Dave Grohl has played with everyone from Jack Black to John Paul Jones
of Led Zeppelin — but only one person considered replacing him.
Krist Novoselic founded Nirvana with Kurt Cobain in 1987. Dave Grohl only joined the
band three years later, in 1990, with the 1991 hit album Nevermind being his debut.
"There's something about being in a three-piece…"
"It's a band stripped down to pretty much it's basic elements."
In an interview with Uncut,
Novoselic described just how instant Grohl's connection with the rest of the band was:
After Cobain's untimely death in 1994,
Grohl didn't feel like Nirvana could continue. Grohl eventually formed the Foo Fighters,
and he considered bringing Novoselic as the bass player. But as he told Rolling Stone back in 1995,
it wouldn't have quite been a great experience for the rest of the band. Not officially being
a part of the Foo Fighters hasn't kept the two from continuing to collaborate. During his CBGB
Festival Keynote speech in 2012, Novoselic sang Grohl's praises, saying it's always
fun for them to work together and that Grohl has earned every success and accomplishment.
Pat Smear was the only Nirvana member to go on
to join Dave Grohl in the Foo Fighters — and, as Far Out reports, it was a pretty bumpy ride. But
as he told Rolling Stone in 2021, Smear is back with the band now, and he has a lot of admiration
for Grohl. Smear revealed to the outlet:
According to Smear, playing with Grohl fills you with a love of life and good
energy that simply did not exist in Nirvana. Smear told Rolling Stone:
Back in 1995, Dave Grohl played drums
on former Minutemen bassist Mike Watt's debut solo album, Ball-Hog or Tugboat? In fact there was an
impressive lineup of artists that Watt and Grohl teamed up with for that album — Pearl Jam's Eddie
Vedder, Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Flea, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and even Grohl's ex-bandmate
Krist Novoselic. This large group was as eclectic as they were powerful, and they followed Watt's
album with a tour that was just as creative. As Watt recalled in an interview with the Observer,
Grohl could play a mean surf guitar. But it wasn't Grohl's surf guitar that left the biggest mark
on Watt — it was, perhaps unsurprisingly, his drum playing. Watt told Rolling Stone in 2011:
When NME showed Queens
of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme a picture of Dave Grohl, Homme said,
Homme and Grohl have been good friends for quite some time. As Music Radar reports,
the two were already old friends back in 2002, when Homme called Grohl,
asking him to play drums on Queens of the Stone Age's album, Songs for the Deaf. At the time,
Grohl was going through some turmoil with the Foo Fighters and was eager to
take a break and play with Homme instead. The result was an exceptional one — to this day,
"Songs for the Deaf" is praised for its unique sound and raw, heavy drumming.
In 2009, Homme and Grohl got together again, forming heavy rock supergroup
Them Crooked Vultures together with Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones.
Homme told Westword how playing with Grohl felt:
It's unclear just how far back their friendship goes, but it goes both ways. As Grohl told NME,
Apparently, hysterical laughing was the norm during Songs for the Deaf.
When actor and musician
Jack Black discovered Nirvana, he was blown away. Black confessed to Heavy Consequence:
Of course, Dave Grohl played the drums on the album and on the 1991 San Francisco
show that Black attended. Black's first impression about Grohl lasts to this day.
Black told Heavy Consequence:
Then, in a pretty funny twist, it was Grohl who became a fan of Black's comedic metal
group Tenacious D. In the early 1990s, Black remembers Grohl going backstage
before Tenacious D's Viper Room gig and telling the band he was eager to see them play. When
Tenacious D were preparing their first album, Black didn't really consider phoning Grohl,
simply because he thought he was too big a legend to play with them. Eventually,
Black's producers convinced him, and Grohl ended up playing drums on all
of Tenacious D's albums. He even starred as the devil on their "Tribute" video.
