouija board to contact the spirits haunting his Seattle home, and he shares the fact that a French psychic once told him that his lifelong dreams of alien abduction are no dreams (which begs the question of why this former resident of the Pacific Northwest also denies ever seeing Bigfoot in the last passage…) I also found his nonstop alcohol consumption to be flaky: it’s not counterculture punk to complain about being charged with a DUI when you actually blow over the limit, even if you’re driving a moped that you consider to be “as much of a motor vehicle as a riding lawn mower” (which is also illegal to drive down the street while impaired; I don’t care how high you think your “tolerance” is.) Honestly: Grohl seems to drink a lot (his pre-show ritual includes three Advil, three beers, and a shot of Crown Royal), and this constant reference to unexamined excess feels flaky.
On the other hand: you get the sense that Grohl totally earned his place in the rock ‘n roll pantheon. He had an authentic early connection with music, practised drumming on pillows in his childhood bedroom (where he had no space for an actual drumset) ‘til his fingers bled, dropped out of high school to tour with Scream with his mother’s qualified blessing (“YOU'D BETTER BE GOOD”) and his absent Republican speechwriter father’s condemnation (“AND STAY OFF THE DRUGS!!!”), sleeping in a van as they toured the country and then the world, surviving on the three-for-ninety-nine-cents corn dog special at the local gas station while jamming with the yet-to-break-through Nirvana. Kurt Cobain was only one of the close friends that Grohl would lose over the years (and the book was written before Taylor Hawkins’ sudden death), and overall, I was left glad that it all worked out for this relatable, likeable, hard-working guy. He earned this.
I firmly believe that your understanding or “version” of love is learned by example from day one, and it becomes your divining rod in life, for better or worse. A foundation for all meaningful relationships to stand upon. I surely have my mother to thank for mine. I LOVE MY CHILDREN AS I WAS LOVED AS A CHILD. AND I PRAY THAT THEY WILL DO THE SAME WHEN THEIR TIME COMES. SOME CYCLES ARE MEANT TO BE BROKEN. SOME ARE MEANT TO BE REINFORCED.
(I also read reviews in which people were bothered by Grohl’s frequent use of all-caps. Having listened to this on audio, I wasn’t affected by them, so I was surprised to see that this passage included all-caps in this way; make of them what you will.) Many of the stories here are about Grohl’s mother and daughters (curiously, others — like his wife and sister — are only mentioned in passing), and I think that this cycle of love and support is the main message that Grohl wanted to get across in The Storyteller. This isn’t really a no-holds-barred rock ‘n roll memoir (although there are plenty of rock-related stories), and this isn’t really an introspective and intimate examination of a life (although I now know more about Dave Grohl than I ever expected to), but if you met a stranger at a bar — congenially knocking back Coors Light and tequila shots — who spent the evening telling you a bunch of crazy-but-true stories, a stranger who has spent a long time on the road and might therefore be forgiven for wanting to show you pictures of his family, you’d probably have a pretty good time. And I had a pretty good time with this. Audiobook recommended.
