“For all the right reasons”: the singer Dave Grohl said is possessed by music
The 2020s mark Dave Grohl‘s fourth decade in the spotlight of rock and roll.
It all began way back in 1988, when Nirvana released their very first single, a cover of Shocking Blue’s ‘Love Buzz’ (backed with ‘Big Cheese’), via the Seattle independent label Sub Pop Records, and this gritty brand of grunge captured the world and made way for a musical domination with the sound of their debut album, Bleach, released just one year later.
What happened after Bleach needs little recounting, for it is firmly etched into the history books of music and thus, the minds of any music fan. Nirvana dominated the genre’s resurgence in the early 1990s, and suddenly, Grohl found himself in a state of stardom from which he would never return.
But it never frightened him, not even when Nirvana came to an abrupt end, as a result of Kurt Cobain’s death. Through the healing, Grohl accepted the fact that his destiny existed in the role of a frontman, and so in forming the Foo Fighters, he carved himself a pathway to rock and roll royalty.
Now, an astonishing four decades later, Grohl sits at the very top of the food chain as one of the most beloved musicians in history. A hero of the drumming subculture, a bastion of the rock and roll spirit and the leader of the singalong, he’s covered all bases in his glittering 40-year career and largely done so with a smile on his face.
His infectious love of music warrants fans to join him in a place of free-spirited release, and while it seems as though that is a natural disposition for Grohl, he has been quick to credit one musician as an example in that behaviour.
“Well, y’know I always look at Neil Young as a great example of someone who makes music and lives life for all the right reasons,” he explained.
Grohl continued, explaining the essence of Young’s genius, “He’s still capable of out-noising the likes of Mogwai despite some fairly staid recent records, he’s just possessed by his own fuckin’ music, and it’s amazing… That’s what I look forward to, I look forward to making music for the rest of my life – you can have a band and not tour, not make videos, not do interviews.”
Concluding, “Making music is enough, y’know? – All the other stuff’s irrelevant, y’know, it’s fun, I’ll come to London for four days and get drunk every night and do interviews, it’s great!… But my favourite part is making the music – if I couldn’t do all the interviews and couldn’t do all the other stuff, I’d still be happy.”
Ultimately, though, these are two very different musicians – Young practices a far more reserved life that rarely sees him in the public eye outside of music, whereas Grohl, as he mentions, has mastered the art of the modern press run, and while their different approaches prove there are many ways to craft a long-term musical career, none of them works without a deep love of the art form.
