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Dave Grohl: Nirvana members still jam and record "really cool" music together

Though it "doesn’t really seem like any sort of big official reunion or anything", Dave Grohl says Nirvana's jam sessions have produced "some stuff that’s really cool".

Dave Grohl: Nirvana members still jam and record "really cool" music together
Words:
Emily Carter
Photo:
Oliver Halfin

Dave Grohl has revealed that he still jams and sometimes records music with the surviving members of Nirvana, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear.

Speaking on The Howard Stern Show earlier this week (via ThePRP), the Foo Fighters frontman explains that these sessions are pretty casual and not for anything in particular ("There’s no pressure on us to do something that the world will have to hear"), but they've recorded some "really cool" music together. And, excitingly, it sounds very much like Nirvana.

"So Krist Novoselic is a pilot, he flies his own plane…" Dave tells Howard of how these jams come together. "He lives up in the Pacific Northwest and whenever he comes down to Los Angeles, you know, we always love to see each other and we’ll have dinner. Last time he was here I made dinner for us and we hung out. And Pat‘s always around and the three of us, you know we like to just… we like to be together. We like to see each other and if there are instruments around or a studio that’s available, we’ll just get together and kind of jam, you know?

Read this: Nirvana’s 10 best videos ranked in order of greatness

"And we don’t run through a big old Nirvana setlist," he continues, "but we do like to fool around and sometimes as we’re fooling around, songs happen. And you know if we’re in a studio we’ll record them. So we’ve recorded some stuff that’s really cool. But we’ve never done anything with it. But to us, I think, it’s more just like friends, jamming around. It doesn’t really seem like any sort of big official reunion or anything.”

Dave goes on to add that he's playing the drums in these Nirvana sessions and that they don't have a vocalist, but the material that has come out of their playing together still sounds like their old band: "It reminds you that, that when the three of us get together in a room and start playing, it sounds like it did. It sounds like it used to. When we put the three of us in a room and it makes that noise, it still does."

In January 2021, Dave revealed that he still has dreams about being onstage with Nirvana.

"I still have dreams that we’re in Nirvana, that we’re still a band," he told Classic Rock. "I still dream there’s an empty arena waiting for us to play, but I don’t sit down at home and run through Smells Like Teen Spirit by myself. It’s just a reminder that the person who is responsible for those beautiful songs is no longer with us. It’s bittersweet."

He also added: "I wouldn’t feel comfortable singing a song that Kurt sang. I feel perfectly at home playing those songs on the drums. And I love playing them with Krist and Pat and another vocalist."

Read this: 11 bands and artists who wouldn’t be here without Nirvana

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