Mother's Day Special with Ginny Grohl, Mom of Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl.
Liner Notes:
Kris is honored to welcome her guest, RocknRoll Mama, Virginia Hanlon Grohl.
The Foo Fighter frontman's mother opens up about raising a rock star child, interviewing mothers of celebrities including Mike D, Dr. Dre, Amy Winehouse, Teddy Lee, Michael Stipe, Kelly Clarkson, and many more in this fascinating read: From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars (Hodder & Stoughton; Hatchet Audio).
From Cradle to Stage is available in Audiobook, Kindle, Paperback and Hardcover
Visit Virginia online or follow her socials:
YouTube & Twitter @CradleToStage
Facebook @fromcradletostage
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We love to hear from you and yes, Text prose & RocknRoll takes requests! Please subscribe, rate, comment, then tell a friend!
Special Thanks: Laura Mazer, Eve Atterman and the team at WME.
Dave Grohl appears courtesy of Hatchet.
Original music by Mike Bowman and Pictures of a Floating World.
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About the Podcast:
‘TEXT PROSE AND ROCK N ROLL’- is the only podcast dedicated to the written account of musicians. From artist memoirs to band bios, and anything in between. You'll hear first accounts from those who lived the lifestyle; a Book Club that rocks - literally.
It was Created, Hosted & Executive Produced by Kris Kosach.
It was Produced & Edited by Charlene Goto of Go-To Productions.
For more on the show, visit the website.
Or follow us on Instagram @Textproserocknroll
Follow Kris on Social Media: @KrisKosach
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UNEDITED FROM ORIGINAL INTERVIEW
TPRnR - Track 3 - Ginny Grohl - INTV - RAW
Kris Kosach: [00:00:00] . [00:00:00] Okay. Oh, God. And, and birds. Oh my goodness. Um, um, okay, so Jenny, I'm going to write a little intro that comes into this, so we don't really even have to do like the welcome and all that. That formal stuff, we can just get right to it. Okay. Um, I really, your book was great. I'm a mom to two little kids, so I think when you read this as a mom, you do see it differently.
And, and obviously that's for who. That's who it's probably for, but at the same time, it's, it's just a universal book. I really enjoyed it. So, um, you know, you're welcome. It was great. So let me jump right into it. I got a whole bunch of stuff here. Um, your book begins with a forward by Dave. I did want to ask you, can I use a little bit of that audio as a quote from him?
Would that be okay or is there someone I need to get the, okay. From.
Ginny Grohl: [00:00:53] I don't see why that would be a problem.
Kris Kosach: [00:00:56] Okay, thanks. I would only use a few seconds. I don't think we'd get it,
[00:01:00] Ginny Grohl: [00:01:00] which she was just asking if she could use some audio of, Oh, you mean having him do it for you? Oh,
Kris Kosach: [00:01:07] no, no, no, no, no. Just like rip it from a, the audio book.
Ginny Grohl: [00:01:12] Oh,
Kris Kosach: [00:01:13] not to bother him. So there's that. But if he is there with you, I would definitely want a story
Ginny Grohl: [00:01:19] about not here.
Kris Kosach: [00:01:21] Okay. All right. But, um, but that would be great if I could just have a little bit of audio from the audio book so we won't bother him at all. But he just sets the book up so nicely and I can quote him, but it's just not the same as you know.
So, um. Anyway, moving on. The book begins with a foreword by him, uh, where he discovered his musical, big bang washing in the car with you. And he tells that story so much better than I possibly could. So let's not go there. But this genetic symphony, he talks about, uh, what was your genetic symphony to writing this book?
What was your big bang moment to write this book?
[00:02:00] Ginny Grohl: [00:02:00] Well, it was a backstage moment and, uh, I was sitting with my friend giving feedback like, you are okay.
Kris Kosach: [00:02:12] Shar, I want you to jump in here if you have, uh, quality problems, okay? Charlene, I want you to jump in if something sounds weird, stop us, okay? Okay.
Okay.
actually, you know, Virginia, sometimes if you, if you hear yourself back, you might want to take, take yourself out of that, and so you can only hear me. I know I have that problem. I can't hear myself through my headphones right now. I did that on purpose because it does play with your
Ginny Grohl: [00:02:53] ear. Okay. Can we do that?
