Weekend Book Review: The Storyteller

The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
Format: Hardback Pages: 387

Genre: Memoir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“When your heart, mind, and soul cannot control or refuse the desire to create a sound, or lyric, or rhythm, and you are helpless against the burning impulse to purge these inner demons, you are forever committed to chasing the next song. If it weren’t such a sublime affliction, it could very well be considered a curse.”

This is the core of Dave Grohl, as he describes in his memoir, The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music. It is about his life and evolution as a musician, but more than anything it is an ode to passion and an artist’s odyssey. Throw in a gift for writing and storytelling and this book makes for great reading.

Each chapter in this five-part story is like a song, with a hook in the beginning that is circled back to like a delicious refrain. His writing is an extension of his gift for making music. He describes his childhood in Springfield, Virginia and how he first discovered his passion for music in a jazz joint in Washington DC that he and his mother would visit on Sunday afternoons. He shares his conversion experience in a dive bar in Chicago as a teen where he was baptized into punk culture by the band Naked Raygun. He reveals how a flyer posted outside a music store was the ticket to him dropping out of high school, joining one of his favorite bands as a drummer and touring the country in a van, trading a diploma for priceless life experiences. And of course, he describes how this led to him meeting Kurt Cobain and joining Nirvana and the life-changing wave that swept him up and spit him out, shaken but unfazed.

He goes on. And the book goes on to describe life after Nirvana; a life that is equally stacked with achievements and adventures. The origination of the Foo Fighters and the other side projects he takes on to satisfy his creative appetite. His life on the road. And arguably his most important achievement, his family: wife Jordyn and three daughters, Violet, Harper and Ophelia.

Being an accomplished rock star also brings with it its share of tragedies and he speaks candidly about grief and losing close friends. “You cannot choose family, and when you lose family, there is a biological imperative that implies a built-in type of mourning. But with friends, you design your own relationship., which in turn designs your grief, which can be felt even deeper when they are gone. Those can be roots that are much harder to pull.” There was a glimmer of foreboding in these words that broke my heart as a reader, knowing another one of his closest friends and Foo Fighters drummer, Taylor Hawkins, would die not long after this book was published.

However, I know that Grohl will persevere, whatever is put before him, as this storyteller constantly affirms his gratitude for his life experiences and his love for his family and friends. He shares stories of meeting his personal rock legends and heroes, and the magic of seeing someone go from one-dimensional to flesh and bone. He chronicles amazing anecdotes and tosses them out like candy flying from a busted pinata, inviting us to take it all in…gobble it all up. We have a front row seat to his own nerves and struggles with performing. He reflects on playing for Barack and Michelle Obama as part of a Fourth of July celebration at the White House. “I began to imagine a worse-case scenario: a crippling anxiety attack… And then something came over me. I decided not to waste this moment.” How profound, that one can choose to overcome the mind games and instead, enjoy.

He shares his inspiration, and in turns inspires the reader, so much so that I was prompted to pop in my ear buds, turn on the Foo Fighters and set out on a Saturday morning run, much farther than I thought I could go. It’s times like these we learn to live again. Thanks Dave, for sharing your journey. And on that note, here’s one more piece of magic for the road:

“Not a day goes by that I don’t stop and thank the universe for these otherworldly blessings, and I make it a point to take nothing for granted. It will never feel ‘normal’ to me to be included in such a waking dream; it will always feel like I’m watching life happen from above, looking down at someone else’s fantasy playing out before me. But it is mine, and it’s these moments when I try to be present, reminding myself that I am perhaps the luckiest person on earth to breathe the next breath that will lead me to the next adventure.”


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