Dave Grohl recently discussed his 2000 arrest for a DUI in Australia at a bookstore Q&A with his mother Virginia.
“My favorite one, which I don’t know if you’re going to remember. I was in Australia, this is ages ago, I was in Australia on a tour called the Big Day Out, and it was a traveling tour with a lot of bands. We were in this area called the Gold Coast for a few days, and we had a few days off, so Taylor and I decided to rent a couple scooters, these moped things.
So we rent these mopeds and we’re riding them around this coastal town, it’s like the Ft. Lauderdale of Australia, and I took it to the gig and I drove it back, and got stopped at a sobriety checkpoint. I got a DUI on a fucking moped, that thing was barely a motorized vehicle, it had pedals!”
“There’s one road to get back to the Gold Coast from the place we had played, and there were 60,000 people there, and they’re watching me get carted away. I get to jail, everyone in jail is from the show, ‘We’ve got you Dave!’ But anyway, the whole time I was in jail, I thought: ‘Oh shit, I’ve got to call my Mom. Because if she hears about this from someone else before she hears about it from me…’
So I remember, I got bailed out, and went back to the hotel, and immediately called my Mom. I said, ‘Hey Mom, what’s up?’ She’s like, ‘Hi, how’s Australia?’ I’m like, ‘It’s really good. Look, I’ve got to tell you something. I just got out of jail.’ She said, ‘(Gasps) For what!?’ I said, ‘I got pulled over on a moped.’ You were laughing hysterically, I don’t know if you remember that.”
