Irish Hitchhiker Who Inspired Dave Grohl to Form Foo Fighters Identified

When a young Irish man was hitchhiking in Ireland in the 90s, he had no idea he was about to encounter Dave Grohl and influence musical history.

After deciding to head out to the “middle of nowhere” in Ireland with a bunch of friends while dressed in a Nirvana shirt, that’s exactly what happened to a man named Lorcan Dunne.

Grohl, of course, was the drummer in Nirvana and went on to form Foo Fighters following the death of Kurt Cobain in 1994.

Back in 2021, Grohl told the story of how he was lost after the singer’s death and went to rural Ireland to find himself.

Speaking on The Graham Norton Show, he said: “When Kurt died and it all ended I didn’t know what to do with my life. I couldn’t listen to music anymore because it hurt too much so I tried to escape and went to Ireland to soul search.

“I was trying to figure out my life when I picked up a hitchhiker who was wearing a Kurt Cobain t-shirt and I thought, ‘Even in this remote place I can’t outrun life’, so I went home and started over with the Foo Fighters. I needed to survive and get on with life.”

In another telling of the tale, Grohl said he never picked up the young man and instead drove right past him, but seeing the shirt in the middle of nowhere was enough to convince him to get back to making music.

The identity of that hitchhiker was never known to Grohl until a social media user called Eoin Tighe posted about his cousin Lorcan Dunne.

In the incredible post, which shows a picture of a young Dunne wearing a Nirvana shirt, as well as a video that sees Dunne speak about the moment.

What was a chance encounter turned out to be a pretty momentous moment in the history of rock – and Foo Fighters must be thankful that Dunne chose to wear his Nirvana shirt that day.

Meanwhile, Grohl risked facing the wrath of the Swifties earlier this summer, when he addressed the crowd at the Foo Fighters’ sold-out show at the London Stadium, just a matter of miles away from where Taylor Swift was also performing at Wembley Stadium.

Source: Indy100