Dave Grohl recalls taking mushrooms at his mum’s Christmas party aged 15

Dave Grohl has recalled taking mushrooms at his mum’s Christmas party when he was 15 years old.

The Foo Fighters frontman said he then stayed up all night trying and failing to learn a Led Zeppelin song on the guitar.

  • READ MORE: Dave Grohl tells us about Foo Fighters’ ‘Medicine at Midnight’: “This is our Saturday night party album”

Telling the story to Zane Lowe on Apple Music, Grohl said: “I grew up in a house that was really small and every Christmas night people just knew to come over to the Grohl’s little house. We would all just sit around and listen to music and drink and stuff like that.

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“By the time I was like 14 or 15, now I’m in a punk rock band, my punk rock friends are coming over. Then my mum’s teacher friends are coming over and then my sister… I mean, we lived in a small little neighbourhood and everyone just knew to come over.”

He continued: “So this one year… God I shouldn’t be telling this story. This one year, I think I was like 15 or something like that. My friend gave me mushrooms for Christmas, right? I’d never taken them before. So I thought, ‘Okay, I probably shouldn’t take them at this party because all of my mother’s friends are coming over’” Right? They’re teachers at the school that I go to, I know these people. I’d known for a long time.

“So my friend gives me all these mushrooms. I think, “I’ll take a little bit before the party.” Did. I was out of my fucking mind. Right? So much so, one of the teachers from the school pulled me into the bathroom at one point and was like, ‘Are you doing cocaine?’ I was like, ‘No, no!’

“So then after everyone left I stayed up and tried to learn that Zeppelin song, ‘Bron-Y-Aur’, that acoustic thing until like six o’clock in the morning. I never figured it out. I thought I figured it out, but I didn’t really figure it out.”







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Grohl and Foo Fighters will release their tenth album ‘Medicine At Midnight’ in February, an album Grohl told NME is the band’s “Saturday night party album”.

This week, Grohl spoke about releasing the new album following pandemic-related delays.

“Right now, more than ever, people need something to lift their spirits, something to give them some feeling of relief or escape,” the frontman said. “I was, like: ‘We’ve gotta put it out. Let’s put it out right now.’”

In advance of the album’s release, the frontman has been teaming up with producer Greg Kurstin to share ‘The Hanukkah Sessions’, covering eight Jewish artists, one for each day of the holiday celebrations. Among the covers have been versions of Drake‘s ‘Hotline Bling’, Beastie Boys‘ ‘Sabotage’ and Bob Dylan‘s ‘Blonde On Blonde’ classic ‘Rainy Day Women #12 & 35’.