'Kurt Cobain Montage of Heck': Dave Grohl is Not in the HBO Documentary

Nirvana is one of the biggest bands that the 90's Seattle Grunge Rock movement has produced and Kurt Cobain, the band's frontman who committed suicide at the peak of the band's popularity, is arguably considered a legend in many a rocker's books.

A new documentary on Cobain's life, "Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck," was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday night. Dave Grohl, one-third of Nirvana, and currently the frontman of Foo Fighters, was notably not included in the film.

The documentary will air on HBO on May 4.

When director Brett Morgen was asked after the screening of the movie whether he ever reached out to Grohl to be part of the film (the other Nirvana member, Krist Noveselic, was in the movie), Morgen told the audience at Spring Studio in Lower Manhattan, " I wanted to keep [the film] as intimate as possible, so I didn't feel the need for multiple members of Nirvana [to be in it]. But I didn't want to be in a Q&A and answer this question all the time, so I asked if I could talk to Kirst and Dave. I heard back that Dave was in the middle of doing his album [and was unavailable]. Which is fine, and I was fine with that."

Morgen added that two weeks before premiering the film at the Sundance Film Festival last January, he got word that Grohl was done promoting his album and was available for an interview for the film.

"So I was like, Alright, we'll try," said Morgen. "We did the interview and Dave was great and awesome, but I couldn't do what I'd already done."

Morgen had already shown the film at Sundance and the Berlin Film Festival when he tried to work the Grohl interview into the film. But he said by that time he had "lost the feel to evaluate it anymore" and decided to leave it on the cutting room floor.

Courtney Love, Cobain's wife, was with Morgen at the Q&A, but did not comment on Grohl's absence in the film. Love had been at odds with the remaining Nirvana members, Grohl and Noveselic, when Cobain died. Their history includes suits and countersuits when the three partnered in 1997 in order to share control on the band's assets like unreleased music and images—major decisions required a unanimous vote.

The issue was settled by the courts. But in 2011, Love accused Grohl of seducing Love and Cobain's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Grohl denied the allegations. During Nirvana's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, however, Love, Grohl and Noveselic seemed to have settled their differences.

At the same Q&A session, when Morgen was asked how difficult it was to get the full cooperation of Cobain's family and band members to take part in the documentary project, he admitted it was a challenge when he started it in 2007. But because Frances Bean Cobain was involved, everyone agreed to take part.

Love then interrupted to clarify how everyone felt about each other at the time. "It was a tsunami of s---, and I caused most of it."