Dave Grohl on how Foo Fighters helped “exorcise” his soul after Kurt Cobain’s death

"I felt I had to do it – to exorcise something in my soul."

Dave Grohl has revealed how forming Foo Fighters helped him to “exorcise” his soul in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s tragic suicide.

The Foo Fighters frontman formed the rock giants in 1995, only a year after Cobain took his own life at the height of Nirvana’s success.

Now, Grohl has opened up on the “personal experience” of Nirvana, and how Cobain’s death would eventually shape the formation of Foo Fighters.

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“You have to understand for me, Nirvana is more than it is for you,” he told Hot Press.

“It was a really personal experience. I was a kid. Our lives were lifted and then turned upside down. And then our hearts were broken when Kurt died. The whole thing is much more personal than the logo or the t-shirt or the iconic image.”

Describing forming Foo Fighters in 1995, he added: “I felt I had to do it – to exorcise something in my soul.

“The intention of this band from day one has always been to keep the ball rolling: as musicians, as human beings, as friends. To feel like life keeps moving forward. We still feel like that every time we make a record – every time we step on stage. We feel like life is moving forward and that we’re not looking back.”

But despite eventually becoming one of the biggest rock bands in the world, Grohl also revealed that life in the Foo Fighters wasn’t always so glamorous.

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He recalled how he stayed at a friend’s house as he recorded second album ‘The Colour And The Shape’, which resulted in the friend’s dog taking an unwanted shine to his sleeping bag.

“I remember making that record while not having a place to live. I was sleeping in my friend’s back room in a sleeping bag. His dog would come in and piss on the sleeping bag every fucking night. The next day I’d go into the studio with [producer] Gil Norton and he’d make me do 30 or 40 takes”, he said.

“It was total fucking chaos. The fact we survived that means we could survive anything. I don’t even like to listen to that record. I love to play the songs live. But I listen back and it just gives me the fucking chills. It’s like, ‘Oh god, that dog was pissing on me every night’.”

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