The modern pop group Dave Grohl called “the best band in the world”
One of the greatest challenges for any aging rock star is staying relevant. A particular style may have been wildly successful at the outset, but fans eventually tyre of hearing the same songs and seeing the same show repeatedly. Dave Grohl never struggled with evolving the Foo Fighters’ sound with each album. However, when he collaborated with Greg Kurstin, he discovered his musical soulmate, inspired by listening to The Bird and the Bee.
When comparing Grohl’s band with Kurstin’s, they appear to inhabit two distinct musical realms. Grohl strives to revitalise rock with loud guitars and powerful drum fills, while Kurstin’s approach focuses on creating some of the most sonically beautiful pop music ever produced.
One of their very first success stories came when they interpreted a bunch of classic Hall and Oates songs for a covers album. The album ended up sounding like a coffeehouse gig with Norah Jones-level musicianship behind it. Once Grohl heard it, though, there was no getting around how beautiful all of their originals were constructed.
Speaking with Vulture, Grohl claimed that what Kurstin created alongside Inara George is among some of the best pop music he had ever heard, saying, “I mean, you wouldn’t consider the Bird and the Bee to be a modern-rock band, but oh my God. I think they’re the best band in the world. That’s our producer, Greg Kurstin. It’s Greg and Inara, and they write songs nobody else could possibly write.”
In fact, the whole reason why Grohl wanted to work with Kurstin was after meeting him by accident on vacation. When taking a break from the Foos, Grohl ran into Kurstin at a restaurant and talked to him about every rock band under the sun, whether that was The Beatles or Motorhead.
While the heaviest thing that Kurstin had done before the Foos was someone like Sia, he got an education when working on the album Concrete and Gold. Despite only knowing how to create an amazing pop mix, he took Grohl’s songs to monolithic proportions, making their stadium-rock sound even bigger on songs like ‘The Sky is a Neighborhood’ and ‘Run’. It definitely was an adjustment period for some fans, but making everything super blown-out actually makes a lot of sense, given that’s how it sounds to the audience during a concert.
Given how well he worked with Grohl, it’s also no surprise that Liam Gallagher would work with Kurstin later down the road. While Noel will not be writing the tunes for him these days, the production behind Liam’s voice on his solo catalogue is probably as close to the original Oasis days that he ever got to since the late 1990s.
More than anything, Grohl knew that with Kurstin, he had someone who understood many different facets of rock music. It’s one thing to get a producer who knows rock and roll inside out, but if you have someone who can switch from Liam Gallagher to Adele at the drop of a hat, that’s a musical Swiss Army knife that’s almost impossible to let go of.
