Dave Grohl | Foo Fighters | Nevermind

The Foo Fighters’ seventh full-length studio album, Wasting Light (Roswell Records/RCA, $13), brings band frontman Dave Grohl full circle, reuniting him with producer Butch Vig 20 years after they collaborated on Nirvana’s landmark Nevermind. Here’s a look back at Grohl’s growth from the guy behind the drum kit to international rock star.

1991: A Virginia native and veteran of D.C. punk band Scream, drummer Grohl is asked to join Nirvana, a fast-rising combo out of Seattle that catapults to worldwide fame with the release of its second album, Nevermind.

1994: Six months after Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s suicide, Grohl appears on Saturday Night Live with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He passes up a chance to join the band permanently in order to start the Foo Fighters.

1997: The Foo’s second ­album, The Colour and the Shape, cracks the Billboard Top 10 ­before going on to sell 2 million copies.

2000: The Foo Fighters win their first Grammy Award. The group has six to date.

2009: Grohl joins Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones to form the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures. Their self-titled LP was well received.