“Very important”: the musician Dave Grohl knew would bring the blues back
In the late 1990s, Dave Grohl asked Robert Plant what drew him to the blues. He responded that it wasn’t anything necessarily proactive about the state of society; it was simply “a call” that he needed to be a part of.
Before, Grohl had explained how he’d never really been drawn to it himself, but that that was because he’d felt more of a pull towards the punk rock movement. Before he was a household name, those sorts of scenes provided an escape from mainstream culture and were often reflected in the music, much of which inspired Grohl’s own playing as a drummer and then a songwriter himself.
That said, although his disconnection from and indifference to the blues likely stemmed from more of a generational disconnect than anything else, Grohl’s lack of understanding when it came to why the likes of Plant and Jimmy Page would be so influenced by it seems especially revealing about the type of music he sought to make post-grunge.
After all, Nirvana might not have been the most punk-adjacent band in the traditional sense, but once Grohl was able to spread his wings and explore his own musical venture within Foo Fighters, there was a definite shift towards the more outwardly energetic music you’d find in many of the same punk rock spaces Grohl enjoyed growing up.
Over time, however, it’s clear that he gained a greater sense of awareness, both about the roots of rhythm and blues in a basic sense, and why it remains one of the most important throughlines in modern music and culture. While he wasn’t exactly completely dismissive of the genre back then, in time, he began to recognise echoes of its impact in others, many of which later inspired him as an artist.
One of whom was Gary Clark Jr. Grohl managed to work with Clark on a couple of occasions, and what shocked him the most across those interactions was how raw and organic his playing was. With his fusion of blues with modern rock, Clark Jr also served as a gateway to older traditional blues roots and established a refreshed place for it in the modern landscape, enlightening many of rock’s biggest players, including Grohl, to the ways it remains a lively and relevant part of the entire genre.
One thing that Clark managed to do, and likely another reason why Grohl was particularly drawn to his craft, was to take a version of blues and move it away from this common misconception that it’s merely a tool for older, earlier purveyors of traditional rock ‘n’ roll. Blues might have inspired the likes of many of those iterations of rockers, like Led Zeppelin, but Clark breathed new life into it in a way that made it resonate with the generations who previously felt that inexplicable detachment.
For Grohl, Clark carries that same emotional resonance that Plant described as “a call”, the sort that feels naturally appealing, even if it’s not always easy to put into words. Reflecting on the importance of Clark and the presence of blues in the modern rock landscape, Grohl later told Rolling Stone that he “represents something very important” because he “carries the torch of these blues players that came before him”. While he also admitted that Clark would never say it himself, he said that it’s a responsibility he “has in his soul”, and there’s “no disconnect between his heart and the instrument”.
Back in the late ‘90s, Grohl said that he believed blues always “seemed like this almost stereotypical music”. However, as Page then argued, that’s because everything became a sort of “pastiche”, making blues seem like this unknown silo of music that only appears in satirised forms. That is, until Clark came along and changed everything he ever believed about why it was so magical in the first place.
