Dave Grohl has addressed rumours that following the death of his Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain he turned down opportunities to become the drummer for both Pearl Jam and Tom Petty.
“Petty, yes. Pearl Jam, no,” Grohl told Howard Stern. “I don’t know where the Pearl Jam thing came from. They never called and asked me to play drums with them.”
Seven months after Cobain’s suicide in 1994 ended Nirvana, Grohl backed Petty on an episode of Saturday Night Live.
“We had so much fun and we all got along so well,” Grohl recalled. “Afterwards he was like, ‘Man, that was good. It would be a shame if that’s the only time we do it’ sort of thing. And then he called me at home and he was like, ‘Look, here’s how we do it: You get your own bus and we don’t tour too hard … If you’re into it, come out and let’s do it for a little while.’”
Grohl said he had just started Foo Fighters and thought it would feel “weird” to get back behind a drum kit.
“It would have just reminded me of being in Nirvana. It would have been sad, for me personally. It would have been an emotional thing to be behind the drum set every night and not have Kurt there.
“So I was like, ‘Nah, f**k it. I’m gonna try this other thing.’”