Kris Kosach: [00:02:56] Yeah. And we'll start over.
[00:03:00] Ginny Grohl: [00:03:00] On the settings, but we can't open settings right now because they're in the recordings. Um, yeah,
yeah.
Kris Kosach: [00:03:12] Okay. Guinea. So your, your book starts with this wonderful forward from Dave and in the audio book, he does the recording himself so much better than I could possibly do it. He talks about his musical big bang. He was with you in the car, and again, to download the audio book on Amazon or wherever you get books, you can hear it from him himself.
Uh, but. What I want to know is what was your big bang moment in writing this book?
Ginny Grohl: [00:03:43] It was a backstage moment actually with a friend, Joe Berliner, who started out, um. The book journey with me. We started out doing the book together. We were sitting by, it was at the new Orleans [00:04:00] jazz festival. I forget what year, and David was on stage and Jill and I were on our little folding chairs, the side of the stage, little backstage.
And um. I said to her, I've gone to it thousand shows and I never see any of the other mothers. And I wonder why they're not all coming. This is so much fun. And you know, to go to new Orleans and to stay in a great hotel and eat all that good food and see all those great shows. And I wonder why everyone wasn't doing that.
And she said, well, why don't you go find them? And. Find out. So at that moment we said, Oh, that sounds like fun, and that could be a book. And so on our way. From the backstage to the trailer. We [00:05:00] started a list of people we wanted to go meet.
Kris Kosach: [00:05:03] Cool.
Ginny Grohl: [00:05:03] And it was not quick, and she, she's a music attorney and so she knew a lot of people so she could make some initial contacts.
That would have been really hard for me. And so that we got started. She was with me with my first two or three interviews and then she couldn't continue. It was too much with her, you know, real job. And she travels a lot and she's just a very busy attorney. So then I continued on my own after that, but it was just a moment of inspiration and then instant acting on it.
Which, you know, at my age, I'm now 82
but I was, you know, I had, I've, once you're 70, I think you start thinking about [00:06:00] age in terms of how many years from now. Like now I'm thinking, will I ever be free again? Will I ever be not, you know, not quarantined? Um. But anyway, so I, I had that in mind and, um, and needed to pick up the pace and work on it by myself.
So I love doing it. It was, it was just a really fun project. I met the greatest women in the world, and, um, had a few people turn me down. A lot of people were open to it. And, uh, and. And a little even, you know, sort of thinking it was risky. Most of them said they hadn't been interviewed before. And, um, but it wasn't an, it wasn't interviewing, it was just conversations really.
So.
Kris Kosach: [00:06:56] Were you disappointed when they said no? [00:07:00] I mean, did you try to push them a little bit or? There was
Ginny Grohl: [00:07:03] one that I went after several times. I kept trying different angles and, but I don't think I missed, I think the ones that I got, I was so surprised by how incredible some of them were and I had no idea how, how.
Wonderful. These women, how accomplished some of these women were Mike D. Smith, she passed away recently, by the way. And um, she was the first of our group to go. Um, she was, her story just amazed me, uh, what she did on her own and what, what was instinctive about art with her at her. Her accomplishments over the years, and I was just amazed by all that she [00:08:00] had done.
Kris Kosach: [00:08:00] Yeah, it's true. There's a, there, there are a lot of fabulous stories, and here you talk to so many people, a dozen of them. Uh, dr Dre, his moms, uh, was amazing for ELLs. Mom's a PhD. Uh, it's pretty insane. It's so, I guess like great people create great kids in a way. Um. But I love, it's not, all the stories are happy.
It wasn't at Getty. Lee's mom grew up in a, in a concentration camp.
Ginny Grohl: [00:08:27] Right. Right. And, um, and she's one of the sweetest, most. Cheerful women around. Now she's in her nineties and she's had some health issues and uh, but I've seen her, we became really good friends, and so I've seen her. I don't know how many times since I first met her, maybe six
Kris Kosach: [00:08:57] touch with these women.
Ginny Grohl: [00:08:58] Oh yes. And [00:09:00] recently, actually I had a a dinner party and I had from the very beginning when I was trying to find an agent, and later when we were trying to find a publisher, I said that one of my ideas that goes along with the book is that I wanted. All of them to meet each other, and so that after they had read the book, I thought, I'm going to invite them all to a big dinner party.
