Dave Grohl on playing with pearl jam
TheGossman
Posts: 1,120
Don't know if this has ever been posted but Dave talked about playing with PJ back in 95 in Australia, here is what he said
JJ: I forgot that you were out here when Pearl Jam was out here...
Dave: That was just kind of a fluke. We had Foo Fighters just about ready to go on our first tour opening for mike watt and we were to be gone for a little over a month. I had all these frequent flier miles so I thought I might as well have a little vacation before the tour. Pearl Jam was on tour down there and we have a good friend of ours doing the tour accounting for them and another friend of ours is their tour masseuse or witchdoctor or whatever. So we thought we would just fly down, book ourselves into the same hotel and surprise them.
I thought it was so great because we got to go and see some of the Pearl Jam shows and I was so excited just to be a spectator and have all the fun of someone who doesn't have to go up on stage and play. Because I get so incredibly nervous before I play. Whether it's drums or guitar, I get really, really nervous and so I was looking forward to going down and hanging out and seeing friends and having something to drink and watching the show. The first night I got there, we went to the show and they asked me if I would play a song with them...and then it was like vacation was over.
JJJ: You felt like you couldn't say no?
Dave: Well Jack, their drummer, he had been having problems with his wrists. Plus I know Eddie (Vedder) a little bit. They are acquaintances I suppose, and so of course I would feel terrible if I said, "oh no I can't do that". So I did it and it was actually fun. And it had been the first time I had played drums in front of an audience for quite a while and it was a big fucking audience too. So it was twice as scary.
I was amazed at how much of a performance those guys really put on. They would go up there for almost 2 hours and it was pretty incredible. The reaction from the people, that's what amazed me. I had never seen an audience go so completely mad like they did for the shows I saw. There were kids just pouring down the sides of the seats to get onto the floor. It was amazing. It was really crazy.
JJJ: Even comparing them with some of the scenes you must have seen at the height of Nirvana?
Dave: By the time we started playing places the size of Pearl Jam, we never saw...I mean sometimes the audience, if there were chairs on the floor, they would throw the chairs up and they would pass them back and it was completely insane and that was great. But most of the insanity that we saw was way before we ever got to the point of playing places that held 10,000 people. Usually when you play somewhere that holds 500 people, that's when things are even more insane. It's just like a little contained riot. Pearl Jam was like the first arena rock riot I had ever experienced and I imagined it being like the who concert in 1979 in Cleveland, Ohio, when all the people got trampled. It was just crazy. It was nuts.
JJJ: It surprises me that given your experience and how long you have been doing this sort of stuff that you still get that nervous before going on stage too.
Dave: I don't know what it is. It just scares the shit out of me. I just get really, really, really fucking scared and I don't know what to do about it. With Foo Fighters, I'm starting to feel a lot more comfortable. But still just getting up knowing that you have that responsibility for the next hour and 15 minutes to entertain these people, that's what's buried back in the rear of my brain. I just know that I have a responsibility. And I don't handle responsibility very well.
JJ: I forgot that you were out here when Pearl Jam was out here...
Dave: That was just kind of a fluke. We had Foo Fighters just about ready to go on our first tour opening for mike watt and we were to be gone for a little over a month. I had all these frequent flier miles so I thought I might as well have a little vacation before the tour. Pearl Jam was on tour down there and we have a good friend of ours doing the tour accounting for them and another friend of ours is their tour masseuse or witchdoctor or whatever. So we thought we would just fly down, book ourselves into the same hotel and surprise them.
I thought it was so great because we got to go and see some of the Pearl Jam shows and I was so excited just to be a spectator and have all the fun of someone who doesn't have to go up on stage and play. Because I get so incredibly nervous before I play. Whether it's drums or guitar, I get really, really nervous and so I was looking forward to going down and hanging out and seeing friends and having something to drink and watching the show. The first night I got there, we went to the show and they asked me if I would play a song with them...and then it was like vacation was over.
JJJ: You felt like you couldn't say no?
Dave: Well Jack, their drummer, he had been having problems with his wrists. Plus I know Eddie (Vedder) a little bit. They are acquaintances I suppose, and so of course I would feel terrible if I said, "oh no I can't do that". So I did it and it was actually fun. And it had been the first time I had played drums in front of an audience for quite a while and it was a big fucking audience too. So it was twice as scary.
