Dave Grohl Drunken Arrest Revealed: ‘I Got Thrown In Jail’

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During a recent live conversation, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl recalled being thrown in jail for being drunk.

“Australia is bananas. Australia is so much fun. Australia is great because remember Big Day Out? Okay, we used to call it the Big Day Off cause they’d have to move that huge production from city to city and it’d take three days for them to move the rig from fucking Melbourne to Brisbane or whatever.

And it’s a summer time tour so you’re just- fun days in Australia. I got thrown in jail for being drunk on a scooter; that was fun. Ah, the memories. Those were the days. It’s not a bad life!”

MTV reported in February 2000:

Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl regrets his recent drunken-driving conviction in Australia but doesn’t want anyone thinking “that I’m out here on tour, wrapping cars around trees.”

“I guess if there’s anything to learn here, it’s don’t drive after a few beers, even if you feel entirely capable, like I did,” Grohl wrote in a posting Monday on the band’s official Web site (www.foofighters.com).

Grohl was driving a moped on Australia’s Gold Coast after the Foo Fighters’ Jan. 23 performance on the Big Day Out festival tour. He was stopped at a sobriety checkpoint in Queensland and was arrested when his blood alcohol level was found to be .095, almost twice Australia’s legal limit of .05.

The singer was jailed, his Australian driving privileges were suspended for three months and he received a $400 fine ($255 U.S.).

The singer and former Nirvana drummer explained that he and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins had rented motor scooters on their day off from the tour.

He said he wasn’t worried because he was on “the silliest little scooter you’ve ever seen.” He said he’d only had four or five beers in a period of “3-1/2 or four hours, and I thought they’d wave me by. I wasn’t driving recklessly, I wasn’t pulled over.

“About a mile or two before the hotel, there was a police breathalyzer stop thingy,” Grohl wrote.

A spokesperson for the Foo Fighters, who requested anonymity, confirmed that the posting was from Grohl.