And I told all of them that I was going to do that. I promised them that I would, and it was. A very difficult thing to pull off, to bring in people from all over the world and all over the country to one place at one time for one night, um, to have this great dinner party. But I finally did it and we had the best time.
So we're actually, David and I are. Working on a [00:10:00] documentary about the book right now.
Kris Kosach: [00:10:01] Oh, fantastic. Are you really, you have to come back and talk about that because I'm breaking my rule and having some documentaries on this show as well. In fact, one of my next guests. Is, um, is talking about, she, she like broke women in rock and roll, and this is beside the point, but Suzi Quatro has a wonderful, uh, documentary that she's ready to release except for this pandemic happening.
And she's going to come on and talk to me a little bit about that. So please, I would love to have you come back and talk to me about that.
Ginny Grohl: [00:10:34] And end to end, the mother's dinner will be on that. So at some point you'll get to see us all in action.
Kris Kosach: [00:10:41] How cool. That's great. Um, alright, so tell me a little bit about Dave growing up.
You talk about this in the book and how friendly and funny he always was. He hasn't really seemed to change, you know, I don't know your son, but we do have mutual friends. And one of the things that I've [00:11:00] always been struck by, and I hope I meet him someday, I probably will. Um, but my friend Chris spoke so highly of him.
He said that he was in kind of a group, their social group, and there were two Dave's, so there was Dave, I don't remember the other guy's last name, but let's say X. So there was Dave X and Dave G. It wasn't right. Grohl and it wasn't the superstar and the other Dave, it was just Dave G. He was very down to earth, very much one of the gang.
How
Ginny Grohl: [00:11:29] do you,
Kris Kosach: [00:11:30] you do that? How do you keep somebody who knows such fame on the ground without, you know, no ego? How did you do that?
Ginny Grohl: [00:11:40] Oh, I didn't do that. Um, that's just his natural inclination. He was always from the very beginning as a very young child. He just liked it when everybody was happy. So he would entertain.
He would do, you would say funny [00:12:00] things. He would do funny things. He would, um, he's just always been pleasant. And. And fun to be around. Everybody likes to be with him. Everyone wants to be around him because he's just so much fun and, or just, um, listens well and I don't know, he's just, it's just this natural inclination.
It will, it wasn't a book of lessons that I taught him on how to behave properly. He just, that that's just as natural. Way, and so he's, he's, it's very popular. Everybody likes to record, but he's a great collaborator and, uh, people like to be with him. And, um, so yeah, it's just, it's just a natural thing.
Kris Kosach: [00:12:57] That's great. Well, again, the Apple [00:13:00] doesn't fall far from the tree, so they say, um, all alright. So, but not everything was always hunky Dory for him either. He, he was in scream, he starts, everything was great at first, but then it starts falling apart a little bit. He finds himself stranded in on the West coast and.
Manages the Atlanta gig with the band called Nirvana. Now, when I was in college, uh, we got this records from sub pop and we were one of the first college stations to play it, and I knew, and everybody with me knew there was something really special going on here. Did you have any inkling that there was something special here?
Ginny Grohl: [00:13:37] When I first heard. Teen spirit smells like teen spirit. Yes, I did see, I heard it over the phone and I did hear something in it. I didn't, I didn't make the proclamation that the world is about to change, but I did know that there was something really [00:14:00] good there. And, um, it happened so fast. It just really was a minute, wasn't it?
Yeah. Where were you? What station were you in DC at the time?
Kris Kosach: [00:14:13] No, no, no, no. I was in Northern California. I'm a native Californian, and it was called Casey assess. It's in this little, little Podunk college in the central Valley, but we had a killer college radio station and we were all calling all of our friends at the time.
This obviously pre-internet, so getting on the phone with people and saying, what do you have? And we called a college station in Seattle. We had friends up there who, who mailed. The singles
Ginny Grohl: [00:14:38] and music
Kris Kosach: [00:14:40] meeting, and we all sat around and went, Oh my God, what is this? And I was also working weekend overnights at a station in the central Valley outside of Modesto.
That was very much like the one that, uh, um. Wolf man, Jack is in, in a American graffiti. It was just like that in the middle of nowhere. And I took that to my [00:15:00] bosses and I said, you need to listen to this. And they're like, yeah, yeah, Kay, get out of here. Come back on Saturday night. So, and I was right. But then again, lots of people were right.
