Dave Grohl shares lengthy tribute to his late father: "A true renaissance man"
Dave Grohl has shared a lengthy tribute to his late father via his ‘Dave’s True Stories’ Instagram account – you can read it in full below.
The Foo Fighters frontman launched the page back in March, setting out an aim to post some of the “ridiculous moments” from his past. “Sometimes I play drums. Sometimes I play guitar. Sometimes I tell stories,” Grohl said in an introductory message.
To mark Father’s Day, the musician yesterday (June 21) shared a touching tribute to his late father James Harper Grohl, who he described in the message as “a complicated man of many, sometimes-conflicting layers”.
“After all these years, this simple message, my first words of true validation as a fledgeling writer, has never left me. It echoes in my mind like a long canyon scream each time I sit down to a blank page, and inspired me to fill it with my true voice,” the passage began.
Later, Grohl said that his father was “an actor, writer, award-winning journalist, lover of art and food, and a ferocious, classically trained musician.
“A true Renaissance man, yet so conservative that he would sometimes be mistaken in public for the legendary political commentator George Will. All this and more, poured into a crisp, clean seersucker suit.”
He added: “Beyond all our differences, if there is one gene that I am most thankful for, it is the one that fueled my love for music, a love that long ago inspired me to give my father his first taste of my literary prowess: a runaway note that I left on his dining-room table in 1985.”
Grohl explained that he had discovered his “love of writing” thanks to his father, who he said was “my first, and best, reader”. As a result, he revealed that he’d “even considered trying my hand at writing a book someday”.
“Imagine that. Just call it ‘kicking the apple back up the hill a bit’. If only he were still around to read it.”
Eventually becoming “a full-fledged, hardcore punk-rock teenager”, Grohl recalled having “taken the hereditary generosity of my father’s musical abilities and mutated them into the antithesis of his classicly trained ear.”
The frontman explained that “he wanted nothing to do with the convention and formalities of becoming a classical musician”, adding: “I wanted noise. I wanted chaos. I wanted the sweat and grime of a crowded gig on a Saturday night…”
Grohl added: “I wanted to scream my voice hoarse, break every drumhead, and celebrate this disregard of ‘proper’ technique. I wanted maximum rock and roll.”
He then looked back on forming a “misfit” group of “suburban teens” called Mission Impossible: “Among us, we had enough teenage angst and energy to support every metropolitan power grid from Vegas to Virginia Beach.”
Later, Grohl remembered not being allowed to be in a band – “the one thing that I loved most in life” – by his father due to his low school grades. You can read the full post above.
Grohl also refected on Foo Fighters’ classic 2008 show at Wembley Stadium. The band played two night’s at the London venue, the second of which saw them bring out Led Zeppelin‘s Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.
