The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave GrohlMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is a bit of a departure for me, as I rarely read autobiographies. I'd much rather read fiction, but Dave Grohl is one of my favourite musicians personality-wise. He's very charming, charismatic and entertaining. He's also been around the rock scene for my entire adult life and I knew he'd have some great stories to tell. This is why I decided to read this book. I actually decided to listen to the book rather than read it because the author reads his own words and I love his speaking voice. I'm so glad I made that choice because you could almost imagine sitting in a bar with Dave Grohl and listening to him tell you stories about his life. It was intimate, engaging and funny and a lot of that was because Dave Grohl was telling you his own stories rather than reading them on a flat page.
If you want a book that ‘tells all’ about life with Nirvana or tales of excess and debauchery, this book isn’t it. This book isn’t really even a narrative. It darts about all over the place, chopping and changing times and locations in order to tell stories. The title of this book really says it all, this is a book written by a consummate storyteller. Dave Grohl ties together disparate occurrences in a way that conveys some of the main themes of his life. It is equal parts hilariously funny, movingly tender and interesting beyond words. What it isn’t is tremendously exposing.
This book does not reveal painful truths about the dark side of the rock industry except in broad terms. It talks about the times early on in Dave’s career when he was travelling around Europe in a van with Scream, living in squats or crashing on the floor of a random stranger’s home. It talks about when Dave was starving and living on three corn dogs a day from the service station near the flat he shared with Kurt Cobain but it doesn’t talk much about the drugs and sex that normally go with rock and roll. He only touches very gently on Kurt’s heroin addiction.
I get the feeling that Dave wrote with the awareness that this book would be read by the next generation of his and his friends’ families. Above all else, he is an adoring father and I can’t imagine him ever wanting to hurt his or his friend’s children. The way he tells these stories reflects what I believe to be his inherent kindness as there is no blame or anger in any of the tales he tells. There is little dark about these tales except to serve as a contrast to the joy he experiences on a daily basis getting to do the thing he loves. There is a lot of joy and exuberance in this book as Dave recounts tales of meeting his idols or when he encounters musical soul mates that he bonds with.
This book reflects who Dave seems to be, joyous, excitable and warm. Dave appears to have never met a stranger as he learns with excitement about everyone he meets, whether they are nerdy music geeks or movie stars. One of my favourite moments is the story about having Paul McCartney to his house and the revelation that he needed to hide all his Beatles memorabilia because he just didn’t realise how much of it he had until faced with the prospect of displaying the level of his Beatles obsession to an actual Beatle.
This book is warm, funny and entertaining and I enjoyed it tremendously in short bursts so I could savour the stories in each chapter. I love the way Dave reads his own words, but then I’ve always thought he reads well, especially after listening to him recount ‘The Night Before Christmas’ on Radio 1 years ago. This book wouldn’t be as entertaining and warm without Dave reading it. His intelligence, passion for life and quest for the new and interesting shines through in every word.
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