“That’s badass”: Dave Grohl on the John Wayne of rock and roll
Any good rock and roll thrives on having the perfect frontman at the helm. Even if they aren’t the greatest singer or have the most dynamic of ranges, the measure of a perfect rock and roller is someone who only has to move a few muscles and still holds the audience in the palm of their hands whenever they play. Although Dave Grohl only claims to make the most out of being a goofball onstage with Foo Fighters, he felt that this frontman had the same magnetic presence as a Hollywood gunslinger.
Looking at the idols that Grohl idolised, they all had the same conviction behind what they did. There were still bands that were willing to do whatever their label told them to, but looking at people like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, the entire reason why their sound worked was because they never looked at what the critics thought they should do or how their audience wanted them to be.
It was all about innovating, and Queen had that kind of magic down to a science. Even though every one of them wrote independently from one another, their albums always managed to have that same regal sound about them, whether that was them aping Zeppelin’s thunder on tunes like ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ or making the kind of fanciful tunes that they loved singing as kids like on ‘39’ or ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown’.
However, all of their studio experiments paled compared to what Freddie Mercury could do onstage. Throughout their time together, Mercury was the most electric frontman of all time, putting everything he had out into the world while still being incredibly reserved whenever he got offstage.
Then again, that’s probably the reason why he worked so well in a live setting. Mercury could have easily been the same exaggerated presence once the house lights came up, but part of the appeal behind his music was his ability to turn everything on at the drop of a hat whenever they played, like during their Live Aid performance where he practically devoured the audience at Wembley Stadium.
Even though Grohl never claimed to be in the same league as Freddie Mercury, he knew that what he was witnessing was the kind of badass demeanour that only comes from the biggest movie stars in the world, saying, “He had the ability to turn a stadium into a living room. That’s badass, that’s like John Wayne shit right there.”
At the same time, even Wayne couldn’t strike as bold an impression as Mercury could. While the actor should be lauded for his performances, hearing Mercury take on a stadium’s worth of people and still manage to look like one of the most important people in the room is the kind of superpower that feels like it should be reserved for actual royalty rather than an entertainer.
But that’s because Mercury never saw what he did as strictly entertainment. It was about taking the most profound feelings inside yourself and then projecting them to the back of the arena, and even if someone had the worst seats in the house during a set, they were still as dialled into what Mercury was doing as those in the front row.
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