All About Dave Grohl’s Parents, Virginia and James Grohl

Dave Grohl is the very definition of rock royalty.

The former Nirvana drummer rose to fame in the 1990s as one third of the legendary grunge trio, before becoming the frontman of the Foo Fighters.

He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, first with Nirvana and then with the Foo Fighters, and has worked with bands such as Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures and Scream.

However, he did not come from a special musical background. His mother, Virginia, was a teacher, while his father, James, was a journalist. James did not agree with his passion for music – wrote Dave Atlantic that they “just didn’t get along” — but Virginia encouraged it and even accompanied her son on tour.

She said Guard 2017 that as a child Dave was “always a lot of fun to be around. He did some devilish things, but I never thought of him as bad.” She said of Dave as an adult that he was “really nice like everyone says” and described him as a “super dad” to her three daughters.

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Here’s what you need to know about Dave Grohl’s parents, from their careers and lives to the things Dave has said about them over the years.

Virginia was a teacher, while James was a journalist

Virginia Grohl photographed with a framed 1977 SPIN cover featuring her son Dave Grohl on April 18, 2008.

Gerald Martineau/The Washington Post/Getty

Virginia was a teacher and taught at Boardman High School in Boardman Township, Ohio. Meanwhile, James worked as a journalist.

According to Tribune Chroniclehe also served as a special assistant to Senator Robert Taft Jr., was senior vice president of the American Savings and Loan League, and worked as a political consultant in Washington, DC

He also served in the United States Army from 1961 to 1964 and edited Stars and Stripes Military newspaper in Stuttgart, Germany.

Virginia and James had two children, including Dave

Dave Grohl interviewed Virginia Hanlon Grohl on May 10, 2019 in Toronto, Canada.

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Virginia and James married in 1961 and had two children together. Daughter Lisa was born in 1968 and Dave was born in 1969.

They first lived in Warren, Ohio before moving to Springfield, Virginia when Lisa and Dave were children.

Virginia later lived in Washington, DC with her children, and Dave spoke with her Guard about “mom making cinnamon toast and putting shirts in the dryer to keep them warm because it was cold outside” when they lived there.

Virginia and James divorced when Dave was 6 years old

Dave said Guard in 2007 that his parents divorced when he was 6 years old. He was raised by his mother, who told the newspaper in another interview that “some of us are very good [being a single parent].”

After the divorce, James remarried Renie Yoshida Grohl.

Virginia allowed Dave to leave school to go on tour

When Dave was 17, he auditioned to be the new drummer for the band Scream, lying about his age. They invited him to join them, so he dropped out of high school and toured with them for the next four years.

said Virginia Florida Times-Union about her decision to let Dave go, explaining: “Everyone thought I was crazy. I knew it was risky, yes, but it seemed to me that this was the way he would learn about the world, which is what education should be. It’s not about getting all the answers, it’s about showing you how to learn.”

Virginia wrote a book

Virginia Grohl attends her book signing during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC on April 22, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.

Tara Ziemba/Getty

In 2017, Virginia wrote a book From the cradle to the stagein which she interviewed fellow mothers of famous musicians such as Dr. Dre, Kelly Clarkson, REM’s Michael Stipe and Maroon 5’s Adam Levine.

She told PEOPLE that she came up with the idea after accompanying her son on tour and realizing that he wasn’t seeing other mothers. “They really didn’t show up and I kept showing up,” she said. “I was sitting with a friend and I said, ‘How come it’s just me?’ And she said, ‘You should go find them.’ ”

James was initially unsupportive of Dave’s musical ambitions

Dave Grohl and his father James as Dave Grohl receive the key to the city of Warren, Ohio on August 2, 2009.

Cuttlefish/Shutterstock

While promoting his memoir, Narrator: Stories about life and musicIn 2021, Dave told an audience at London’s Savoy Theater that his father disapproved of his career choice, po Mirror. Dave said he discovered music around the time his parents divorced, but he wasn’t allowed to play music because of bad grades.

He said: “My father would say to me, ‘Don’t call yourself a musician just because you play an instrument’… We had this painfully awkward conversation about what I was going to do with my life. I didn’t know what to say, but I knew that was it. I wrote an escape. This started the separation between my father and me.”

Father and son have formed a “new dynamic” in their relationship, Dave wrote for Atlantic 2020, adding, “Over the years we have developed a friendship based on mutual respect.”

“As the years passed and my dreams of becoming a musician came true, he was always there to impart little gems of insight and wisdom, often dissuading me from the clichéd professional dangers that usually litter life in the music business,” he added.

Virginia hosted a TV show with Dave

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Virginia and Dave ran the Paramount+ series From the cradle to the stage together. Based on her book, it first aired in May 2021, with the pair interviewing musicians including Pharrell Williams, Brandi Carlile and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello alongside their mothers.

Dave described Virginia as his “best friend” and said of the show, “I believe the relationship between a musician and their mother is so important because it is the foundation of their understanding of love, which is surely the greatest muse of any artist.”

Dave once caught Virginia partying with Green Day

Dave and Virginia Grohl on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ April 26, 2020

Scott Kowalchyk/CBS/Getty

During the performance at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy FallonDave talked about the time he found Virginia drinking beer with Green Day.

He said that after Virginia retired, “She started going on tour with me. I gave her a laminate and she’d just go and hang out and I’d be on stage playing and then I’d come off the stage and be like, ‘Where’s my mom?!’ and she’d drink beers with Green Day up there and hang out — it’s so cool!”

James died in 2014 and Virginia in 2022

According to his obituary in Tribune ChronicleJames died at the age of 75 on August 6, 2014.

Virginia died in August 2022, per Atlantic. Dave’s daughter Violet announced her death on Instagram Live and later got a tattoo of her grandmother’s face.

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Source: HIS Education