Foo Fighter’s frontman has given an interview to Rolling Stone Magazine in which he discusses his time with Nirvana and his relationship with Kurt Cobain, breaking his silence on the subject that has held since Cobain’s suicide in 1994.

In the interview he speaks of a rocky relationship made even more difficult by the band’s sudden and massive success that came shortly after he joined the band. “When I joined Nirvana I was the fifth or sixth drummer,” said Grohl. “I don’t know if they’d ever had a drummer they were totally happy with. And they were strangers. There was never much of a deeper connection outside of the music.”

Not only that but the bond between the band’s founder members, Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic, made it hard for a newcomer to come in: “Those guys were soulmates. They were the kind of friends that didn’t have to talk to each other. I came from such a different place, and within eight months to a year of being in Nirvana, the band blew up into something that no one had expected. It was hard to connect with anybody when that happened.”

Grohl also talks about fears about his own abilities that were never resolved while he was a member of Nirvana: “There were times when Kurt was really unhappy with the way I played drums. I could hear him talking about how much he thought I sucked. But he’d never say it to me. I thought I was a decent drummer, but I didn’t know if I was good enough to be doing this thing, this big deal. I didn’t imagine myself a world-class drummer. I was the same fucking drummer that was in Scream, or playing on my bed.”

In the months that lead up to Kurt Cobain’s death the mood in the band became very different, though Grohl he says that Pat Smear joining the band had a very positive effect on them.

“The last year, being in that band was rough,” he says. “There was a whole lot of dark shit going on. At that point I was living this wonderful, healthy life outside the band, but when I’d enter a band environment, that all changed. It wasn’t a lot of fun. But when Pat Smear joined the band, it changed everything. We went from being fucking sulking dirtbags to kids again. It changed our world. He’s the sweetest person in the world. He became really close with Kurt. There was laughter.

“When I think of Nirvana, I think of Bleach. I think of how much I listened to the record before I was asked to join the band. The week leading up to my audition, I listened to it religiously. It got me off. Once I joined the band, I ruined that feeling for myself. I thought they were great before I joined them. Being in the band ruined it.”

On the subject of Kurt’s suicide Grohl is still guarded but does reveal that he had been concerned prior to it happening but had already suffered the shock previously when he was misinformed about the singer’s death. “So they called and said he’d passed in Rome, and I fucking freaked out. I just lost my mind and started wailing. As disconnected as our relationship had become, you just can’t imagine real tragedy in your life. Twenty minutes later someone called me and said, ‘Actually, no, he’s not dead, he’s awake.’

“When he came home, I talked to him on the phone. I told him, ‘Look, man, I was really scared.’ He said, ‘I know. I’m really sorry. It was just an accident.’ I was trying to reach out to him and tell him that I really cared about him, but it wasn’t enough. The time leading up to his death was really strange. He disappeared. He just seemed like he wanted to get away. He bailed. I honestly did not think he was going to kill himself.”

Read the full interview