It's not very often in rock music that a musician can change bands and instruments at the same time and still keep a high level of success. Born on January 14, 1969, Grohl grew up in suburban Washington, D.C. A self taught drummer and guitarist, Grohl joined his first real band at 17, D.C. punk rockers Scream, and toured the world as their drummer. After Scream broke up in the late '80s, Grohl relocated to Seattle and tried out for a little-known band who were in need of a drummer - Nirvana.

Immediately after Grohl joined the group in late 1990, Nirvana guitarist/singer/songwriter Kurt Cobain presented the band with the songs that would appear on the group's major-label debut, Nevermind. The rest is rock history. Grohl's distinctively heavy-handed drumming, a style he learned from banging marching band sticks on his bed as a teenager helped Nevermind sell over 9 million copies, driven by MTV's saturation of the anthemic "Smells Like Teen Spirit," sold 9 million copies of what was called punk rock's breakthrough album.

Grohl also found time to write and record several demos around this time (playing all the instruments and singing himself), titled Pocketwatch under the alias "Late!". During the sessions for the group's follow-up, 1993's In Utero, Grohl contributed some of his own songwriting and earned a co-writing credit for the heavy riff-rocker Scentless Apprentice and also recorded an original song, the quietly melodic "Marigold," which appearred as a B-side on the UK release of the "All Apologies" single.

Nirvana promptly ended in April 1994 after Cobain's highly publicised suicide. Instead of moping around, Grohl got back behind the drumkit, working and playing with others, lending his drumming talents to the soundtrack for the movie, Backbeat and Mike Watt's Ball-Hog or Tugboat release (as well as serving as Watt's touring drummer for a stretch of time), plus backing for Tom Petty on a Saturday Night Live appearance.

Later that year, Grohl began writing and recording some new tracks and dusting off some of the songs he recorded for the Pocketwatch demo, again playing all the instruments himself. initially unsure if the recordings would ever see the light of day, he eventually decided to release them under the name Foo Fighters on his own label, Roswell Records

Both his band name and his label name reveal one of Grohl's minor obsessions, UFOs: Foo Fighters was the name given by American bomber pilots given to unidentified fireballs spotted over Germany during WWII, and Roswell, is where UFO freaks believe there was an alien landing that the government has covered up.

Grohl didnt want his effort to be considered a solo project and promptly formed an ad hoc band consisting of ex-Germs/Nirvana guitarist Pat Smear and ex-Sunny Day Real Estate members William Goldsmith (drums) and Nate Mendel (bass), while Grohl surprisingly put his drumming days behind him in favor of guitarist/singer duties. The band's self-titled 1995 release became a hit, as the band's sound was similar to his last full-time band — hard-edged punk rockers mixed with melodic mid-tempo pop rockers.

Dave's work has not been limited to the Foo Fighters. In recent times, he has drummed for a side project of his, Probot, where Grohl wrote songs and sent them to his metal heroes, including Motorhead's Lemmy and Soulfly's Max Cavalera. He has also drummed for Queens of the Stone Age, Killing Joke and will be appearing on upcoming albums for Nine Inch Nails and Garbage. Grohl has also recorded the soundtrack for the movie 'Touch'.