Ongoing History Daily: Dave Grohl was almost Tom Petty’s drummer

When Nirvana fell apart and before Dave Grohl found his legs with the Foo Fighters, he was lost. Totally lost. He didn’t know what to do.

One of the first people to reach out to him was Tom Petty who was looking for a drummer. With nothing to lose, Dave accepted a temporary gig that saw him appear with Tom on Saturday Night Live, just a few months after Kurt Cobain died. It would have been a good gig—Dave and Tom got along very well—but despite a very attractive offer from Petty, Dave decided it would be “too sad” to sit at the back of a band keeping time so soon after the end of Nirvana.

Within a few more weeks, he was hard at work on what would become the Foo Fighters. And that turned out all right, didn’t it?

Yesterday’s episode was on the end of planned song segues.

And don’t forget to check out my podcast The Ongoing History of New Music where you listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google, Stitcher, or wherever you get your on-demand audio.