The 1972 song that made Dave Grohl want to be a musician: “The most classic riff”
Perhaps the most enthusiastic connoisseur among our living rock stars, Dave Grohl, is a fountain of knowledge and gushing reverence.
Part of Grohl’s enduring appeal is his enthusiasm as a fan. Even after decades of success, he still speaks about music with the same excitement and curiosity that first drew him towards a life in rock and roll.
As a child of the late 1960s, he rose to cognition just as the world recovered from the loss of The Beatles. In the Liverpool band’s stead, other titans, such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and David Bowie, battled for salience. Naturally, Grohl was, and still is, a fan of them all.
When he wasn’t drumming along to Beatles records until his hands bled, Grohl expanded his musical horizons with all manner of rock music. As a Nirvana alum and one of the leading proponents of the grunge movement, it’s not difficult to see how his listening habits developed over time. Through the 1970s, heavy metal and punk helped refresh Grohl’s outlook, justifying a more aggressive attack on the toms.
Grohl fell in love with The Beatles early on, thanks to his family record collection, but there’s nothing quite like buying your first record. Speaking to Q in a past interview, the Foo Fighters frontman remembered the first record he ever bought with his own money as a compilation set, including various artists of the ’70s soft rock ilk.
“It was a compilation album on K-Tel,” Grohl remembered. In a show of his age, Grohl noted that he only parted with one dollar for the record. “On that record was the foundation of my musical being,” he added before highlighting a favourite from the album. “‘Frankenstein’ by The Edgar Winter Group. That was the first song I fell in love with.”
‘Frankenstein’ arrived on The Edgar Winter Group’s debut album, They Only Come Out at Night, in 1972. It topped the US Billboard Hot 100 and, alongside ‘Free Ride’, remains one of the band’s most popular hits to this day.
On a separate occasion, speaking on Apple’s Celebrity Playlist Podcast, Grohl claimed that the killer riff in ‘Frankenstein’ gave him his first kick down the road of a rock ‘n’ roll vocation. “It’s the most classic riff of all time,” Grohl beamed. “I think I was maybe six or seven years old, and hearing that, I thought, ‘Oh my god, I want to be a musician’. I just thought, ‘this rocks!'”
Indeed, the plaid frontman, Edgar Winter, certainly knew how to rock. In keeping with Mary Shelley’s influence, Winter never fails to bewitch his audience with ghoulish charisma and multi-instrumental command.
Winter’s willingness to blur the boundaries between musicianship and showmanship helped make him one of the more distinctive figures of the era, leaving a lasting impression on generations of aspiring performers.
During live performances of ‘Frankenstein’, Winter would exhibit his musical dexterity by playing the keyboard, synthesiser, drums and saxophone. Meanwhile, Ronnie Montrose handled the dynamic guitar riff that Grohl just can’t get enough of.
Looking back, it’s easy to understand why ‘Frankenstein’ made such an impression on a young Dave Grohl. The song embodies many of the qualities that would later define his own career: powerful riffs, boundless energy and a sense of musical adventure. Long before Nirvana or Foo Fighters, it was a reminder that rock music could feel thrilling, unpredictable and larger than life.
Watch The Edgar Winter Group perform ‘Frankenstein’ live in 1973 below.
