Dave Grohl: Postcard from band was "wake up call" after Kurt Cobain's death

12 July 2020, 13:30 | Updated: 12 July 2020, 21:43

Nirvana's Dave Grohl, the late Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic in 1991. Picture: Paul Bergen/Redferns

The Foo Fighters frontman recalled how Seattle punk band 7 Year Bitch helped him realise he had to keep playing music to heal from the death of his Nirvana bandmate.

Dave Grohl has looked back on the postcard which was sent to him shortly after Kurt Cobain died, calling it a "huge wake up call".

The Foo Fighters frontman spoke about the 25th anniversary of the band's debut studio album and the origins of the project.

Grohl has often talked about how he couldn't listen to or play music when the Nirvana frontman tragically lost his life to suicide on 5 April 1994, but has also confirmed that a Seattle punk rock band helped him see things differently.

Asked by Matt Wilkinson if it was true that he got a postcard from a band called 7 Year Bitch, who had lost bandmates as well, he replied: “Yeah, that was soon after Kurt’s memorial that I got that.

“It basically said ‘I know that you probably don’t want to play music now but you will because that’s how you get through these things’.”

He added: “And it was a huge wake up call for me because they were right. I couldn’t consider playing music at the time and then I did realise that maybe that’s the thing that’s gonna get me through this”.

Members of 7 Year Bitch Roisin Dunne, vocalist Selene Vigil, drummer Valerie Agnew and bassist Elizabeth Davis (seated) in 1993 — Punk band 7 Year Bitch sent Grohl a note after the death of Kurt Cobain. Picture: Lindsay Brice/Getty Images

Grohl has previously talked about how the album's opener This Is A Call - which he wrote just after the remaining members of Nirvana had disbanded - helped "restart his heart" and made him realise he wanted to be a frontman.

Speaking of e single, he told Kerrang! in 2006: "It was written in my basement in Seattle just after Nirvana had finished.

"This Is A Call just seemed like a nice way to open the album, y'know, 'This is a call to all my past resignations...'

Dave soon came to a decision. "I realised that doing the thing I’d always done – go to a basement, record by myself – might restart my heart," he revealed.

He went on: "I felt like I had nothing to lose and I didn't necessarily wanna be the drummer of Nirvana for the rest of my life without Nirvana. I thought I should try something I'd never done before and I'd never stood up in front of a band and been the lead singer."