Dave Grohl: 'My entire life I’ve basically felt like I’m watching this happen to someone else'

Today on the BBC Radio 6 Music Breakfast Show, Lauren Laverne spoke to Dave Grohl. Check out quotes from their chat below.

On first playing the guitar
Dave: When I was young my father was a classically trained flautist, he was a musician as well. He was given a guitar as a gift when I was maybe 2 or 3 years old and he put it in his lap once and then it retired to the corner of the rooms for years and years. And when I was about 9 or 10 years old I picked it up and it was covered in dust, it only had 2 strings left on it. I picked it up and I just instinctively went ‘bah bah baaah, bah bah bah bah’ [sings riff for Smoke On The Water, Deep Purple] and then I thought ‘Oh my god, I can do this! That’s all you need to do, I can do this.’ And that was kind of the beginning of me playing the guitar.

On his new book, having incredible stories to share and look back on and working with his heroes
Dave: Oh my god, well here’s the thing, you know my entire life I’ve basically felt like I’m watching this happen to someone else, you know, it’s almost like having an out of body experience so I’m still like a little kid on a bedroom floor playing guitar. And I get to meet Tom Petty or jam with Paul McCartney or jam with Prince or jam with Bowie... every time I’m face to face with some of these people I cannot believe that it’s happening to me. I try to act cool, I try to play it cool like it’s no big deal... but it never leaves my mind that I get to stand face to face with my heroes, it’s amazing.

What he learnt through writing the book
Dave: That I need to slow down, trying to pack too much into one lifetime. I should start getting gooder vacations soon, but I just can’t imagine that’s going to happen!

On what’s next
Dave: We’ve got a project that’s coming down the line that nobody knows about that will really take you by surprise. It’s one of those things that – I can’t say anything – but when you find out about it you will say I cannot believe they did that and I can’t believe we did it either, but we did!