Lee's Reviews > The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music

Nirvana was my favourite band when I was 15. I bought Nevermind the day it was released (on cassette!) after reading several rave notices, which referenced The Pixies, Husker Du, Sonic Youth et al. A lot of bands were subject to such (in their cases) overblown press (remember The Vines? The greatest band since Nirvana, according to NME. How about The Music? 'The best new band in Britain') but I was all-in every time, on the off-chance that, this time, it was all true. I went out and bought the album from the one place in the town next to mine that sold music, ran up to my bedroom wondering what all the fuss was about (probably very little; remember Mudhoney? Did they ever pay Iggy Pop royalties?), put the tape in, pressed play and waited.

Pretty soon, everything made sense. I'd been waiting for those songs and the wait was over, and I was grateful and overwhelmed. This was the stuff, finally! Once the shock of that melodic battering ram had worn off a little, I started thinking about what made the songs work, why they were so much better than everyone else's, what the three (!) musicians were doing to create such a thrilling blitz of noise. It seemed so maddeningly simple. Guitar, bass and drums played like the world was about to end. And this the miraculous result. Conclusion: whatever these three men had, they had more of it than anyone else.

The next album was different, but Nevermind was unrepeatable. In Utero was less urgent, more interesting, more sombre. Whatever they had was still in evidence, had been dialled down, was lying in wait. And then it was all over.

I went back to Bleach, an album I'd never really warmed to, and which confirmed that only with Dave Grohl in the line-up was the alchemy right. Whatever weird confluence of luck and judgement that had brought the Scream drummer into Nirvana had turned them into the world's greatest rock act. Those drums drove Cobain and Novoselic to places they would otherwise never have reached. It was a shame it was all done after two albums. There were no other Kurt Cobains to go around.

The NME featured Grohl's next venture, Foo Fighters, in which it seemed he'd be playing lead guitar, not drums. Oh crap, I thought -- this could be like Cast, a dire Las spin-off. Don't besmirch the legacy, Dave! But I was right behind it, desperate for it to be at least passable. If so, I'd just say it was great. Nirvana would live on! Sort of.

I was a little older by now, but the process was still basically the same. Get on the bus, buy the album, take it home, sit with it and see what was what. Though this time, it felt cruel. Nirvana were not coming back. Here was the unquestionably great drummer doing a potentially embarrassing Paul McCartney circa Abbey Road, the only man in the studio, playing all the instruments, everyone else gone and no longer under any illusions.

And yet that Foo Fighters debut was pretty great, and those were definitely Grohl drums. It was enough. Many of the songs were clearly, openly about Nirvana, about Kurt Cobain, but the misery, the parlayed dyspepsia had all been spent, distilled and bottled into those two landmark albums. The Foo Fighters were fun, even when the lead singer was shrieking, even when the song was a sad one. And though they'd never be great, they would be good, and they would last, and they'd put a smile on your face whenever they came on the radio.

This memoir is funny and excellent company. It's like a really good Foo Fighters song: too likeably formulaic to hit the heights, but never dull. And the bits about the Nirvana years -- featuring a horrible apartment in which Grohl struggles to sleep on a couch beside Cobain's pet turtle which taps on its tank throughout the night -- are the best of it.

'These deaths still resonate like a long echo throughout my life, and not a day goes by when I don’t think of Kurt and Jimmy. There are simple reminders: A song on the radio that Jimmy would air-drum to while driving his old, beat-up Renault car. The pink strawberry milk that Kurt would sometimes buy at the gas station as a treat for himself. The smell of the cheap Brut cologne that Jimmy would douse himself in each morning, for no one to enjoy but himself. The Elmer Fudd hat that Kurt would often wear to hide his face from the public, and the white-framed Jackie O glasses that became his trademark. It seems that everywhere I turn there is a reminder to be found, and I have come to a place where they no longer break my heart; they make me smile.

But it’s when I sit down at a drum set that I feel Kurt the most. It’s not often that I play the songs that we played together, but when I sit on that stool, I can still picture him in front of me, wrestling with his guitar as he screamed his lungs raw into the microphone. Just like staring at the sun will burn a spot into your retinas, his image will forever be burned in mine when I look past my drums to the audience before me. He will always be there.'