The first band that unlocked Dave Grohl’s love for hard rock
AC/DC are synonymous with hard rock. In the modern age of music, whenever you hear a heavy riff or see an energetic live performance, it’s impossible not to associate what you see and hear with AC/DC. The two fit perfectly hand in hand with one another, and if you were to ask Angus Young about this connection, he would say it was cemented when they released the album Let There Be Rock.
“Let There Be Rock, for me, is the album,” he said, “My brother, George, [asked] me and Malcolm… ‘What sort of album do you wanna do this time?’ And Malcolm just looked at me and said, ‘We just want an album that’s just gonna be pure hard rock guitar’.”
This was a statement of intent for AC/DC, as in the wake of an evolving musical landscape, they decided to continue making the music that meant the most to them. “I thought it was great because everyone else in the world was into whole other genres – there was punk music, there was new wave; it was all this other stuff that was coming out,” said Young, “And I just thought, ‘This is pure magic’. And that album defined AC/DC in my eyes.”
It’s true: Let There Be Rock didn’t just show the world that AC/DC was a hard rock band, but it showed the world they were the hard rock band. Fans of loud, rowdy music all over the world heard that music and saw their live film and felt inspired by it, including Dave Grohl. He cites hearing that album as the first time he realised he wanted to make hard rock music, saying, “I didn’t want to play my guitar anymore, I wanted to smash it.”
In the same way that AC/DC can be associated with hard rock, Dave Grohl can be associated with energetic, messy, and exciting music, especially during his live show. He puts all of this down to AC/DC, who were a turning point for the Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman.
“When I was maybe – I don’t know – 10 years old, I went to see that movie Let There Be Rock, the [AC/DC] live concert film in a movie theatre,” he said, “This is before I was punk rock. That was the first time I saw a performance and heard music that made me wanna fucking break something. And still to this day, I use that as reference for how I like to play a show. I wanna be like AC/DC Let There Be Rock. That’s a live band.”
Grohl holds the band close to his heart to this day, and his continued love for AC/DC undoubtedly still influences how he approaches his live shows. “[That film] is everything that live [rock] and roll should be. Sweaty. Loose. Loud. A relentless performance from the perfect band. It was the first time I lost control to music.”
