The two 1970s albums that taught Dave Grohl everything he knows: “Everything I know about music”
Dave Grohl, the last rockstar and the nicest man in the industry, has led a life of such epic proportions that when he released his memoir, The Storyteller, in 2021, the world was at once brought to its knees in tears of laughter and great melancholy.
Grohl’s story precedes him. As a young child, he was rapt by rock music, with a poster of Kiss on his wall that he revered in the same way a believer would do a religious relic. The four glitter-clad New Yorkers showed him the allure of the promised land, that of the successful rockstar, and every day he would go to school energised for the future. It was exciting, rebellious, and, most of all, a means of expression, and he couldn’t get enough.
Then, as a teenager, Grohl found that he possessed a natural ability as a drummer, and at this point, he was deeply ensconced in the flourishing hardcore punk scene. Although underage, he auditioned for local legends Scream and was hired as their drummer. This led to Grohl extensively touring and creatively cutting his teeth in a way few his age can claim to have done.
Eventually, this brought him into contact with the Seattle band Nirvana through their mutual friends, the Melvins. Shortly after this fateful meeting, he was hired as their drummer. Together, he and bassist Krist Novoselic formed a thunderous rhythm section, giving frontman Kurt Cobain the basis he needed to take his artistry to the next level and change the trajectory of culture in the process. Jointly, the trio only released two albums, 1991’s Nevermind and 1993’s In Utero, but what a pair they are.
In a story as old as time, Nirvana abruptly ended in April 1994 for reasons we don’t need to mention. After a period of mourning and intense existential questions, Grohl remerged with a batch of songs in tow that would become the first Foo Fighters record. Afterwards, he would find his own rhythm as a frontman, with his post-Nirvana outfit going on to become stadium-fillers that have enjoyed nearly 30 years in the sun.
Grohl has never been afraid to discuss the music that inspired him as a child, and over his career, he has consistently explained that, like many others, it was The Beatles who first set him on his path to being a musical great. When speaking to the NME in 2013, he revealed that the Liverpool band’s two greatest hits records, 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, were the albums that galvanised him.
The Foo Fighters mastermind reflected: “The two Beatles greatest hits of their early years and their later years – the red one and the blue one. Those were a big part of my life when I was young because those albums basically taught me how to play music. My mother bought me a guitar, those two records and a Beatles songbook, and that was it. Everything I know about music came from that. It was huge.”
For the most part, greatest hits albums are looked upon with derision byu the music community. A collation of all the best songs from an album might be a fan’s dream, but they have a somewhat uncool aura. They suggest that you weren’t fan enough to collect all the albums that the songs were originally released on. Essentially, they feel like a cheat.
But, for a child, as Grohl was when he heard the albums, they operate as a perfect open door to a new sound. A young mind can find itself wrapped up in the greatness of a group like The Beatles very quickly when given the opportunity of such a release so heavy in golden tuners. That is, all to say, perhaps greatest hits compilations need a bit more love.
