“The heaviest thing ever”: Dave Grohl on how Sepultura changed the game with ‘Roots’
No matter what happens in the world of music or how things change, there will always be people who crave something innovative and new. Shifts in sound and changing trends will always persist as long as subjectivity in art exists. No one understands this better than Dave Grohl, whose band Nirvana was at the forefront of one of these innovative musical movements.
The grunge scene was already developing in Seattle by the time Nirvana gained traction; however, there was no band that took the style of music and propelled it in the way that they did. They took the movement overseas and made it the most talked about thing in music, as their songs straddled the emotional lines of sad, happy, angry and longing.
Nirvana never stopped pushing creative boundaries, either. For instance, one of their most successful albums was Nevermind, which had some of their biggest hits and propelled them to fame as a mainstream rock band. While riding that high and reaping the benefits that come with being talked about so much, a lot of bands would have likely continued making a similar style of music to capitalise on the trend, but with their next album, In Utero, Nirvana went in a completely different creative direction.
They teamed up with Steve Albini in a bid to drop the polished nature of Nevermind and instead release an album that was much rawer and which was put together in a matter of days. Albini mapped out the vision perfectly in a proposal letter he wrote to the band, and they were happy to go along with it.
“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,” he wrote, “With high quality but minimal ‘production’ and no interference from the front office bulletheads. If that is indeed what you want to do, I would love to be involved.”
This innovative attitude towards music has stayed with Dave Grohl long after Nirvana disbanded. When the band broke up after Kurt Cobain sadly took his own life, Grohl decided to front his own band, Foo Fighters. He was able to continue excelling in his musical career as his music was loved worldwide, and Foo Fighters are now considered one of the biggest rock bands in the country.
When you consider Grohl’s career as a whole and the fact that exciting, boundary-pushing music has followed him wherever he went, it’s hardly a surprise that he looks for something new and exciting in what he listens to as well as what he creates. This led to him discovering one of his favourite metal bands, as they take traditional elements of metal but then merge them with other instruments and styles of music, which other people might not think would work well together.
“One of my favourite heavy metal bands of all time is from Brazil, it’s a band called Sepultura,” he said, “One of the crazy things they did is they made this album called Roots […] They incorporated crazy Brazilian instrumentation into like the heaviest music you’ve ever heard in your life. It kind of changed the game, it was like the heaviest thing ever.”