We had just knew. Um, all right, so everything blows up. I cannot believe you write in the book that an interviewer printed your home address. First of all. That person is horrible and I hope they're unemployed. But second of all, what on earth do you do when the fans start coming to your house?
Ginny Grohl: [00:15:28] Well, um, usually they would just drive by and, uh, we have a called a SAC, so we could, we could see where they were, but at the time, also I had two members of the Fairfax.
County police department in my little call to SAC, there was one right next door to me, so there was often a police car parked just a few feet away from my house, and then the other [00:16:00] one, officer Barnes would often park his cruiser in my driveway. Just a. For the fund.
Kris Kosach: [00:16:10] That's great.
Ginny Grohl: [00:16:11] So we, that's, that's how we, we dealt with that.
And it wasn't, it wasn't awful that occasionally people would come to the door and knock on the door and want something signed or want something or just hope to see David. But, um, it, it was all right.
Kris Kosach: [00:16:31] Yeah. How about, how about this? Um, recently I had a guest, uh, Jenny Boyd shot, that's Patty Boyd's sister, and she palled around with all the Beatles, and she said that she used to get requests for autographs from people simply because she was friends with the Beatles.
That that happened to
Ginny Grohl: [00:16:47] you. Oh, yes, yes. It was so silly. I had shows or something backstage or on the way into a Cole [00:17:00] bear or you know, when they're all these groups of people outside. Yes. And I just thought that was ridiculous. And I said, you know, I sign hall passes as a teacher. That's the only thing I've ever signed in.
And until the book, I didn't, I didn't sign anything.
Kris Kosach: [00:17:17] Right? But now you have reason to sign a lot because you've got this
Ginny Grohl: [00:17:20] mystery.
Kris Kosach: [00:17:22] You've signed some books. The book is cradled to stage stories from others who rocked and braised rockstars. It's on Kindle, hardback, paperback, and audio for those of you who want it immediately.
Um, okay. So talk to me about, uh, you call it the talk. When Dave came to you and said, um, school's not for me. I want to quit. Can you tell us that story?
Ginny Grohl: [00:17:47] Yes, it was not a surprise. I could see it coming for a long time. And you know, the fact was our situation was different [00:18:00] from a lot of others in that I was a teacher and David and his sister who's three years older.
And I would go off to school together every day in the car together and come home together, and they would often end up in my room several times during the day. And so we were. You know, in and out of school together, there were no secrets about how well he was doing or not doing because he was right down the hall all the time.
And his teachers would come and commiserate and say, why? Why doesn't he do this? Why won't we turn in this homework? Why isn't he interested in this? Everyone realized separate. He wasn't, and everybody liked him, but he, um. Could not thrive in school. He just could not. And the school was not a good space for him.
So I wasn't surprised at. So when he [00:19:00] said I want to go to her was scream. Honestly, it seemed like such a good idea, and I think people are surprised by it, but I don't think if they've lived through that as I had. It was so frustrating for me because I thought I could teach artistic kids and that I could find ways to spark interest in them.
And it was frustrating that I couldn't find a teacher for him that could do that. So he said he wanted to go to our Europe and I thought, that's a better education that he's going to get. Just sitting through classes.
Kris Kosach: [00:19:43] Yeah.
Ginny Grohl: [00:19:44] And, um, so I was with my blessing that he went,
Kris Kosach: [00:19:48] that's great. But he's a minor at the time, right?
He was 17
Ginny Grohl: [00:19:52] yes. So
Kris Kosach: [00:19:54] did you have to sign any papers through anything to
Ginny Grohl: [00:19:57] Amanda had to officially drop out? [00:20:00] Yes. Okay. Yeah.
Kris Kosach: [00:20:02] Yeah, that's, that's amazing story. Not a lot of parents would have done this. Now I'm going to jump to an a later conversation I was going to plan on having with you, but let's talk about this right now.
Um, you have a chapter at the end of the book called, what's some other to do if she spies a spark in her child or if they know that they're a little bit different than their others and they might have a budding artist. In this day and age, and you alluded to it a little bit in the book that a lot of people, you know, they'll say your kid has ADHD, or sometimes they'll say, Oh, they might be on the spectrum, or whatever, when in actuality they're, they're perfectly fine.
