Dave Grohl's childhood home

Dave Grohl grew up in Springfield, Virginia, a suburban community about 15 miles south of Washington D.C. in Fairfax County. His parents divorced when he was young, and he was raised primarily by his mother Virginia in the Springfield suburbs -- a landscape of tract houses, malls, and the quiet disconnection of the American commuter belt that Grohl has described with a mixture of affection and claustrophobia. He began playing drums in his bedroom in his early teens, developing the aggressive, precise style that would make him one of rock's most celebrated drummers before he had turned 20.

Grohl's path from Springfield to Nirvana ran through the Washington D.C. hardcore punk scene: he played in local bands, connected with the community around Dischord Records in the late 1980s, and played a brief but important stint in Scream before getting the call from Krist Novoselic to audition for Nirvana in 1990. He was 21 when he joined; within a year they had recorded Nevermind and the world had changed. After Cobain's death in 1994, Grohl formed Foo Fighters from Springfield, writing and recording the entire debut album himself in a studio nearby.

The house in Springfield is a private residence and has no official designation. Springfield itself is typical northern Virginia suburban territory -- large, sprawling, defined by its proximity to the capital and the federal employment economy. For Grohl fans, the address represents the unremarkable origin of a remarkable career, the bedroom where the drums were played too loud and the neighbours complained.