Dave Grohl, drummer of US rock band Nirvana, quit the group back in 1993, it has been revealed.Shedding light on the temporary split is a new biography of the influential band by Paul Brannigan, titled This Is A Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl.
It describes how, fed up with lead singer Kurt Cobain bad mouthing the drummer, Grohl phoned their manager and said he wanted to quit.
His anger culminated during a flight from Seattle to Los Angeles, in which Grohl overheard Cobain talking about him, claiming that he was a bad drummer.
Bassist Krist Novoselic admitted to Grohl, who joined the band in 1990 ahead of their seminal hit album Smells Like Teen Spirit, that Cobain wanted him to play more like Dan Peters, the drummer for Mudhoney who had also performed with Nirvana.
Speaking to tour manager Alex McLeod, Grohl said: “I don’t want to have to deal with any of this craziness.”
The book claims that at this point in time, Nirvana was split into two camps, with Grohl and Novoselic against Cobain and his wife Courtney Love.
As time shows, however, Grohl did stay with the band and “tried to carry on in a measured, professional manner” until Cobain’s suicide in 1994.
Brannigan, who is a former editor of Kerrang, makes a claim in the biography that if Cobain hadn’t died, Nirvana would have continued but Grohl would have quit at some point.
“Dave was very aware that Nirvana was Kurt and Krist’s band, and that as lifelong friends, they shared a bond which went beyond music,” he writes. “At some point I feel that Dave would have parted company with the pair.”
Needless to say, the drummer went on to front Foo Fighters, which this year released their seventh album.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Nevermind and a special edition of the album has been released today (September 26th). It includes previously unreleased recordings as well as live performances of the tracks.