Um, so my question for you is, having been an educator, you understand child psychology at least to a degree, and you've been in that space. If you were the queen of the world, um, what would you propose grassroots groups do and, uh, school, uh, superintendents consider [00:21:00] doing for kids like that, who think differently, who might not benefit from the system, but they have other things to contribute.
Ginny Grohl: [00:21:07] Brian,
Kris Kosach: [00:21:08] what, what do you think should be proposed?
Ginny Grohl: [00:21:11] Oh, just to complete overhaul. The school systems, it, it exhausts me to even think about it. But there's so much wrong, there's so much bureaucracy. There is, there are so few really talented teachers. And partly that's because they don't make any money. Who would want to do that?
Um, it's a pretty thankless job. And, um, and the pay is terrible. You can't. Well, you can't survive on it. I couldn't survive as a single parent on just teaching during the daytime. I had to teach day and night and all year and sat prep, GED and everything. I [00:22:00] just constantly at work at Bloomingdale's and work at a carpet cleaners and so on and so forth.
Um, so it's, it's difficult. So that's one thing. It, if teachers could be paid. Another thing. I've, one thing about California is there's lots of, and a lot of the mothers, uh, and I had this conversation, lots of different kinds of schools. And so researching to find good schools that might, um, help in certain situations.
Camp is something that could be done. Now that's, I didn't have the option of doing it, but that's something I'd recommend now and it, but yes, it's difficult because the things that these kids all had in common was they're super [00:23:00] high energy and that, you know, once that. Gets to the stage. That's what makes them superstars.
And, um, that, you know, in the meantime it's difficult. And, um, and so, and the other thing is, the other thing that I had in common was this common age of 12 when they discovered that this is what I will be, this is what I am. And there's no changing it. That was, that was really remarkable to me that that was across the board.
Okay. All shared.
Kris Kosach: [00:23:40] That's interesting. Now, if I'm doing my I, if I'm doing my math right here, your granddaughter violet, she was around that age when you wrote this book, and my sister reminded me that violet has sung publicly with her dad, [00:24:00] and so my question is, do you see it in
Ginny Grohl: [00:24:02] her. Oh, absolutely. There's no question.
She's already, she's already in the business. She's already, uh, she started doing backups for him. Oh, yeah. She was on stage with him about a year or two ago, I guess the first time I saw her doing backups and, um. At first of all, I told her how much I really resented it because I've been asking him to do back if I could do backups for many, many years.
Kris Kosach: [00:24:33] Turned me down
Ginny Grohl: [00:24:35] over
Kris Kosach: [00:24:36] the original.
Ginny Grohl: [00:24:38] I never, I never got it. So, so anyway, she started doing that with, um, with the other two women or three. And um, and now she does. Much more than that. Now she comes out and sings with him. Recently, they did a benefit. Somebody did a benefit in LA, [00:25:00] and they had, um, Nirvana playing, um, David and Chris, uh, Nova salad and, um, Pat smear and then back played, uh, back to the Kurt Cobain.
Songs, and then violet came in and did heart shaped box. It was truly amazing. So she's already done a number of performances and, um, and when I had my mother's dinner with all the mothers, she performed for them as well. And Amy Winehouse was mother came to the dinner and I was sitting right next to her.
And um, she complimented violet and violet, which just so struck [00:26:00] because she had admired Amy so much. And so she had a great mountain. That was great. Now, so yes, it has moved on into the next generation.
Kris Kosach: [00:26:11] That's
Ginny Grohl: [00:26:11] great. She's now 13
Kris Kosach: [00:26:14] yeah. Dave asked you for advice ever. You're obviously good at this parenting thing.
Ginny Grohl: [00:26:23] He's very good at it too. Not really. Very often. We talk about, we talk about. Parenting situations, but he's the best dad in the world. He has three beautiful girls. They're all very different, all creative and very different ways. And, um. So he's doing just fine
Kris Kosach: [00:26:51] and you tell us great story about him jumping on a plane from Australia and, uh, going to the [00:27:00] daddy daughter dance and then turning around and going back, and I'm figuring out that's probably like 30 40 hours that he did all of that.
That's insane. Talk about granddad.
Ginny Grohl: [00:27:10] It was great. Dad, marathon. No, I don't think anyone else's. I'm even close to anything like that, but yes. Yeah, that's, that's, that's what he does. It's pretty amazing.
