The influential band Dave Grohl said were “way above everybody”
Like his friend Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl is one of the most beloved men in music. Seemingly impervious to hatred, the affable everyman has added to his significant musical legacy with Nirvana, Foo Fighters, and other projects by being remarkably approachable, given his status. Perhaps the last of a dying breed of rock stars, his life is the stuff of legend.
A teenage prodigy who left school to join hardcore pioneers Scream, the drummer of Nirvana, and the leader of Foo Fighters—Dave Grohl’s career is a series of remarkable chapters. He has accomplished feats that many young dreamers, imagining a life of playing in packed stadiums and touring the world, could scarcely fathom.
One of Dave Grohl’s most important qualities as a musician is his dynamism. He can do it all, as evidenced by his writing and recording nearly every instrument on the Foo Fighters’ eponymous debut album. This masterful effort was his response to the immense tragedy of Kurt Cobain’s suicide and the abrupt end of Nirvana, the world’s biggest band in the early 1990s.
This, in tandem with being a punk at heart, championing new and exciting music, has led him to work with other outfits outside of his own. The most revered of these is Josh Homme’s Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA). He was a big fan of their band leader’s old outfit, Kyuss, pioneers of the stoner metal genre, and the Seattle group Screaming Trees, whom he played guitar for during his period between Kyuss and QOTSA. Given both men’s stature and shared musical outlook, they crossed paths and hit it off immediately.
After four months of working on what became Foo Fighters’ fourth effort, One by One, Grohl accepted the invitation to join QOTSA and record the drums for their 2002 classic, Songs for the Deaf. Returning to the instrument for the first time in years, he brought that John Bonham-esque fire and technical nouse that had raised Nirvana’s game when he joined, and it proved a perfect fit. The furious thuds of the bridge ‘No One Knows’ and the ominous metal thunder of opener, ‘You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire’ are two of his highlights from the album.
In a 2002 interview, Grohl discussed QOTSA’s place in music at the time, and he was assertive about his faith in the project and their general brilliance. He boldly described them as “way above everybody else”.
The Foo Fighters frontman said: “Fortunately I see them differently. Way above everybody else [laughs]. We’re far more interesting and talented than most bands. I can say that because I’m not really in the band [laughs]. If I were an actual member, there’d be trouble.”
Grohl maintained Homme had been making great music since the days of Kyuss. Their sludgy music was far more satisfying than what was available in the mainstream at the time, so when QOTSA started to gain prominence after the best part of a decade, he thought it was high time that his friends got their dues. Ever the realist, he noted that building a healthy fan base takes time.
Grohl was so impressed with Homme’s band that after completing the album with them and touring the world, he felt rejuvenated enough to finish One by One. He reconvened with Foo Fighters, and they re-recorded the entirety of the album at his home studio. Later, in 2012, after Joey Castillo departed QOTSA, he returned to the fold and laid down some of the tracks on 2013’s …Like Clockwork. It’s one key reason it’s one of their better later records.
