The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 74

VOL CHICAGO TRIBUNE Foo Fighters' David Grohl has come a long way since bleak days after Nirvana bandmate Cobain's death 2 years ago. Foo for thought: Grohl can talk now about Cobain, pain By Greg Kot CHICAGO TRIBUNE to appreciate how fulT day filled David the Grohl man is who towrote, sang and played nearly every note on one of the most acclaimed rock albums of 1995, Foo Fighters is to understand how empty he felt in April 1994. That month, Grohl's Nirvana bandmate and friend, Kurt Cobain, killed himself. And throughout the bleak summer that followed, the Nirvana drummer wondered if he would ever play music again. 9661 It was a private struggle, however, because in the me'81-21 dia Cobain's saturation death, the that three followed surjudy viving drummer members Grohl, of Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and guitarist Calendar Pat ous by Smear their silence.

were conspicu- CALENDAR MUSIC A chat with Amps' Kim Deal: Eclectic, electric and fun By Parry Gettelman palachia and heard his wife in the back- SENTINEL POPULAR MUSIC CRITIC didn't think to ask her, but I have this feeling Kim Deal was one of those kids who always had to sit in a front desk so the teacher could rap on it with the pointer whenever she started talking to the kid behind her. Because even now that she's a modernrock goddess who no doubt has done hundreds of interviews, Deal seems to take genuine delight in gabbing. Her speaking voice has the same mature huskiness as her singing voice, but over the phone, her words stream out in a syncopated rush, as if she were a teen-ager trying to tie up three different study hall-gossip subplots before her mom told her to hang up now or else. In the course of one brief phone interview recently, in between a discussion of her new band, the Amps, and its current tour with Foo Fighters (Deal's old band, the Breeders, toured with Nirvana, Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters' old band, so Grohl's an old friend and asked if she'd like to open for the Foo Fighters), Deal also whizzed through a number of other subjects: The popularity of Reba McEntire in Ohio. Remember when those two women from Dayton (Deal's hometown) were arrested for killing an old lady to get money for Reba tickets? How she had talked to someone earlier that day who was also named Kim, only it was spelled K-y-m-b-e-r-l-i-e on her birth certificate.

"She said, 'My mom was really high with drugs when she had That's what they did back then; they pumped 'em in up with drugs," Deal explained. Watching the band Tenderloin. Deal said, "The guy in Tenderloin gets his shirt off; he's a big guy, and he rolls around on the stage and snorts like a pig!" How fellow Dayton band the Omatics came to write their song "Flick the Roach," which is not a drug song. A member of the band was on the phone with a cousin in Ap- ground tell him, "Honey, flick that roach off the kid. That's disgusting!" Deal's other favorite Dayton bands.

Brainiac (on the Touch and Go label "a frenetic kind of distorted vocal 10 O'Clock Scholar noisy, a lot of weird songs," they're on Grass Records and so is Omatic) and, of course, cult heroes Guided by Voices (on Matador, and until recently, Jim Greer, Deal's sweetheart, was GBV's bass player). Oh yes, Deal also really likes the Tasties, SO she kind of stole their drummer, Luis Lerman, although he is really a bass player, which is a good thing because Deal already had a drummer the Breeders' Jim Macpherson. Deal purloined Amps guitarist Nathan Farley from yet another Dayton band, the Method. The Amps are Deal's third band. Foo Fighters the Amps Who else: That Dog also will be on the bill.

When: 8 p.m. Saturday. Where: The Edge, 100 W. Livingston Orlando. What it costs: The concert is sold out.

She first captured the attention of modernrock fans as bassist and sometime vocalist in the Pixies. Deal's side project, the Breeders, turned into her second successful group. She didn't set out to form yet another. However, the Breeders were taking a break after their tour behind the platinumselling Last Splash, and Deal decided to make a solo album solo, as in playing every instrument herself. That plan changed when she recruited her twin sister, Breeders guitarist Kelley Deal.

"When I went down to the studio to record the first batch of songs I'd written, my sister was having a heroin problem at the time," Deal said. "I brought her in to play a little bass, to get her out of Dayton. But that didn't work. We got through half the record, Now that Foo Fighters has gone on to sell a million copies, and the band of the same name singer and guitarist Grohl, guitarist Smear, bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith has become the hottest concert ticket of the spring, Grohl is finally addressing what happened in the last two years. Fighters will play a sold-out show at the Edge in Orlando In a recent interview, Grohl, 27, described how, after Cobain died, he would spend weeks at home in Seattle too numb to do anything, spending his time "watching Jenny Jones in the morning, drinking coffee at noon and closeting myself in the house at "Right away, people were asking me to- join their bands," Grohl said.

"It was so See GROHL, Page 8 See DEAL, Page 8 ELEKTRA ENTERTAINMENT The powerful Amps: Nathan Farley (from left), Kim Deal, Luis Lerman and Jim Macpherson. NES.