Kris Kosach: [00:27:24] That's fantastic. Okay, so this mother's dinner that you had, that violet played at, um, was, was Wendy Cobain there.
Ginny Grohl: [00:27:32] No, no, actually when, you know, Wendy, when I asked her, she was right at the very beginning. She was, I think the first person I asked. And, um, she said no, she had, first of all, she had something else that was a project that she was working on. And, um, it turned out to be something she really didn't like. But anyway, um, she said, no.
[00:28:00] Because she was doing some other things that we had been in touch a little bit over the years. So I'm sorry. I kept trying and then when I finally decided I would just write a vignette about her instead of, um, our story. Um, I called her and asked her if I could do that, and she said yes, and she loved it, so she loved what.
I wrote and was quite happy with it. Yeah. She wasn't a part of the greater,
Kris Kosach: [00:28:32] well, I asked because of course she would have something in common with Amy Winehouse is mom. Right.
Ginny Grohl: [00:28:36] That's true.
Kris Kosach: [00:28:37] That's the same age and everything. That's why I asked that. Um, alright, so while we're on the topic of that, I have to ask about this dark time and I don't want to dwell on it too much because it is, it is permeated our culture for so many years and it's going to come up again after every anniversary.
But April the eighth, 1994. Kurt's found in Seattle of apparent suicide, [00:29:00] and for my gen, from my generation, generation X, that was kind of our JFK moment. We all
Ginny Grohl: [00:29:06] know where we were.
Kris Kosach: [00:29:08] I want to know where you were and if you heard it from your son or if you heard it on the news.
Ginny Grohl: [00:29:14] I was in my classroom in a high school where I was teaching in Virginia, and I heard it.
From some students came in to tell me, yeah, so that's how I heard it. And
Kris Kosach: [00:29:32] then how do you console your child after hand?
Ginny Grohl: [00:29:38] Oh, that was, that was well, that it was beyond everyone's, it was, it was very difficult and it was just hard to. Decide where to be, what to say it [00:30:00] was. David came home shortly and he was, you know, for him, if the music stopped for a really long time, long time him anyway, and then eventually.
Came back. But, um, yeah, it was, it was a real turning point in many ways. I could see, I hadn't ever heard it described as the JFK moment, but I can see how that would be, um, for, for your generation.
Kris Kosach: [00:30:42] Yeah. Yeah. We all just know exactly where we were. We also know where we were at nine 11, which I'm going to get to here in a second because that's a much more uplifting story, your variation of what came after.
But before we get off this topic, um, he says in multiple interviews that [00:31:00] he's so well grounded and he always seemed to come home back to his room to kind of get back to basics. That was his safe place. And. You say that he gave up on music for a long time, but again, coming from you, I'm wondering if you introduced music to him as a child and Lisa, your daughter as well, but you introduced music to him.
Did you reintroduce music to him because music is therapy?
Ginny Grohl: [00:31:28] I don't remember that. I don't, honestly, there's a lot about that time that I, I just don't remember, and I don't. I don't think I was responsible for any, any restoration of the music in him. Um, I think it was just that he was in a place away from all of the questions and, and people poking around and, uh, he was able to be [00:32:00] calm and, and to sort of restore.
But I honestly, I don't remember. I don't remember if we went to listen to music, uh, or what happened during that space.
Kris Kosach: [00:32:15] Okay. Thank you for that. Okay. That's it. Now we're going to get happy. Okay. Um, believe me, I don't love dwelling on this kind of stuff either. Um, but okay, so fast forward, he starts foo fighters.
It's taking off. Nine 11 happens and we're again, the countries that are at a standstill. You're in Virginia. Lisa and David are in California, and they want you here. But as we all recall, if we lived through that, you couldn't get from point a to point B because all the planes were down, all the cars were rented out, all the trains were filled.
Tell us a story about how you got from East to West. This is the best story ever.
Ginny Grohl: [00:32:57] Well, they, they called me that [00:33:00] morning several times, and our Virginia House is less than 10 miles from the Pentagon, and it's right next to the beltway, so you could just hear sirens and sirens and sirens. Um, and so it was clear that it was an emergency situation.
And. We tried several things. First of all, I was going to drive his suburban with my friend and um, and, but then she couldn't, she couldn't leave Virginia for some reason then. And I didn't want to drive a suburban cross country by myself. So he, David called back and said, can you be ready in two hours?
