Dave Grohl released his memoir The Storyteller this week, and in it, he recalls how a month before Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain died, he grieved his loss in error after being told Cobain died from an overdose in Rome, Italy.
In an excerpt shared by the New York Post, Grohl said that after that initial phone call, “My knees gave out and I dropped the phone as I fell to my bedroom floor, covering my face with my hands as I began to cry. He was gone…I was overcome with a more profound sadness than I had ever imagined.”
Grohl then would receive a follow-up call indicating Cobain was not dead, but that series of emotional events greatly impacted him.
Grohl noted, “In the course of five minutes I had gone from the darkest day of my entire life to feeling born again. From that day forward, I built my walls higher.”
Unfortunately, Grohl would relive this traumatic experience about a month later but, “There was no second phone call to right the wrong. To turn the tragedy around. It was final.”
Grohl had a hard time grieving Cobain’s death due to that initial phone call a month prior writing, “It was stuck somewhere deep within me, blocked by the trauma from a month before when I had been left in a state of conflicted emotional confusion.”
The pain of losing his friend and bandmate is something he still carries with him.
“To this day I am often overcome with that same profound sadness that sent me to the floor the first time I was told Kurt had died,” writes Grohl.
The Storyteller is available for purchase through a number of retailers at DaveGrohlStoryteller.com.
