Sometimes fate intervenes in music which is beyond anybody’s control. Paul McCartney met John Lennon at a church fete. Mick Jagger met Keith Richards at a train station. There are hundreds of stories like this where a chance meeting or event happens. Just think about it if McCartney decided not to go to the fete then who knows what would become of the Beatles? If Mick or Keith decided to take a later train? These serendipitous events helped shape music for the next 50 years.
This is another one. This is about a band who at the time were getting some attention but hadn’t made it big. And when they make it, they’ll make it. This is about a Drummer who due to unforeseen circumstances was looking for work. He witnessed the band and decided to audition and help make the sound of a generation. The band: Nirvana. The Drummer: Dave Grohl. The rest they say is history. This week The Beat Marches On to 25th September 1990.
Dave Grohl was from Washington, just not the Grunge one. Born in Washington DC a mere 2768 miles away from Washington state. In the nation’s capital, he managed to get a good reputation in the local Hardcore Punk scene as a drummer. Grohl performed in various bands over time such as Mission Impossible and Drain Bamage until he managed to get a job with the leading band of the area at the time: Scream.
The time with Scream helped raise the Drummer’s status. It pushed him into the heart of DC’s Hardcore scene or HarDCore. Performing around the area since 1981 the band had a big following. They even released a single. When Grohl joined in 1987 the band had toured Europe and the rest of the USA and released multiple Albums. So, this thought Grohl was the big break.
Following multiple tours of America and Europe Scream went into the studio to record an album in 1989. They didn’t know at the time, but this would be their last. During the following tour in Europe, the bass player Skeeter Thompson decided to call it quits mid-tour. No one knew why. The band carried on the rest of the tour, but the writing was on the wall for Scream.
This would turn out as the moment in history that made a monumental shift in Rock. Scream was finished by Spring 1990 and Grohl needed work and was one of the best drummers in the area. But the HarDCore scene was starting to slow down. He needed to venture elsewhere.
Nirvana in 1990 was not the monster they became a year later. One album already in, Bleach, was a moderate success locally, with only 6000 sold when it was released in 1989. The star was rising but something was missing. The band was trying to figure out what.
Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic were the two core members of Nirvana. Friends since school all they wanted to do was play music. They struggled to have a permanent Drummer for a little while due to Kurt getting frustrated with them. The person who sat behind the kit on the Bleach album/tour was Chad Channing who was the longest since the band’s inception in 1987. Kurt, a handy Drummer himself, was getting frustrated with the style of Channing.
By the time the sessions started for their next album, Kurt had enough. Channing was fired and the hunt was on for a new Drummer. To bridge the gap while they were searching, Mudhoney one of the early grunge breakout bands lent their drummer Dan Peters to fill in.
The Melvins play a role in this story too. The Washington state-based band often dubbed as the first grunge band was a huge influence on the sound. Distorted guitars, heavy drums and screaming vocals that is the basis of the sound. The lead vocalist and Guitarist Buzz Osbourne or King Buzz-o as he was known on stage became a mentor for Nirvana among others. Coming from the same sleepy town of Aberdeen as Kurt and Krist he managed to leave and never look back which made him a legend in town. Buzz also met the members of Scream a few times sharing a concert bill and befriending the band.
A phone call from Dave to Buzz telling him about the Scream situation was the first step to set the ball rolling. Despondent about the end of his band the drummer was hoping for a new opportunity to arise. That’s when King Buzz-o told him about the empty stool behind the kit at Nirvana. After seeing Grohl play in San Francisco the two remaining members were interested if the chance came.
Dave got in touch with Kurt who invited him to watch Nirvana play when he was next in town. So, on 22nd September 1990, he watched them play their biggest gig at the time at the Motor Sports International Garage in Seattle. It was the only appearance of Drummer Dan Peters.
By September 25th Kurt announced that Nirvana had found their drummer. Dave Grohl was hired. The fill-in drummer Dan Peters did not get told that they found someone new. Twenty days later the three-piece was performing together for the first time and it looked like they found their groove.
A little over a year later the band’s lives would change forever. First the single came along a little ditty called Smells Like Teen Spirit that seemed it took over the world. The album that the song appeared on, Nevermind, became one of the biggest-selling albums ever. And the poster boys for the Grunge explosion had become all because of a bass player quitting mid-tour.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for six years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
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If anyone reading this would like to read more about this story, the weren’t any sites used for research for this story. Jimmy went old school and used books. The books used were:
Dave Grohl: Foo Fighters, Nirvana and other misadventures by Martin James.
Dave Grohl: Nothing to Lose by Michael Heatley.
Heavier than Heaven: The Biography of Kurt Cobain by Charles R. Cross.
If you want to request a story for The Beat Marches On Blog then you can contact jwhiteheadjournalism@gmail.com. We cannot guarantee that the story will be published but will be considered.