𝙄𝙍𝙄𝙎

Sunny Day Real Estate

NOVEMBER, 1994

Dave and Iris sat in the front seat of his beat-up old Volvo, parked outside a late-night coffee spot in Capitol Hill. The heater wheezed and rattled as it tried to keep up with the cold, the windows fogging slightly as their conversation lingered.

"You hear Sunny Day Real Estate's breaking up?" Dave asked, stirring the coffee in his hands with a wooden stick.

Iris turned sharply. "Seriously?"

He nodded, eyes fixed out the windshield. "Yeah. Just found out this morning. Internal stuff, I guess. Label pressure. You know how it goes."

"Damn," she said, slumping a little in her seat. "That sucks. I loved them."

Dave looked over at her with a grin. "You had a crush on their bass player, didn't you?"

She laughed. "No comment."

"Well, I know him a little," Dave said. "Nate Mendel. We crossed paths a few times when Nirvana and SDRE were both kicking around town. Cool guy. Chill. I was thinking..." He paused, tapping the cup. "I might reach out. Ask if he wants to play bass."

Iris blinked. "Wait—you mean for your band?"

Dave shrugged, trying to play it off, but the corner of his mouth was twitching with a smile. "Yeah. I mean, I guess I am making a band, huh?"

Iris stared at him for a moment. "You really are."

He turned toward her. "And... I wasn't just saying it that night. I want you in it. Like—actually. You're the best guitarist I know."

She felt her face flush despite the cold. "You sure about that?"

Dave gave her a sideways look. "You think I'd let just anyone sing harmony with me on 'Big Me'?"

She grinned, then leaned her head back against the seat, exhaling into the warm air. "Okay. So that's two of us. What about drums?"

Dave's eyes narrowed in thought. "Well... Sunny Day Real Estate's drummer, William Goldsmith—he's really good. Got this controlled chaos thing going on."

Iris nodded slowly. "That's actually a great idea."

Dave smiled again, the wheels turning now. "It's funny. A month ago I didn't even know if I wanted to play music again. Now I'm talking lineups."

"That's how you know it's real," she said.

He looked over at her, the streetlights catching the side of her face in the window's reflection. He thought of how far he'd come — from numb, broken silence to sitting here, mapping out a future.

"Yeah," he said. "It is."

*

The rain had been tapping steadily on the window all morning, gray light filtering through the blinds as Dave sat on the edge of Barrett's couch, holding the cordless phone to his ear with one hand and nervously drumming on his thigh with the other.

It had been a few weeks since he'd first floated the idea of a band to Iris. A few weeks since that foggy October night when he handed her a tape labeled Foo Fighters and said it out loud for the first time: "I think I want to start a band."

Now he was actually doing it.

The dial tone buzzed once, twice—then:

"Hello?"

"Nate? Hey, it's Dave Grohl."

A pause. "Oh—hey, man! Wow. Hey."

Dave smiled, instantly eased by the warmth in Nate Mendel's voice. "Sorry to just call out of nowhere. I, uh... I heard about Sunny Day."