And. He said, I think I found a bus for you. And I said, sure. So I gathered up a few things, [00:34:00] mismatch shoes, and I sent a bag. And
Kris Kosach: [00:34:05] when did you notice you had mismatch? A
Ginny Grohl: [00:34:07] long time later.
And then in a couple hours this. Enormous tour bus shows up in my little culdesac neighbors are all peering out the windows thinking, Oh dear God, what is she doing now? And, um, and he had gotten a tour bus for me that was honest way from North Carolina to New York to pick up Warren Haynes to take him to a gig in Denver.
Kris Kosach: [00:34:44] He said, Warren Haynes of government meal, we should
Ginny Grohl: [00:34:46] not thrive. That's right. And so I got on the tour bus with Barney, the driver and Warren's manager, [00:35:00] and then we drove to the edge of New York city where we met Warren. He lived really close to where everything happened. His apartment. Close. So he was able to get himself to the edge of the city where we picked him up, and then we drove nonstop across the country for, uh, to get to his Denver show.
So Warren and I became. Really good friends because we just talked our way across the country and talked about, he talked about growing up in North Carolina and his early music influences and, uh, we talked about families and we just had, uh, we, we actually had a really wonderful time. We would be stopped at truck stops for lunches.
And then got back in the bus kept [00:36:00] going. So we made it through to go to his show. And, uh, and I got to see an amazing performance. So it was, it was just, it was just a great, great situation. And then when he, then he came to LA to play a show, and. David and Lisa and I went to that, and at at the end of it, he called David onstage and they played, keep on rocking in the free world, which is.
It was pretty incredible.
Kris Kosach: [00:36:42] That is so incredible that I love it. You know, I have to compliment you on this chapter because I, having been in radio, I've lived all over the place. Heartland, East coast, West coast, Midwest, everywhere. You described your journey. [00:37:00] Well, and you're welcome. It just really put me back there.
I felt like I was on that trip with you. Oh my God. I'm getting chills just thinking about it, but it was beautiful the way you described the grass and all the American flags. It's a beautiful chapter, Jenny. It really is. I would encourage anyone who wants to take this journey with you to read from cradles to stage stories from others who rocked and raised rockstars.
It's available now and immediately if you want it on audio book or on Kindle edition and hardback and paperback as well. Um, okay. So, uh, uh. I love that. Um, moving on, let's see, what other questions do I have for you? I've got a couple of fun facts. Um, uh, okay. Oh, I wanted to ask you kind of your advice, personal advice if I may.
So I was chatting with a friend of mine who tours in a band on a level of foo fighters not too long ago, um, about our kids. And I've got an 11 [00:38:00] year old who's very studious and he's into math. And my seven year old. Who I did not think was going to be, you know, kind of a creative person at all. She wants to be a singer.
She's only seven, but she's outside with her guitar, sing into all the neighbors every day. It's the cutest thing ever. And this friend of mine said, how old is she? And I said, she's seven. And he said, well, you have time to fix it. So I was a little taken aback by that. But do you recommend fixing it? How do I fix it?
Don't want to fix it.
Ginny Grohl: [00:38:32] No, I know. You don't want to fix it. Um, and any way you're powerless, so just forget it. Um, if this is, if it's music, if it's the music bug or whatever it is that they, uh, are infected by, there's no changing it, it, it's, it's there. And if you. You can try to [00:39:00] postpone it. You can try to work classes in and around it.
But if there really is that determination and that talent and that drive, I think it's, it's just, it has an energy of its own. And why would you want to, I mean, that's, first of all, it's, um, you know. Not everybody gets to have a life where there's that kind of freedom and choices that they get to make and places they get to go.
And, and, you know, I, I've traveled the world with foo fighters and Nirvana and just gone to places I would never get to go if I had just been. Spending my teacher's retirement.
Kris Kosach: [00:39:54] Tell our listeners some of the amazing perks you've gotten, some of these people, some of the places you've been telling us [00:40:00] it's pretty insane.
Ginny Grohl: [00:40:01] Well, it is. I have a, I have a wonderful photo in my house, uh, autographed. It's a photo of me with my three favorite man in the world, Barack Obama. Paul McCartney and my son, and it's from a white house events. Um, when Paul won the library of Congress prize for music, I don't know how many years ago, and they had a, a reception and a show at the white house, and it was a really small show inside the white house.
