The one album Dave Grohl was most proud of: “A dumb kid having a blast!”
It’s impossible to categorise what Dave Grohl is in one singular box.
Ever since leaving Nirvana, he has turned into the archetype for what every single rock musician should strive for, whether that means writing songs with some of the best in the business, like Paul McCartney or coming up with the kind of riffs that could fill a massive stadium whenever Foo Fighters make a new record. But if there’s one place where he always felt the most at home, it was going to be behind the drum kit.
Although his knack for melody is fantastic, Grohl becomes a completely different animal once he steps behind the kit. His heroes growing up were always people like John Bonham and Neil Peart, and while it would be a stretch to say that he’s on their level every single time he plays, you can feel a lot of the precision that they put into every one of their fills whenever he worked on tunes like ‘Everlong’ or any of Nirvana’s classics.
But even for all of the great tunes that Nirvana made, it’s not like Grohl had the hardest job in the world. For all of the attention that the band had on them, Grohl was the one who could have passed for a normal guy every single time he went out in public. A lot of their videos only showed his mane of hair floating in the background while Krist Novoselic and Kurt Cobain jammed away at the front, so when it was time for him to move up to the frontman role, it wasn’t exactly going to be all that easy.
Leaving the security blanket of the drumset may have been an issue, so it’s no surprise that all of Grohl’s best moments when he wasn’t with Foo Fighters featured him behind the kit. He was more than happy to get everything sorted out with whatever drums that he had to work with, and while Queens of the Stone Age did give him a bit of an outlet, it wasn’t until they had one more member on board that the wheels started spinning for Grohl.
In Your Honour was already one of the most ambitious records that the Foos had ever made, but getting Josh Homme to feature on a song and having John Paul Jones do the orchestrations got all the members of Them Crooked Vultures together on one record. So when the idea came for them to have a supergroup together, Grohl knew that he would need to do more than lay down a simple beat. He had one of the best arrangers and bassists of all time next to him, and he felt that he rose to the occasion perfectly.
Compared to every other drum performance he gave, Grohl felt that Them Crooked Vultures would always hold a special place in his heart, saying, “I listen to [Nirvana] now and it’s like looking at a picture of yourself when you’re like 19 or 20 you can see in your face like, god, I was such a dumb kid having a blast! Then there’s the Vultures record. I listen to it, and I’m really proud of the drumming. Well, I’m really proud of the record because I got to play with fucking John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin!”
If you look at the rest of Grohl’s work playing drums, it’s no surprise that this was at the top. Aside from the fact that he had a living legend standing next to him, a lot of the tunes felt like they were coming from a classic 1970s rock and roll outfit that never actually managed to come into existence until decades after the fact, especially on tunes like ‘Scumbag Blues’ and ‘Mind Eraser No Chaser’.
A lot of what Grohl does these days might still be based on making the catchiest tunes possible, but Them Crooked Vultures was about more than forming a supergroup. Grohl had become a living legend well before the record was being made, but having Jonesy grooving to the beat he was laying down was all the musical reassurance that he ever needed.
