The former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman, Dave Grohl, has rarely passed up the opportunity to discuss his key musical influences. Beyond his more obvious influences in heavy rock, including groups like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, Grohl found his first love in rock music through The Beatles. As a child, he would listen to the Liverpool band’s records on repeat, learning to play the drums by following Ringo Starr’s lead.
Following Kurt Cobain’s tragic suicide in April 1994, Grohl and his Nirvana bandmate Krist Novoselic were heartbroken. It took both a little while to return to the studio and stage as they learned to welcome music back into their lives. For Grohl, music became his source of therapeutic release as he began to learn the guitar and write his own songs.
“For a while after Kurt died, I couldn’t even listen to music,” Grohl told the NME of this challenging period. “I hated turning on the radio for fear that I’d hear a Nirvana song or any sort of sad music. Anything melancholy just made me so depressed. I would listen to shit like Ace Of Base. I got really into that. I was listening to some really ridiculous shit.”
Grohl then explained how a few albums, in particular, helped him get back into music. “I had a record called A National Healthcare by a band called The Voluptuous Horror Of Karen Black that I particularly remember,” he said. “They were this sort of New York performance art band and were great. I remember Frank Black’s Teenager Of The Year came out that year around that time – that was a really great record. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion record Orange came out around the same time, that was another great record”.
Grohl continued: “That was a funny time with me musically because I just didn’t really want to hear any music. Then I realised, ‘Oh wait, it’s music that’s going to heal me. What am I doing? I should be listening to music. I should be making music that will make me feel better.’ And it did.”
When Grohl eventually returned to music in earnest, his songwriting was guided by influences old and new. “I grew up with The Beatles, I loved Led Zeppelin, I fucking loved the Bad Brains and punk rock,” Grohl told Classic Rock in 2011. “But when it comes to guitar playing and song structure, I think that Hüsker Dü might be my biggest songwriting influence”.
“I was a huge Hüsker Dü fan, and obviously [band member] Bob Mould’s music has influenced the way I write music and the way I play guitar,” he added. “A lot of what I do comes from Bob. I’ve name-checked Hüsker Dü songs lyrically. Like in ‘Times Like These’, it says: ‘I’m a new day rising’, which is one of my favourite Hüsker Dü records”.
Grohl continued: “I had this song [‘Dear Rosemary’] that I thought might sound cool if he sang with me on it, call and response, so I texted him and said: ‘Hey, do you want to come down?’ And he did. We weren’t really sure what we were going to do”.
“I watched him play guitar, and as I watched him do it,” he said. “I realised that I owe more to Bob Mould than to maybe any other musician. There’re specific things that he does that I learned from him, not from anyone else.”
Listen to the 2011 Foo Fighters song ‘Dear Rosemary’, featuring Hüsker Dü’s Bob Gould, below.
