Dave Grohl: Times Like His

by Martin James

Across the entire body of Foo Fighters albums, the whole legendary Nirvana tale, the pre-history in the nascent Seattle scene and Grohl’s flirtations with Queens of the Stone Age and his super group side project Them Crooked Vultures, this is an utterly comprehensive, insightful chronicle of Dave Grohl’s remarkable life. Drawing on new interviews with key figures in the Grohl story, this definitive biography includes the stories of the 2007 multi-platinum opus Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace , 2011’s Wasting Light , which saw Grohl reunited with Nirvana producer Butch Vig, and Sonic Highways , their homage to classic rock.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography

352 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2015

Reviews

[Bon Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

As one of those uber fans of the band, I enjoyed this. But, truth be told, there are far better rock biographies out there. And I'm not even sure this could be called biography at all. It's more chronology of the bend and even more, its albums. This is basic set up. That said, could all the music critics psycho(tic) babble have been avoided? Is there a person in the world who enjoys randomly assembled corpuses of words of notoriously unobjective, prone-to-spurs-of-the-moments, musical (or any, for that matter), critics? I'm pretty sure the answers are yes, and no, respectively.

True rock biographies are those written by rockstars themselves (or their ghost writers, more often, but under their strict supervision), or by persons very close to the bend, like their managers (recent Van Halen biography I've read comes to mind).

This, unfortunately, is neither of those.

[Iosiv Basarab · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reasonably good chronicle of Dave Grohl‘s life and activity

[Taylor Nelson · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Never ending pages of factual information without relevance and storytelling

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is only the second book in my life I have considered not finishing. It took me 3 1/2 months to finish it.

You'd expect a Dave Grohl biography to be like Dave - hyper, charming, driven. It was none of that. There were sparks of excitement every so often, but they often died quickly. The first chapter is all we get of Dave's childhood. There is a 20-page history of the punk scene in Washington D.C. I understand the importance of the punk scene in influencing Grohl's work, but the entire history was not necessary. Not to mention the terrible editing/proof reading job. Even the names of some of the biggest rock stars are not correct on one page, but correct on the next.

The best part of the book is the drummer jokes at the beginning of each chapter.

[Dwight Koslowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

What was this supposed to be? A Biography? Not really. More like a history. First there is an unnecessary history of the DC punk scene. Then the endless litanies of every tour. Every song is described, then other critics are quoted, then the author supplies his own critique. No, this book is more tedious than pompous, but not much.

[Ally Van Schilt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mildly enjoyable without really learning anything new. Still, I love to read about people I love. The drummer jokes to start every chapter were great; but the cringe-worthy jokes that ran throughout were not (his new baby is loud just like his music! Such wit!)

[Tiffany · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good journalism about a fun topic, but I think this book could've used more editing attention: my copy was absolutely riddled with errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and consistency. Too bad, since there was lots of good material in this up-to-date biography.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was entertaining, but had a lot of redundancies. It also desperately needed an editor as there are many errors in it. I'd still recommend reading it, especially if you are a Foo or Grohl fan.

[Lindsey Novakovic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt like reading more of a research paper on the history of punk and rock n roll in Dave’s childhood/growing-up-years for the first half of the book, but still learned a great deal about his experiences in music!

[Matt Carton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rambling, incoherent. Dave and the Foos deserve much better.

[Jamey Michaud · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truly, what I was hoping for was something a little more personal, but what this book provides has the feel of reading a series of articles you’d find in a magazine.

[Melisa Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this four stars for being thorough. Much of what was written is already known by real Foo Fighters fans who have watched “Back and Forth” and “Sound City”, But I liked having the info all in one place. British biographer Martin James took lots of liberties with sound bites from Dave, inserting UK slang instead of being true to what was most likely said. (Example: I don’t imagine that Dave really said ‘arseholes’.) There were many misspellings and items that needed more editing. The book ended with an extremely annoying negative review of “Sonic Highways”, which was a masterpiece and of course shot/written through the lens of the experiences of Dave and Company. But I’m nitpicking; overall the book was well done.

[Sansan Gilbreath · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started to give this book 3 stars and just move on with my life . It took me about 2 years to finish this book . My opinion of the first half was if you can make Dave Grohl sound boring then you are a boring writer . I put it down for a long time . In the meantime I read Dave’s book , Storyteller. That is definitely a 5 star book and I have also begun the audiobook . For some reason , I was able to get through the second half of this book with less irritation . This book is dry and mostly taken from quotes from various interviews and is album critiques . I’m not sure I’d recommend it even if you are a Dave Grohl fan .

[Lies · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a very basic chronology of the life and discography of Dave Grohl, the biography stays on the surface. The endless beginning and background on punk and other bands was quite boring, I started liking it more when the story finally talked about Nirvana.
I didn't get the idea that the writer "likes" Dave very much, he was quite negative about him and his character. Admitted, you shouldn't be a fanboy when writing books like these, but still. A bit more neutrality wouldn't harm! By the end I had the feeling the writer wanted to rush it and he didn't elaborate on some stories.

[Toby White · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a slow burner to begin with, and like others have stated, you can tell this is written by a music journo... with quite a bit more attention to breaking down individual Nirvana/Foo Fighters etc releases but it’s more up to date than others I’ve read and it picked up further along. It was interesting to read about Dave’s other projects and work which I wasn’t really aware of.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great to read a chapter at a time

The topic of this book is fantastic. The stories are great. The insight to Dave Grohl is heartfelt and enlightening. The drum jokes are hilarious. It is wrote like you’re reading a really long newspaper article. It’s great to read a chapter at a time.

[Mrs I M Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read

I love reading anything and everything about Dave and the Foos. The man is just amazing. Little bits I didn't know before, something I find with every book I read about him. Would definitely suggest reading if your a fan and even if your not

[Azmir Ismail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid bio of Grohl

A good bio about Dave Grohl, especially on his early years and how it has influenced his career. Not much story on his personal side, but a lot on his music, etc.

[Joanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had some fun anecdotes but mainly a chronology of albums and a friendship of sorts between the journalist and Dave.

[Timothy E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The detail is what makes this so interesting

This is a good start for any Dave Grohl or foo fighters fan. Has the right amount of history mixed with behind the scenes information.

[Slow Culture Magazine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it for the childhood and the Nirvana part. Wasn't disappointed. I read dozens of books about the band, and still every page taught me something new. A well-written, enlightening read.

[Steve Platt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an ok book, but I wish the proofreader had been better at their job!

[Marie Loerzel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was more a chronology than a biography and was full of grammatical errors and misspellings.

[Mihael Leben · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dull and too factual.

[Mike Bourcier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good not great. A lot of history about Grohl. There were times they jumped around in time and that was slightly confusing. I guess I should have read this one before his Storyteller book.

[Ryan Munger · Rating 1 out of 5]

not well written

[Natalie]

Review published in Library Journal: March 15, 2016.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Minus 1 star for poor editing. Could hardly make it through a single page without wading through typos.