Following the death of Kurt Cobain, Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl wanted to “disappear” so he went on a “soul-searching” solo trip to Ring Of Kerry in Ireland. “It’s so beautiful there. You really feel like you’re at the end of the Earth,” he once said in an interview. “I was driving around in my rental car, and on a country road, I saw this hitchhiker kid. And I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll pick him up’. And as I got closer to him, I saw that he had a Kurt Cobain t-shirt on.” Grohl was struck by the image of “Kurt’s face looking back at me in the middle of nowhere.” That’s when he realized “I can’t outrun this.”
Grohl formed Foo Fighters (which was initially a one-man project) soon after, and 30 years later, they’re still one of the biggest names in rock. But what became of the hitchhiker? He’s only recently become aware that he was the kid with the Kurt Cobain shirt in Grohl’s story.
“So my legend of a cousin Lorcan just realised he was kind of important to the creation of @foofighters @FooFightersUK,” his relative, Eoin, wrote on X. “He saw a video by Dave Grohl talking about why he got back to work after a visit to Ireland. Lorcan was out hitchhiking wearing his nirvana top when Dave stopped.” He also shared a video of Lorcan telling his side of the Foo Fighters origin story (“Nobody believed me!”), which you can watch here.
Foo Fighters are currently on tour.
