The artist Dave Grohl called a modern Morrissey
Dave Grohl has never been shy about wearing his influences on his sleeve. Throughout every iteration of Foo Fighters and Nirvana, Grohl was always proud to talk about the wonders of everyone from Led Zeppelin to The Beatles to the Bee Gees. Then again, Grohl has also been able to keep his ear to the ground regarding new music.
Throughout his time with Nirvana, Grohl would occasionally talk about the bands that he thought had the potential to be huge, counting acts like Kyuss among his favourites. Rather than talk about their approach to music, Grohl is more interested in the soul artists put into their tracks, recently calling out acts like Alabama Shakes for their fantastic approach to production and performance.
Even though not every act falls into Grohl’s typical wheelhouse, he knew enough to know the power of Billie Eilish. Breaking onto the scene of the strength of the song ‘Ocean Eyes’, Eilish’s dark style of songwriting was unlike anything on the radio, fitting somewhere between trap, pop, and industrial music, depending on which song one was listening to.
While Grohl was a fan of the music, it wasn’t until he saw her perform live that he finally understood what was happening. Rather than focus on the intricacies of the music, the reaction that Eilish got out of the crowd reminded Grohl of the disaffected frontmen that he had seen back in the 1980s.
When talking about her performance, Grohl thought that Eilish was cut from the same cloth as acts like Morrissey, explaining, “She has this presence. It’s a real thing. What I started to notice was her connection to the audience and the audience’s connection to her. The vibe was like, ‘Oh my god. This is like, this is Morrissey or Fugazi’. This is a real thing, not just music and some lights”.
While Eilish does possess a unique sonic fingerprint, the amount of soul that she puts into her performances isn’t all that different to what The Smiths frontman had done in his prime. When looking at their body language onstage, Morrissey inhabits himself the same way Eilish does, as if there is an emotional demon trapped deep within him that needs to find a way to express itself through music.
More than anything, the similarities between Morrissey and Eilish also come across in their lyrical content. Although both The Smiths and Eilish could never claim to be the sunniest artists in the world, their intense lyrical themes about the loss of connection between friends and loves resonate on a particularly human level.
When seeing her a second time, though, Grohl knew he was dealing with a massive artist in the making, explaining, “When I saw her at the Wiltern, I was like ‘this is a revolution’. All these kids are gravitating towards this because they feel like her, and those lyrics represent something that they connect to”.
While anyone can have great songs, Eilish’s greatest strength is getting the rest of the music world to relate to her pain in her songs. Artists can try to make their revolution, but revolutions are only made when the people follow behind them.
