Pillars of Influence: Five essentials that inspire Violet Grohl
It is no surprise that Violet Grohl’s first teaser tracks from her upcoming debut album are so good. When you’ve grown up with a rock star dad and a director mum, surrounded by the greatest talents in the musical world thanks to their social circle, you’re bound to get some great inspiration passed down.
In debates about nepotism, that nuance is often overlooked. Yes, Grohl has connections most people could only dream of. But when it comes to her artistry, what she really inherited was an extraordinary education. Her father is a genuine music obsessive who has witnessed many of the greatest moments in modern music firsthand. Growing up with him meant being surrounded by incredible music, hearing endless stories and recommendations, and having someone able to guide her toward the very best of it all.
In Far Out’s conversation with Grohl, that point comes up quickly as she reflects on the huge influence of simply driving around with her father. From the passenger seat throughout her childhood, she discovered many of her favourite albums and films. It became the ultimate starting point for her own musical journey, and she ran with it.
But now, age 19 and prepping to release her own debut album, Grohl is out there on her own, merging those life-long influences with new ones she’s gathered along the way as she forged her own passion and built her own artistic world.
Boiling it down to five key pillars, these are the five essential inspirations that hold up the world of her debut, Be Sweet To Me.
Violet Grohl’s five key influences:
The Breeders – ‘Last Splash’
Grohl makes no secret of the immense influence the 1990s have had on her. Obviously, she wasn’t there as she was born in 2006, but naturally, the soundtrack of her childhood came from the records her mum and dad loved from their own youth, forever enamoured with the sound of the ‘90s grunge wave that they were both invested in, either as a musician in Dave Grohl’s case, or a fan in the crowd for her mum, Jordyn Blum.
One of the key acts on repeat was always The Breeders, but it wasn’t until she got a bit older that this second record from the group really hit her. “That album totally opened up a world for me sonically when I listened to it for the first time,” Grohl said, adding, “The way that Kim Deal writes music is so spectacular and just so enjoyable to listen to. It’s so frenetic and high energy and also really beautiful at the same time.”
When she met her producer, Justin Raisen, this record became a key reference for their work together, as she explained, “I was listening to that album constantly when I was recording my album, Be Sweet To Me. It was so much fun”.
‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me’ (David Lynch, 1993)
“When you come, I’ll be waitin’,” Grohl repeats on her single ‘595’ like the voice of Laura Palmer, haunted by the spectre of BOB in her final days.
Since her teenage years, when she first saw Blue Velvet, the world of David Lynch has always been important to her. But for this record especially, it was the dark, devastating and eerie world of the Twin Peaks prequel movie that kept coming back to her.
“There were lots of moments when we were recording where scenes in that movie would just pop up in my head and or there would be a line from the movie that was just so spot on to what I was trying to say that we would throw it in there just as kind of a little nod to him,” she said, treating her music as a kind of sonic tribute to Lynch, adding, “There’s something so beautiful and dark and emotional about his work that I just I relate to very deeply.”
The state of Virginia
While Grohl was born and raised in Los Angeles, her ancestral home of Virginia always had a draw to her. While Dave Grohl is mostly associated with Washington, the majority of his young life was lived in Virginia, and for all of Violet’s youth, trips to her grandparents’ house always felt like a hyper-inspirational step back in time.
“I love Virginia, and I feel so connected to it,” she said, adding, “My dad grew up there, and I used to go to his childhood home all the time and spend time with my grandma there, and her house is, it’s basically left exactly as it was when my dad was like, growing up there.”
As a young girl, only really coming to realise that perhaps her dad was a person of note, looking at the bits and bobs at her grandparents’ place felt like a gateway to something, as she said, “There’s just so many little bits and pieces of memorabilia and of moments in time that are so special and beautiful”.
But beyond even her father, Virginia, and the stuff kept at that old house, feels grounding as she said, “It’s so cool to be able to go through a box and pull out things from, you know, different generations and different eras and see like, what my family was up to during those times”.
Her grandma
In a similar vein, it wasn’t just the house that felt inspiring, but the woman who kept it, too.
“I think both of my grandmas, my dad’s mom and my mom’s mom have both been just like massive inspirations for me my whole life,” she said, honouring her family. “As a person, in art, in school, in whatever field it was that I needed support in. They were always there to support me. Always are there to support me,” she added, highlighting that the influence of her family goes way beyond her dad.
“They’re so wise and beautifully articulate, and that’s just like everything that I could ever aspire to be, and having them raise me was really, really, really special,” she gushed as a beautiful tribute.
PJ Harvey at Glastonbury
When you’re a kid at arguably the world’s greatest festival, the experience is bound to be formative. When you’re 16 and performing at that festival as part of your dad’s secret set, that’s also bound to be a highlight. But for Grohl and her many experiences of attending Glastonbury, nothing was quite as impactful as in 2024 when she was in the crowd watching PJ Harvey’s set on the Pyramid Stage.
“Marina Abramovic came out and did a silent meditation piece at the beginning, I think it was ten minutes, but it was just the most, like, beautiful emotional roller coaster,” she said as the set started powerful and stayed that way. “There were moments where my sister and I would look at each other and we’d have tears in her eyes, and then the next song would play, and it would be like a fucking amazing rock song, and we’d be jamming out,” she said of the experience.
To Grohl, it was everything she could’ve wanted: “It was just like she had perfectly encapsulated her essence into that live show, and it was so spectacular”.
