The albums that helped Dave Grohl fall back in love with music
The former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman, Dave Grohl, has never avoided discussing his key musical influences. Beyond more obvious influences in heavy rock, such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, Grohl found his first love in music through The Beatles. As a child, he listened to Beatles records on repeat, learning to play the drums by following Ringo Starr’s beat.
Grohl has also expressed his love for 1980s pop icon Prince. When the Purple Rain singer covered Foo Fighters’ ‘Best of You’ at the 2007 Super Bowl, Grohl explained that he had been shocked. “As my tears hit the keyboard like the Miami rain that night, I realised that this was without a doubt my proudest musical achievement,” he wrote in Dave’s True Stories. “All of those years spent in my bedroom practising alone to Beatles records, sleeping in cold, infested squats on winter fan tours across Europe, battering my drums until my hands literally bled… it all paid off in this moment.”
In a 2019 interview feature with BBC Radio 2, Grohl picked out one of his favourite Beatles tracks and revealed his particular affinity with the late great George Harrison. “I would like to play my favourite song by George Harrison, called ‘Something’,” Grohl said. “I think that of all The Beatles — of course, each one of them is so entirely different; melodically they’re so different, songwriting, lyrically — but George Harrison, there was something about him that I almost preferred the most.”
“I loved every single one of them for different reasons, but I connected to George Harrison’s sense of melody more than anyone,” he added.
Grohl’s interest in music was undoubtedly elevated by the Fab Four and his blood-spattered drumming sessions, but his first musical love came with his very first record. “It was a compilation album on K-Tel,” Grohl told Q when asked about his first record. “I bought it at a drugstore for maybe a dollar. On that record was the foundation of my musical being – ‘Frankenstein’ by The Edgar Winter Group. That was the first song I fell in love with.”
Following Kurt Cobain’s tragic suicide in April 1994, Grohl and his Nirvana bandmate Krist Novoselic were understandably heartbroken. It took both a little while to return to studio and stage as they learned to welcome music back to their lives.
“For a while after Kurt died, I couldn’t even listen to music,” Grohl told the NME of this difficult period. “I hated turning on the radio for fear that I’d hear a Nirvana song or any sort of sad music. Anything melancholy just made me so depressed. I would listen to shit like Ace Of Base. I got really into that! I was listening to some really ridiculous shit.”
Grohl then explained how a few albums, in particular, helped him get back into music. “I had a record called A National Healthcare by a band called The Voluptuous Horror Of Karen Black that I particularly remember,” he said. “They were this sort of New York performance art band and were great. I remember Frank Black’s Teenager Of The Year came out that year around that time, that was a really great record. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion record Orange came out around the same time, that was another great record.
“That was a funny time with me musically because I just didn’t really want to hear any music. Then I realised, ‘Oh wait, it’s music that’s going to heal me. What am I doing? I should be listening to music. I should be making music that will make me feel better’. And it did.”
Listen to ‘Headache’ from Frank Black’s Teenager of the Year below.
