Audiobook Review | The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music

A little switch to non-fiction and a very interesting memoir.

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The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
Dave Grohl

So, I’ve written a book.

Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities (“It’s a piece of cake! Just do 4 hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!”) I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I’ve recorded and can’t wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child. 

This certainly doesn’t mean that I’m quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it’s like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.

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The Foo Fighters are a part of the soundtrack to my teenage years but other than enjoying their music when I would hear it on the radio and at friends’ houses, I don’t know a lot about their background. So when I heard that Dave Grohl had written a book I knew that I would love to hear what he had to say and find out more about the band and the man himself.

I was really surprised by how down to earth he is but also how self-deprecating, for someone who has achieved so much he still talks about himself as if he is the outsider, and I think that’s what makes this book so engaging and enjoyable. You can really feel his passion for music and his love for other artists, he seems like someone who you could have an easy conversation with and leave with a long and varied playlist, because I definitely noted down songs and artists to look up when I wasn’t listening to the book.

He has a lot of very interesting and funny stories and I liked that each chapter weaved from one point in his life to another showing inspirations, influences, and some weird and wonderful coincidences. This non-linear style made it feel like a natural conversation and I found that I felt so much more invested because of it, I actually got a bit emotional at some points in the story but Dave always managed to bring it back to a happy hopeful place before the chapter ended.

I would definitely recommend this book as an audiobook as it was lovely to hear his words in his voice, but also because there is apparently a little extra that isn’t in the written version. The Storyteller was an immensely enjoyable experience and I will definitely revisit it to hear some of these stories again in the future.