Nirvana never had anything handed to them on a silver platter. They worked their way up the ladder from toilet venues to selling out arenas in every city in the world. They rose to the top in a very organic way. Growing fans and smashing a few instruments along the way. One of those instruments was DaveGrohl’s
The show in question took place just a matter of weeks following the release of Nevermind and, even though the group had just released one of the all-time seminal records, they continued to play in small venues. A year on from this performance in 1991, the band would have received as many drum kits that they could ever dream of. However, at this moment in time, budgets were tight. In order to ensure Dave Grohl had a shiny toy, the band needed to get creative.
“We were on tour in Chicago,” Dave Grohl remembered while appearing on Jimmy Fallon in 2014 alongside Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic. “Kurt had been chopping at my drums all tour, and my drums had holes in them. They sounded like crap because they had holes in them, and I kept asking our tour manager, ‘Can I please get a new drum set?’
