I love music, I play music, I like to think that my taste in music runs wide. But I just never really got into Nirvana. Don’t get me wrong, I recognized the individual talent of the members and Nirvana’s influence in the course and history of rock and roll.
Although Kurt Cobain’s name was out there a lot, I therefore didn’t ever know the names of anyone else in the band.
Some years later I started hearing songs from this new band – Foo Fighters. On the radio, at the bars, blasting from college parties I passed on the way to the bar. And I really liked this music and have continued listening all these years.
But I never looked up any bio or history of the band – I again did not know the names of the band members, not even the lead singer.
My wife, however, has always been a huge fan of both Nirvana and Foo Fighters and she tried to teach me some things about both. Like that the drummer from Nirvana was one and the same as the lead singer and guitarist from Foo Fighters as well as… people’s actual names!
It was slow going and I admire her patience. We’d watch a Foo Fighters video and she would ask “ok, now who’s that?”, speaking of Dave Grohl but until it eventually stuck, my guess was “uh, Matt?”
Now, I still often call him Matt – on purpose. Partly for the fun of it and the history of how it came to be. But it has also, to me, become a sort of nickname for the kind of person Dave is – the musician, the family man, the friend, joker and the Storyteller, smart, kind and caring.
I have never met Dave Grohl, but from what I’ve seen and read, I believe he is also – “Matt”
