Dave Grohl Upset Dentist by Drumming With His Teeth
Dave Grohl recalled how he was kicked out of a dental surgery after demonstrating how he played drums using his teeth.
The incident took place when he was young, before he could afford a kit to play properly. He developed his own technique for learning rhythms in his mouth, along with using the pillows on his bed as stand-in drums and cymbals.
He can be seen demonstrating the technique in a new BBC video clip.
“I started doing it when I was a kid, and I was at the dentist, and he’s looking at my teeth,” Grohl explained. “He says, ‘Do you chew a lot of ice?’ I said, ‘I don’t think so – why?’ He said, ‘Well, your teeth have an unusual amount of deterioration.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, wait! I can play drums with my teeth!’ He’s like, ‘What?’ And I made him put his ear close to my mouth – and then he kicked me out. ‘Get out of here!’”
In the same interview, he explained the motivation for writing his memoir The Storyteller, which will be published on Oct. 5. “In the book, I'm basically writing from the perspective of someone that feels like they're having an out-of-body experience,” he said. “I can't believe this has happened to me – whether it's getting to jam with one of my all-time heroes or just being able to jump on a plane, have a drink and fly to the next town to play to thousands of people. Every day I have these moments where I think, ‘Oh, this is what I’m going to see just before I die’.”
He said the process of writing was made easier by his ability to recall details. "I have my own sort of filing cabinet in my mind,” he explained. “Everything's sorted in musical increments. So if you play me a song from the '70s, I can tell you exactly where I was when I heard it, and if you play me a Nirvana record, I can tell you what I was wearing when I recorded that song.”
By way of evidence, Grohl was asked to remember what he was wearing when he recorded the Nirvana track “In Bloom.” He responded: “I had yellow shorts, and this weird sort of blue-and-white tie-dyed shirt. ... But that's easy to remember because I think I only had one thing to wear when we were recording Nevermind. It was not the most glamorous scene.”