Dave Grohl picks his favourite AC/DC songs
The amiable Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl is famously vocal when it comes to praising his peers and forefathers. His influences range far and wide, whether it’s his 1980s infatuation with Prince or his teen years drumming along to Ringo’s rhythm on Beatles records until his fingers bled.
After rising to fame as the drummer behind Kurt Cobain in Nirvana, Grohl was lucky enough to play alongside some of his musical idols. In 2021, Paul McCartney inducted the Foo Fighters into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and joined them on stage. McCartney returned the honour at Glastonbury 2022 when he invited Grohl on stage for a rendition of ‘Band on the Run’.
Grohl first met McCartney in 2002. Dhani Harrison had invited him to play at the Royal Albert Hall during the Concert For George following the death of George Harrison. The Foo Fighter and former Beatle have maintained a solid friendship ever since and spent many a star-studded evening together. On one such occasion, the pair wound up dining with the Australian hard rock progenitors AC/DC.
Grohl recalled when he first met AC/DC in a 2021 interview with Anders Bøtters Tiny TV. “I wasn’t performing at the Grammys, I was presenting an award or something. I’m lucky to say that Paul McCartney is a friend, and I love him very much. As much as he’s a hero of mine, he’s also a very sweet man and a friend. And so he was in town, too. He called and said, ‘What are you doing after the Grammys?’ I said, ‘I think maybe me and Pat [Smear] and Taylor [Hawkins] are just gonna have dinner.'”
“He said, ‘Do you mind if me and Nancy come?'” Grohl continued. “I’m, like, ‘No. That’d be great.’ So then he bumps into AC/DC in a hotel or something. And then they say, ‘What are you doing after the show?’ And he says, ‘I’m gonna go have dinner with the Foo Fighters.’ And Paul said, ‘Do you wanna come?’ So Paul’s wife calls my wife, and then my wife says, ‘Hey, do you mind if AC/DC comes to dinner?’ And I had never met AC/DC.”
Amongst Grohl’s myriad luminaries was a healthy supply of heavy rock acts, including Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and AC/DC. Grohl remembered falling in love with AC/DC after watching one of their concert films at the cinema. “When I was maybe — I don’t know — ten years old, I went to see that movie Let There Be Rock, the live concert film, in a movie theatre,” he said.
“This is before I was punk rock,” Grohl added. “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 a reference for how I like to play a show. I wanna be like AC/DC ‘Let There Be Rock’. That’s a live band!”
“So then we had this beautiful night. And there was this jazz band. And it was one of the greatest nights of my entire life,” Grohl reflected.
Following the death of Malcolm Young in 2017, Grohl paid tribute to the late rhythm guitarist. “Thank you, Malcolm, for the songs, and the feel, and the cool, and the years of losing control to your rock and roll,” he posted.
In his 2021 book The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, Grohl listed some of his favourite songs from the 1970s. AC/DC was heartily represented in the runnings, including tracks sung by Bon Scott and Brian Johnson. See the list below.
Dave Grohl’s favourite AC/DC songs:
- ‘Let There Be Rock’
- ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’
- ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’
- ‘Highway to Hell’