And there were maybe only 200 people in the audience. And, um, and so just being there in that place at that time was [00:41:00] wonderful. And then I got to meet the president and Michelle Obama, and it was, it was just, uh, just an unbelievably wonderful night. And, um. And then, yeah, and then just meeting Paul McCartney the first time, and then again, and then having dinner with him.
Just, you know, I just, things that I never thought would happen. The travels have been, I've been to. Beautiful, wonderful places. I love going to Ireland and gone there several times for shows and traveled around there into Australia. And um, it's just in Japan and all over Europe. So all of those things have been.
Wonderful, and
Kris Kosach: [00:41:55] right. And you've gone to the Grammys and the rock and roll hall of fame and the Kennedy [00:42:00] center, you've been to a new met Prince Harry, right? Yes. Yes,
Ginny Grohl: [00:42:07] I know it is. And you know, he was just, he was just a lovely guy. He was charming and funny and, and engaging and, um, and very easy to just talk to.
So, yeah, it's, it's just, it's just really been magical. So, so I, I would not try to convince a child to do anything else. I know it, you know, there might be some, some difficulties, but another thing that surprised me about all of them is that they didn't want to have, most of them didn't like the lessons that most musicians.
Um, have most of them resisted any, uh, any of that and just wanted to do it themselves and were able to, that's the other thing they [00:43:00] were able to. So, um, that was pretty remarkable to me. Oh, that's great.
Kris Kosach: [00:43:07] Okay. Um, just a couple more questions. Uh, when you, so you travel all over the world, you stand on a stage or, or you sit in your beach chair, as you said, um, put us there with you when you're standing or sitting on the edge of the arena, looking out over that huge arena crowd, what is going through your
mind?
Ginny Grohl: [00:43:26] I love watching the audience. I love watching the movement. Watching. Slightly energized they get when they start moving and jumping and, and swaying. And I really do love seeing that energy of flow back and forth from the audience to the stage and back and so on. It's just, um, it's really, it's really a great thing to see.
So I peek around the [00:44:00] curtain at that and, and enjoy that. So
Kris Kosach: [00:44:05] you could almost be like a where's Waldo? The next time I go to a foo fighters show, I'm just going to be looking for you.
Ginny Grohl: [00:44:13] Actually, I get taught every once in a while.
Oh, that's great. Yeah, that's great. I'm sorry,
Kris Kosach: [00:44:26] go ahead.
Ginny Grohl: [00:44:27] That's all right. Go ahead.
Kris Kosach: [00:44:29] Oh, I just wanted to, I was going to, our time is coming to an end. I promised you an hour or less, so I want to respect that. But, um, I want to leave you with a fun fact because you may or may not know this. I really hope I'm telling you this for the first time, um, the big alternative radio station here in Los Angeles, K rock, it's probably.
The biggest alternative station in the country, and it certainly is one of the oldest. It's very, very legendary. As you probably know, three days ago, they announced [00:45:00] their top 106 songs of all time because they're on the one Oh six frequency. Um, do you know what the number one song was?
Ginny Grohl: [00:45:10] Well, smells like teen spirit.
Kris Kosach: [00:45:14] You would think right now smells like teen spirit as number five, five Jenny foo fighters. Everlong is number.
Ginny Grohl: [00:45:23] Oh, wonderful.
Kris Kosach: [00:45:25] In that great. They beat mr Brightside. Mr Brightside recently. Um, Brian, the killer has created, uh, excuse me, the mr Brightside by the killers recently.
Um. Became notable for being the longest running single of all time and ever long beat that.
Ginny Grohl: [00:45:45] Wow. As it should. That's so wonderful song, isn't it? It's great. It's one of the best songs ever. Oh, wonderful. Alright,
Kris Kosach: [00:45:55] well thank you so much. That is going to do it for this episode of [00:46:00] text pros and rock and roll.
I look very forward to your documentary and in the meantime, people should definitely check out from cradle the stage.
Ginny Grohl: [00:46:08] Thank you so much.
Kris Kosach: [00:46:10] That was a lot of fun. Thank you. Um, okay, now I don't want you to go anywhere. Shar, you go ahead and do your thing.