Dave Grohl has revealed that he almost joined GWAR back when he was an up-and-coming drummer in the Washington, D.C. scene.
Prior to his halcyon days with Nirvana in Seattle, Grohl was considered a prodigy around the D.C. suburbs where he grew up. He eventually joined the hardcore act Scream in the late 1980s.
But for a time, Grohl was in contention to be the drummer of GWAR, even going as far as to design his own costume for the band. Grohl ultimately decided against the shock factor of spewing fake bodily fluids on audiences.
“GWAR were looking for a drummer,” Grohl told Rolling Stone. “And I talked to their guitar player Dewey about it. And he’s like, it’s great, and you get to design your own costume. As drummer, you don’t want something that covers your face fully. You want your arms to be free. So I was like cool.”
He continued: “So I started kind of drawing this thing. At the time GWAR was a band that would draw like 700 people, right? Which is huge. And then the more I thought about it, am I really gonna invite my uncle to see me play when there’s like fake blood and cum shooting all over the place?”
Just imagine … an alternate timeline where Dave Grohl was a member of GWAR. Our measly Bohab minds are blown.
Update: GWAR’s Blothar has issued a statement to Heavy Consequence, claiming, “We hired [Grohl] and then called him back immediately and fired him. He was in the band for around 7 and a half minutes. He was holding us back.” Read more from GWAR on the matter here.
In the same interview, the Foo Fighters frontman offered up some other “things we didn’t know” about him. He told one anecdote about sitting next to Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo at a dinner party. Naturally, the two got to talking about songwriting, though their perspectives varied widely on the subject.
“Eventually, he goes, ‘Hey, so when you write songs, how do you do it?’ I started explaining how we do it, which is pretty simple,” Grohl said. “l make some demos. I show them to the guys. And then we get together and play them. … He said, ‘So you don’t write songs to try to get on top 40 radio?’ And I said, ‘No. I don’t think I don’t think we’re allowed there! Do I expect to knock Cardi B off the f**king charts? Absolutely not.’
“I said, ‘No, I kind of write songs for the stage or a setlist, and I write them for Foo Fighters fans.’ And he said, ‘Wow. So you write for the show?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, don’t you?’ And I don’t think that he does. I think that we’re sort of on opposite ends of that spectrum. Which is funny.”
You can find more stories from Grohl in his upcoming memoir, appropriately titled The Storyteller, out October 5th. Pre-order the book here.
As for GWAR, you can check out the band’s CBD line, featuring hemp flower, gummies, Delta-8 cartridges and more at the “Bud of Gods” store. You can also catch them on the next leg of their “Scumdogs 30th Anniversary Tour,” which kicks off October 28th in Norfolk, Virginia. Tickets are available via Ticketmaster.
