David Eric Grohl (born on January 14, 1969) grew up in Springfield, Virginia, the son of a schoolteacher mom and a pharmacist dad who divorced when he was six. Dave calls his mother "the coolest mom in the world" and describes himself as a "super-hyper-active" child. Dave's later success would inspire his father, James, to quit his job, work on a book, and rebel against his previous corporate lifestyle.

In a school just outside Seattle, fifth-grade student William Goldsmith volunteered to play drums in the school band. An anarchist at heart, he threw away the sheet music and made up his own drum parts. He was reprimanded for adding too many rolls.

A major turning point in Dave's life came during a family vacation to visit his cousin Tracey in Evanston, Illinois. "But this wasn't the Tracey I had grown to love," Grohl reminisces. "This was punk Tracey." His pierced and bondage pants-clad cousin introduced Dave to all things punk, including his first concert (Naked Raygun and R.O.T.A.).

Nate Mendel, also from suburban Seattle, started playing bass because a friend told him it was the easiest instrument to learn.

As a teenager, Dave nurtured a tiny seed into a full-grown pot plant in his room. He told the coolest Mom in the world that it was "a flower," but Virginia Grohl insisted that he dispose of it. "You want me to kill it?" he cried.
(Dave would later quit pot and bemoan the time he'd lost being stoned.)

In 1975, George Ruthenberg was a student at an experimental high school in Los Angeles, which included elements of Scientology and EST in a free-form curriculum. George went through a rather expressive period of dressing up as Alice Cooper and attending school in flowing robes. A founding member of the pioneering punk band the Germs, he renamed himself Pat Smear.

When William was about thirteen, his brother sat him down and told him to remember always that he was a person with mind of his own. He then introduced William to the music of Talking Heads, Led Zeppelin, the Who, and many others. William started playing drums the following year.

Dave's high-school bands were named Freak Baby (he played guitar). Mission Impossible (he switched to drums), and Dain Bramage. He dropped out of Dain Bramage and high school to tour with his heroes, the seminal punk band Scream, after lying about his age to join. (He said he was twenty but was actually seventeen.)

Nate started playing guitar with a friend whom Nate describes as the "sit in your room, smoke pot, and learn Led Zeppelin songs note for note all day" school of guitar.

William's first band was Screaming Hormones, whose ten members were all the kids in his high school who were even remotely interested in classic or punk rock.
"We could not play," he remembers.

When the Germs came out in 1976, they were a joke on the Los Angeles punk scene because they couldn't play; so they went for a theatrical approach instead. During a memorable audition for the Cheech and Chong movie 'Up in Smoke', the Germs threw peanut butter at their audience. Their concert sequence was cut from the film.

After Scream toured Europe and America in a van, their bassist bolted, leaving the others broke and stranded in Los Angeles. They duly split up. After hearing that a band called Nirvana needed a drummer, Dave flew to Seattle. "I was met at the airport by the biggest guy and the scrawniest guy I had ever seen," he remembers.

The Germs were on their last legs when their singer Darby Crash committed suicide in 1980. Pat went on to do a solo album, play in a band called Twisted Roots, and get a supporting role in Citizen Tanya, an underground film based on the life of Patty Hearst.

At one point, William was a member of four different bands at once. He quit three of them to stay with Chewbacca Kaboom, which Nate was also a member of. Later, as Sunny Day Real Estate, the band would refuse to do interviews or play California.

Dave had a recurring dream about Eddie Vedder: Dave and his sister would be at the zoo, and Eddie, dressed in silver, would be trying to disguise himself. The dream would end with Eddie sucking on Dave's finger.

Pat was a temporary guitarist with Nirvana, sitting in on their MTV Unplugged sessions and touring with them until Kurt almost OD’ed in Rome. After Kurt's suide, Pat vegetated on the couch for a year.

Sunny Day Real Estate's singer-guitarist Jeremy Enigk later converted to Christianity. The band was in a state of flux when Dave asked William and Nate to join Foo Fighters.

Pat got a Foo Fighters cassette from Dave one night in a club. Pat liked it, but rather than ask Dave if he could join, he waited for Dave to ask him. Eventually, Dave asked.

"Foo Fighters" was the name for UFOs encountered by American pilots flying over Germany during World War II: "foo" was a corruption of the French word for fire, feu.

Dave still plans to go to college someday.

Words: Suzan Colon