When Taylor Hawkins
joined the Foo Fighters as their drummer, he did so half-heartedly. Dave Grohl was already a
legendary drummer. How was he going to compete with that? Hawkins spoke to Rolling Stone in
2021 and recalled just how difficult his first years with the band were. When he saw Grohl play
live with Queens of the Stone Age during their 2002 Songs for the Deaf tour, Hawkins thought,
Of course, this wasn't what his other bandmates — including Grohl — thought of him.
Grohl proved to be a great friend and mentor to Hawkins. When Hawkins had a
breakdown and told Grohl he didn't think he could keep up with the pressure, Grohl gave
him all the support he needed until he gained confidence again. Hawkins told Rolling Stone:
On November 23, 1991,
Kurt Cobain spoke to Studio Brussel on the same day as their show in,
which promoted their fresh Nevermind album. During the interview,
Cobain was asked about the band's lineup, and he discussed having numerous fleeting drummers until
hiring Dave Grohl in 1990. That's when things changed for Cobain. Cobain told the outlet:
Cobain also described himself, Grohl, and Krist Novoselic as music lovers.
He told Studio Brussel that, although he was the main songwriter in Nirvana,
making their songs was a collective process — as the three of them played together, new ideas
emerged and the songs took their final shape. Cobain spoke about his friendship with Grohl
and Novoselic as being more valuable than their creative collaboration, telling Studio Brussel:
When Dave Grohl
played with Them Crooked Vultures back in 2009, he played alongside Josh Homme of
Queens of the Stone Age and legendary bass player John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin.
"I thought, well this could be a great opportunity to, you know, actually jam with John Paul Jones."
Just like Homme, Jones is known for his experimental,
at times heavy metal sounds. But his rockstar status doesn't mean he wasn't
himself inspired by Grohl. In a clip from the Godlike Genius NME Awards in 2011, Jones said,
In the same clip, Jones spoke about the experience of playing with Grohl:
Perhaps it's his very loudness — or passion and energy — that makes Grohl such a fun bandmate.
Back in 2009, apart from forming the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures,
releasing an album, and touring with them, Dave Grohl also played the drums for The Prodigy's
song "Run With the Wolves" for the Invaders Must Die album. But according to The Prodigy
co-founder Liam Howlett, it's "Run With the Wolves" that hits the mark the most,
thanks to Grohl's aggressive drumming. Howlett told Kerrang:
Howlett also spoke to BBC Radio One to explain that it really was
thanks to Grohl that the track was even written in the first place:
Howlett went on to say that Invaders Must Die was,
in his opinion, the best Prodigy album at the time — all with a little help from Grohl.
As Rolling Stone reports, Juliette Lewis, the lead
singer of Juliette and the Licks, describes Dave Grohl both as a great guy and a godlike rockstar.
The two collaborated in 2006, when Grohl played the drums on Juliette and the Licks' album Four
on the Floor. Lewis told Rolling Stone about the time she met Grohl a few years before:
But when they actually played together, she was in awe. Lewis told Rolling Stone:
Then, in 2011, Lewis spoke at the Godlike Genius NME Awards,
recommending Grohl for the award. Lewis had this to say about Grohl:
By now, it's clear that Dave Grohl is a revered musician and a pleasure to be
around ... for most. But if there's one musician who considered replacing him,
it was Kurt Cobain himself, toward the end of Nirvana, in 1993.
"It's that famous joke, like, 'What's the last thing the
drummer said before he got kicked out?' 'I got a song I think we should play.'"
In a 2021 interview with Vulture, Grohl recalled a time when he heard Cobain
rant about finding another drummer to replace him. Grohl told the outlet:
Understandably, Grohl was upset, thinking Nirvana was a solid threesome. He notes,
in an interview with The Big Issue, that there was dysfunction in the band. Apparently, in 1992,
a year before Grohl overheard Cobain's comments, the Nirvana drummer had received a letter from
Cobain in which the frontman told Grohl he "loved him like a brother," according to Psychobabble.
In the same letter, Cobain said he was looking forward to Nirvana's In Utero recording sessions
so that he and Grohl could get back on track with being more comfortable around each other.