How Freddie Mercury made Dave Grohl understand his level: “It’s just not going to happen”
The entire story of Dave Grohl reads like one of the greatest redemption arcs in rock and roll history.
On paper, anyone who was anywhere near Nirvana would have never wanted to play music again after Kurt Cobain passed away, and yet Grohl found a way to move on and gain an even bigger following as one of the greatest frontmen that the rock and roll world had ever seen in only a few years. But despite being one of the most engaging presences onstage, Grohl was sure that he wasn’t going to be nearly as great as some of the idols that he heard growing up.
That said, it’s not like he didn’t set the bar high when he first started making his masterpieces. Any other band wouldn’t have wanted to make songs that had that much in common with Nirvana, but a lot of what Grohl was doing came from absorbing every single thing he heard. Even on that first record, you can hear echoes of everything from Fugazi to The Beatles to even a bit of shoegaze in the way that he plays with sound on some of the atmospheric tracks like ‘Exhausted’ and ‘X-Static’.
Even when he was behind the drum kit for Nirvana, he still had a lot more to offer than a bunch of great drum fills. He was following John Bonham ever since he was a kid, and when looking at his rise to the top, a lot of his drumming was about creating the rhythmic hooks in between the tunes, like the opening hit of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ or delivering the kind of caveman-style fills throughout ‘Heart-Shaped Box’.
But it’s a big job for any drummer to suddenly put down the sticks and stand at the front of the stage. Just ask Phil Collins or Don Henley: it’s not easy for anyone to be that vulnerable when they had the kit to hide behind for most of their career, but Grohl felt that it was his job to give the audience the time of their lives wherever they played, whether it was the festival circuit, a massive stadium, or simply playing a small club.
Because that’s the same mentality that Freddie Mercury had whenever he played a concert. There was always a way for him to turn any audience inside out, and while Live Aid remains one of the greatest performances that anyone has ever given, that’s just a small glimpse of what Mercury was like every night, always giving 110% whenever he strutted out onto that stage to sing or play piano.
It was inspiring for someone like Grohl, but he also knew that there was never any point in trying to compete with what Mercury was doing, saying, “It took me a long time to accept that I’m never going to sing like Freddie Mercury ever. It’s just not going to happen. And then it took me a long time to realise, ‘Well, that’s okay.’ I realised that it was kind of ridiculous to be something that you’re just not. [But] it’s inspiring. It was his intention to get 75,000 people to sing a song together.”
And that’s the same kind of energy that Grohl brings every single time he plays. He’s not going to be hitting those same high notes or anything, but you can feel the passion in his voice during those first gigs he played at Wembley Stadium, almost like he was about to spontaneously combust if he didn’t get every single person in the nosebleed seats to feel like they are having the absolute time of their lives.
So while Mercury was a bit out of reach, that was no reason for anyone to give up on their dreams. Because even though many people would have liked to have those kinds of vocal chops, the world doesn’t need another Freddie Mercury. What they need is someone that can sing something original.
