Dave Grohl on the band that was too perfect to recreate: “That’s like slapping your Grandma”
Rock and roll has never run short on bands when to pay tribute to the classics. While it’s hard to really get away with playing a cover of a hip-hop tune live, there are always people who will sprinkle in guitar riffs from their favourite acts and wear their influences on their sleeves whenever they try to put together their own riffs. There is a line, though, and as much Dave Grohl loved to cover many different acts, he thought that Led Zeppelin was far too high a bar for anyone to reach.
Then again, nothing seemed off the table when looking at Foo Fighters’ live gigs. There are certainly a few times where they fly off the rails during their own songs, but it’s not out of the question for them to screw around and have some fun by breaking out into a version of a Kiss tune or Grohl trying his best at hitting every one of Freddie Mercury’s high notes in ‘Under Pressure’.
If acts like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones taught Grohl how to love melody, then Led Zeppelin was practically a deity in his mind. Long before the concept of hard rock or even metal existed, Jimmy Page had set the template for what the genre would become the minute that ‘Good Times Bad Times’ hit people’s stereos. This wasn’t just blues; this was the kind of music that could shape the entire world.
And looking at how the rest of rock and roll unfolded, Zeppelin seemed to cast a large shadow around the rest of the rock scene, both for better and for worse. As much Page and Robert Plant could come up with a great riff to work off of during their prime, many imitators gave way to a handful of bands that didn’t exactly have the same hooks behind them and yet still saw hits.
Also, it probably didn’t help that some of that good ol’ hard rock misogyny helped permeate every single band going forward. It was subtle enough for people to tolerate, but it should also come as no surprise when the alternative movement and the subsequent riot-grrl movement had to set off a bunch of musical roach bombs to get all of the substance-less bands out of the picture.
While Grohl had a hand in killing one faction of Zeppelin’s successors, his reasoning was that no one should have even bothered trying to touch them. When talking about covering certain Zeppelin songs, Grohl felt that their records were far too good to improve on, saying, “No one should cover Zeppelin. That’s like slapping your Grandma in the face or something.”
Even when Grohl ended up covering Zeppelin, he did have some help from some familiar faces. Despite them just having fun onstage, having Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones show up at Wembley Stadium when they played a version of ‘Rock and Roll’ is like those same rock gods anointing the stage you’re standing on.
Although Grohl learned to worship at the altar of John Bonham as a drummer, there are some artists that you just don’t touch when performing. Because, really, who the hell is anyone to say that they can shape ‘Whole Lotta Love’ in a different way when the perfect version already exists?
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