I was amazed at how much of a performance those guys really put on. They would go up there for almost 2 hours and it was pretty incredible. The reaction from the people, that's what amazed me. I had never seen an audience go so completely mad like they did for the shows I saw. There were kids just pouring down the sides of the seats to get onto the floor. It was amazing. It was really crazy.
JJJ: Even comparing them with some of the scenes you must have seen at the height of Nirvana?
Dave: By the time we started playing places the size of Pearl Jam, we never saw...I mean sometimes the audience, if there were chairs on the floor, they would throw the chairs up and they would pass them back and it was completely insane and that was great. But most of the insanity that we saw was way before we ever got to the point of playing places that held 10,000 people. Usually when you play somewhere that holds 500 people, that's when things are even more insane. It's just like a little contained riot. Pearl Jam was like the first arena rock riot I had ever experienced and I imagined it being like the who concert in 1979 in Cleveland, Ohio, when all the people got trampled. It was just crazy. It was nuts.
JJJ: It surprises me that given your experience and how long you have been doing this sort of stuff that you still get that nervous before going on stage too.
Dave: I don't know what it is. It just scares the shit out of me. I just get really, really, really fucking scared and I don't know what to do about it. With Foo Fighters, I'm starting to feel a lot more comfortable. But still just getting up knowing that you have that responsibility for the next hour and 15 minutes to entertain these people, that's what's buried back in the rear of my brain. I just know that I have a responsibility. And I don't handle responsibility very well.
9/4/98, 8/4/00, 12/8/02, 12/9/02, 4/15/03, 4/16/03, 4/19/03, 4/25/03, 4/26/03, 4/28/03, 4/29/03, 4/30/03, 7/8/03, 7/9/03, 9/28/04, 9/29/04, 10/6/04, 9/1/05, 9/2/05, 5/16/06, 5/17/06, 5/27/06, 5/28/06, 5/30/06, 6/1/06, 6/3/06, 8/5/07, 6/11/08, 6/12/08, 6/14/08, 6/16/08, 6/24/08, 6/25/08
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Comments
You think the Slayer tour is out, or what?
"Finally! I get to save the earth with deadly lasers instead of deadly slide shows." -- Al Gore.
oh blue eyes, i've seen it
if just once i could feel love
oh stare back at me, yeah..
Amen, brother, Amen to that
world fucking champs!!!
It certainly was.
You think the Slayer tour is out, or what?
"Finally! I get to save the earth with deadly lasers instead of deadly slide shows." -- Al Gore.
Because my records and rhymes they don't get made
And if you rap like me you don't get paid
And if you roll like me you don't get laid.
st. john's newfoundland, sept. 25/2005
Sydney 14/02/2003
Sydney 07/11/2006
Sydney 18/11/2006
Sydney 22/11/2009
EV Sydney 18/03/2011
EV Sydney 19/03/2011
EV Sydney 20/03/2011
Melbourne 24/01/2014
Sydney 26/01/2014
EV Sydney 13/02/2014
Don't mean to open up a can of worms but all of that was just envy.
Yeah...envy that they got stomped in record sales despite being the "new Beatles".
Bring back Dave G!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree...but may I hypothetically add Chris Cornell to the bill?
Montreal/98, Toronto/00'03'05'06x2, Brad Toronto/02, Buffalo/03, Kitchener/05, London/05, Hamilton/05, Late Show Taping/06, Cleveland/06, Pittsburgh/06, Bridge School Benefit Concert/06, Hartford/08, Mansfield 1/08, EV Montreal/08x2, EV Toronto/08x2...
you can't be serious
listen to Queens of the Stone songs for the deaf, then tell me he's an average drummer, he is not human I tell you!
To see Dave with Pearl Jam is something i can only dream of
09/19/05, 05/09/06, 05/10/06
Wellington 1998
London 2007
Brisbane 2009
Stockholm 2012
EV Dublin 2017
Milan 2018
Padova 2018
Boston 2 2018
Auckland 1 & 2 2024