Don’t put rock stars on a pedestal

The Foo Fighters frontman and “nicest guy in rock'n'roll” has fathered a child “outside of my marriage.” Shocked fans should remember that he always said he was only human

September 11, 2024, 12:50 p.m.

There's our hero. Last night, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters dropped the bombshell on Instagram that he fathered a child out of wedlock, and fans of his no-frills heavy rock band were devastated. Whatever you think of the Foo Fighters' music – and many would consider it a horrific dumbing down of the post-punk onslaught of his previous group Nirvana – Grohl is a beloved figure in music.

That's not just because he's seen as the embodiment of all the positive aspects of rock 'n' roll – particularly the belief in crunchy riffs and moshpit-friendly melodies as a source of shared joy. It's because he serves as an inspirational example of a nice guy who finishes first. As anyone who's met Grohl will attest, he's approachable, appreciative of his fans and never gives the impression of being too big for his own good. The cliche that you never meet your idols doesn't apply to the Foo Fighters singer.

But apparently he can be just as naughty as he is nice. After cheating on his wife of 21 years, Jordyn Blum, and betraying his three daughters, aged 18, 15 and 10, Grohl has shown that he is just another fast-paced rock star who sees the world as his own personal party basement. But the betrayal goes beyond the purely personal. Nirvana, whom he joined as drummer after their 1989 debut album Bleach, defied all the old, overblown stereotypes of rockers as womanisers. They represented something bigger than their music – a value system to which Grohl gave the middle finger.

As the story progresses, social media suggests that Grohl was guilty of hypocrisy. The argument is that he exploited his wholesome image as a rock'n'roll dad – by intentionally playing the role of the regular guy from the suburbs who happened to be the frontman of a rock band that filled stadiums.

That's how he was perceived, and that explains the shocked reaction to the news of his extramarital escapades. Compare Grohl to a personality like Mick Jagger. Imagine if the Rolling Stones singer admitted that he had just fathered an illegitimate child. Would that surprise anyone? Of course not – it fits his fiery image.

In Grohl's defense, he never claimed to be perfect. In his 2021 autobiography, he barely mentions his wife. The Storyteller – Judging by the book, the important women in his life are his mother Virginia and his daughters Violet, Ophelia and Harper.

But he also admits to indulging in some of rock'n'roll's oldest vices. In one chapter, he writes enthusiastically about traveling to Texas in the hope of visiting a strip club run by the metal band Pantera. He also admits that when the Foo Fighters became successful, he abandoned the ascetic values ​​of Nirvana and the late 1980s alternative pop scene from which they emerged.

“I felt a kind of liberation that made me give in to the things I had held back all these years. And I didn't hold back,” he writes. He doesn't go into detail about what he describes as his “voracious debauchery” – except that “any shyness I once had about letting loose was gone.”

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“Gluttony and debauchery” is hard to reconcile with Grohl's nice-guy image, but he never sought that label and seemed frustrated when I asked him about it in 2011.

“I always thought it was kind of funny that I have the nicest guy in rock… I'm not a fucking saint, you know. If I wanted to be a priest, I'd be a fucking priest,” he said while promoting Foo Fighters' Waste of light Album. “I always laughed about the nicest man in rock thing. Yeah, I could sit in the pub and make you laugh for an hour. It's not that one-dimensional. I'm a bloody human being, you know.”

We now know how much of a “human being” he is. He is also a rock star who is open to all the temptations in the world. Men in his position have been indulging their selfish side – and hurting those around them – for as long as the music business has existed.

If we are shocked that Grohl puts his hands in the cookie jar, then it is fair to ask who is responsible for this reaction. The singer, for betraying his loved ones in private? Or his audience, for putting him on a pedestal that he never sought and, if you read the comments, never really believed he deserved?