(Credits: Far Out / Dave Grohl)
Thu 1 January 2026 17:15, UK
It’s insanely difficult for anyone to hope to have the same musical instincts Dave Grohl has behind the drumkit.
Whereas most rock and roll drummers can get by on that four-on-the-floor backbeat and sound alright, what Grohl was doing in Nirvana, Foo Fighters, and Queens of the Stone Age was all about creating the same kind of rhythmic hooks that the bass and guitars were doing but without any real notes. That might have been unorthodox at the time, but that only came from Grohl following in the footsteps of the legendary drummers that came before him.
Because looking at his record collection, Grohl had more than his fair share of drumming heroes to learn from. He had already begun his journey playing along to every single Rush record he could find, and it’s not like anyone could find a better drum teacher than Neil Peart in rock, but Grohl’s parts were never meant to be as busy as prog rock. Nirvana were a simplistic band, and he wanted to throw as few drum fills into the mix to make everything sound huge.
Then again, that meant that the drums stood out like a sore thumb when the hooks did come in. Grohl’s way of blowing up Chad Channing’s original arrangement for ‘In Bloom’ was otherworldly, and even when he was going for full-on punk aggression on tunes like ‘Stay Away’, you have to applaud the raw stamina it took for him to hit so ferociously whenever he got through the intro.
But that all came from the heavier side of rock. Ringo Starr may have been the kind of feel in Grohl’s eyes, but that couldn’t measure up to the true titans that were bashing the hell out of their instruments. And before he had Peart to learn from, the prog rock drummers were already looking out for the true drum virtuosos like Keith Moon to see how far someone could go behind the kit. Moon was a pure craftsman with drumsticks in his hands, but even he couldn’t hold a candle to John Bonham.
From the opening of Led Zeppelin, Bonzo was proving himself to be one of the finest drummers that the world had ever seen, and whether that was laying back into the groove or playing a massive solo, you could always feel that signature heartbeat behind every single drum hit. He wanted to bring rock back to something primal, and that helped Grohl see music in a completely different way.
The drums had been a fun move away from the loud guitars, but after Bonham, Grohl started to see the kit as its own unique instrument, saying, “I think my biggest epiphany was when I discovered Led Zeppelin, and then that’s when I really started listening to [John] Bonham, and that’s when I discovered how drumming can be not only powerful, but poetic, and that’s what I got into.”
That’s not to say that Bonham didn’t have moments where he could fly off the handle. He was meant to play the most aggressive drums anyone had ever heard, but even when listening to ‘Moby Dick’, he’s practically having a conversation with the audience whenever he plays, always ramping up the tension but with the same sense of swagger that you would hear out someone like Ginger Baker from Cream.
And while Grohl has been known as one of the most humble musicians in the world, it’s not too far off the mark to say that he managed to match Bonham in many respects. He never wanted to be that good, but when listening to some of his finest drumming performances, the one thing he learned better than anyone else was that the best percussion parts came from someone that put their heart and soul into everything they played.
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