(Credits: Raph Pour-Hashemi)
Wed 31 December 2025 15:30, UK
Dave Grohl can’t help but be a child of his influences every single time he makes a new record.
The biggest challenge for any musician is often how they build on what has come before, and whether he was in Nirvana or fronting Foo Fighters, Grohl is the perfect example of what everyone should strive for when serving the song. He had that certain sixth sense whenever a tune needed touching up, but it’s not like anyone was going to displace The Beatles in his heart whenever he got a guitar in his hands.
Despite Led Zeppelin being the archetype of everything Grohl stood for, the Fab Four will forever be the band that got him into playing music. Grohl has always been happy to talk about how he learned to play drums listening to Zeppelin and Rush records and playing on the pillows on his bed, but a songbook of Beatles tunes is really all that you need to learn what chords built rock and roll.
But there’s a lot more to Foo Fighters than a bunch of Beatlesque melodies and punkish aggression over the top. Grohl was always on the lookout for great songwriters, and whether that was hearing what Bob Mould could do in the underground scene or recently listening to people like boygenius, Grohl knew that there will always be something from another musician that he could add to his bag of tricks.
Then again, do all of them have to be musicians? After all, Grohl’s time behind the drumkit has always felt part way between Keith Moon, John Bonham, and Animal from The Muppets, so it’s not hard to see him going for a certain emotion in his songs that really worrying about what chord was coming next. All that mattered is how the music made you feel, and Grohl figured there could be some tongue-in-cheek humour to his music as well.
And that goes back to the Steve Martin records that he got when he was a kid. Martin may not have been the first choice for an inspiration among those that listened to Pink Floyd or Black Sabbath, but Grohl found a sense of comfort in those records the same way he did when listening to his favourite albums from the time.
It might turn up in his tunes from time to time, but Grohl figured that Martin had more of an impact on his outlook on music than any other rock and roll band, saying, “I have to say that some of the most influential albums in my collection weren’t rock but comedy records. Steve Martin was just is much of a hero to me as The Beatles were when I was a kid. Comedy Is Not Pretty! and A Wild And Crazy Guy; those two albums were huge to me.”
That might sound insane, but really, isn’t the comparison a bit obvious. Martin was no stranger to hanging out with rock legends like Keith Moon in his prime, and while Grohl clearly took it in a much more extravagant direction, his turn as Satan in Tenacious D’s The Pick of Destiny or his over-the-top goofball demeanour in the band’s videos is a direct descendant of what Martin was doing both on Saturday Night Live and beyond.
Not every band necessarily needs to follow Grohl’s lead and start taking influence from comedians, but the important thing is adding variety to everything. Grohl could have easily stuck with Bonzo fills and been one of the greatest drummers on Earth, but sometimes it’s important for people to laugh at themselves a little bit more behind the scenes.
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