The guitar legend Dave Grohl called a “genius on fire”
Dave Grohl has had the pleasure of playing with some of the greatest musicians to ever walk this rock we call Earth.
The first serious band he was ever in saw him team up with who we now regard as one of the most brilliant minds in music. Kurt Cobain was able to take the seeds of grunge music and help elevate them to heights that people in Seattle would have originally never thought were possible. It became the biggest genre of all time, and it was the raw sound of people like Cobain and Grohl that managed such a feat.
You can hear that talent throughout the band’s discography, but it’s most prominently on display on their record In Utero. The whole thing was recorded in a matter of days, as it moved away from the slightly more polished sound of Nevermind, and instead saw the band put pedal to the metal and exercise their chaotic style of rock. Steve Albini helped produce the album and wrote to the band beforehand, saying he would only work with them if they went for this approach.
“I think the very best thing you could do at this point is exactly what you are talking about doing: bang a record out in a couple of days, with high quality but minimal ‘production’ and no interference from the front office bulletheads,” he wrote. “If that is indeed what you want to do, I would love to be involved.”
The producer continued, “If, instead, you might find yourselves in the position of being temporarily indulged by the record company, only to have them yank the chain at some point (hassling you to rework songs/sequences/production, calling-in hired guns to ‘sweeten’ your record, turning the whole thing over to some remix jockey, whatever…) then you’re in for a bummer and I want no part of it.”
Nirvana disbanded when Kurt Cobain sadly took his own life, but Grohl has continued to make music. This has resulted in him seeing even more success with the band he now fronts, Foo Fighters, but he also shares the stage with a range of different musicians. Credit to his work ethic, Grohl seems to be a performer willing to collaborate with almost anyone. Pick out veterans within the all-encompassing world of rock, and chances are, Grohl has worked with them.
Having shared the stage with so many greats, Grohl has a pretty good knack for picking out the greatest rockers in history. Two of his favourite guitarists are Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix, one of whom he has played with, and another with whom he hasn’t.
Grohl was a massive fan of both of them for different reasons. He believed they represented different approaches to music, both of which he has explored at some point in his career. One is cool, calculated and polished, the kind of thing you would hear on Nevermind. Meanwhile, the other is a lot more haphazard than that. In Utero is channelled through the unrelenting chaos. Can you guess which is which?
“I consider Jimmy Page freakier than Jimi Hendrix,” he concluded. “Hendrix was a genius on fire, whereas Page was a genius possessed. Zeppelin concerts and albums were like exorcisms for them. People had their asses blown out by Hendrix and Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, but Page took it to a whole new level, and he did it in such a beautifully human and imperfect way. He plays the guitar like an old bluesman on acid.”
