MTV News Correspondent, John Norris, Writes An Essay About His Hero, Dave Grohl

Asking a man who his hero is is a somewhat unfair question. Most of us have many heroes: JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus, etc. But if I were forced to pick one person as a defining role model, a supreme example of what it is to be a true inspiration, I would pick Dave Grohl.

“Dave Grohl?” you wonder, “What is so special about him?” So much, you guys. So much.

Mr. Grohl first found fame as the hard-rocking drummer for legendary Alternative outfit, Nirvana. However, his true talent was eclipsed by an attention-hog front man otherwise known as Kurt Cobain. Whenever Grolh pounded out a viscious beat, Cobain was always prancing around in front of him, taking the spotlight off the true talent (Grohl). The audience should have been saying, “Hey, this guy everyone thinks is #2 is actually #1!” But they weren’t. Sure, every now and then Kurt would throw him a little taste of the spotlight – A drum solo here, a turn on accoustic guitar there – but it was never enough. A study actually showed that people named Kurt don’t know when to step away from the spotlight and let other, more talented people stand in the sun.

Only when Cobain ended his life did Grohl get the chance to place himself center stage; a stroke of luck I pray for deeply and earnestly every night. His band, The Foo Fighters, found overnight success and credibility and rightfully so. Only then did the country see the error of their ways. Only then did they say, “We realize now that if one looks past the ‘face’ of an organization, past the ‘leader,’ past the ‘old bag of shit who won’t retire,’ do we see the true talent of said organization.”

Grohl’s rise to fame, fortune and respect is much like the struggle many of us face every day. So many of us toil away under a bastard who gets all the credit for our work and won’t let us report any of the good stories like when Biggie got shot or how musicians reacted to 9/11. No, instead we get the crap stories. We get the ‘Norah Jones talks about her favorite restaurant’ or ‘is binge drinking out of control at our nation’s colleges?’ Those aren’t career makers, those are bullshit. But we must remain confident and hopeful that someday, somehow, we will get the chance to be in the spotlight, to be #1, to be a Grohl.

The lesson to be learned from Grohl is this: We all have an obstacle in our way to being number one that we must overcome; we all have a Kurt in our way.