(Credits: Far Out / Raph Pour-Hashemi)
Tue 11 November 2025 19:20, UK
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl is the Swiss army knife of rock. But he may well have ended up in an entirely different profession.
In another life, if he chose to follow his mother’s occupation footsteps, heeded her advice, and became a school teacher, the next generation of talent would receive a musical education of the highest order. The culmination of the curriculum would be three classic albums that have continued to inspire him throughout his life.
Firstly, he figures everyone needs a smattering of the Fab Four. Grohl’s long journey to superstardom was kick-started by his love of The Beatles, which began in childhood and continues to run rampant today. Without his exposure to the liberating Liverpudlians lads at an early age, there’s a strong possibility that Grohl would’ve never decided to pick up an instrument, and his life would look immeasurably different.
Speaking about the influence of The Beatles on his own creative output, the musician once remembered: “The Beatles were the first band I fell in love with. I got both the Blue and Red albums when I was about seven. When I started learning guitar, my mother gave me a chord book with all of The Beatles’ songs in it.”
Adding, “And I’d play along with the album. In the music, I started to discover arrangement and composition, melody and harmony. It was like a puzzle, just fascinating. They were far more complex than they let on.”
Dave Grohl on stage. (Credits: Far Out / Raphael Pour-Hashemi)
A musical schooling courtesy of The Beatles put Grohl on a steady footing and provided him with a clear definition of songwriting, which he still uses today. While the brand of rock ‘n’ roll he’s perfected with Foo Fighters differs from the Fab Four, their inspiration still lurks and lingers in the background.
In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, when kids were forced to stay away from school and take their learning into their own hands, Grohl stepped in to prescribe a selection of the best homework any kid will ever have to do – listen to an album. As a multi-instrumentalist who has been at the top of the tower of the music business for four decades now, he is ideal to be doling out essential records with a good amount of authority behind the picks.
Speaking with BBC Breakfast when children were home-schooled, Grohl was asked what records would form the backbone of a musical education for any would-be musicians. The rocker certainly didn’t disappoint as he delved into the classics.
“Well, you are going to want to get The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s [Lonely Heart’s Club Band],” Grohl told the BBC from his Los Angeles abode, unsurprisingly picking the band who started it all for him. “One reason is that album still connects the way it did the day it came out,” he added.
For many, the album is considered the Fab Four’s masterpiece. In fact, on a factual level, it was voted the UK’s favourite album in a huge poll by the Official Charts Company back in 2018. And its esteem never seems to falter, establishing a new depth within pop music that remains a standardbearer over half a century later.
The second album on the list is essentially the quintessence of what you might term classic rock. “Now if you want to be a drummer, you’re going to want to get the AC/DC album Back In Black,” he added. “That is rock ‘n’ roll drumming 101.”
The 1980 album is renowned for Phil Rudd’s simple yet thunderous drumming style. Rudd pounds his way through an album in a sonic blitz that typified the band’s sound as a whole and skyrocketed the record towards the top of the best-selling of all-time list.
His third album, however, was a record that truly brought the party to music class. “I mean, come on, let’s just go with Saturday Night Fever. Look, if you put Saturday Night Fever on, it’s going to feel like Saturday night, but it could be a Monday morning,” he said, championing the classic Bee Gee’s disco soundtrack. Adding, “I like myself a little party now and then. I do like to dance.”
Grohl likes to dance just as much as he likes to rock out. Foo Fighters have previously rebranded themselves as the Dee Gees for a ten track album Hail Satin, covering four Bee Gees tracks – ‘You Should Be Dancing’, ‘Night Fever’, ‘Tragedy’ and ‘More Than A Woman’ – plus Andy Gibb’s ‘Shadow Dancing’. But that’s not his only dalliance with disco, having previously admitted that the bulk of Nirvana’s beats were essentially pulled from the genre.
But while it might have always been a mainstay, Saturday Night Fever is also a record that has grown on him over time.
Speaking to Jo Whiley about the Dee Gees disco outing, Grohl announced, “While we were having this conversation [in the studio] somebody said, ’Hey, have you seen that Bee Gees documentary?’ And I was like the last person on earth – the only person that hadn’t seen it! So I was like, ’Why don’t we just do a Bee Gees song?’ And someone was just like, ’OK… how do you wanna do it?!’ And I said, ’Well, let’s do it like the Bee Gees.’
He then added, “We started recording the instrumental track, and then I thought, ’Ok, well I’m gonna go out and sing it…’ and let me tell you: I have never, ever in my life sung like that, but it was the easiest song I have ever sung in my entire life! I sang the song, and it was like six minutes, and I was done. I should have been singing like this for the last 25 years!”
With dance, flat-out rock, classic songwriting and originality covered, the trio of records should serve as a decent starter for any budding musician, regardless of which genre they’d like to head off in. It’s an eclectic mix of records which epitomise the full spectrum of Grohl’s musicality, and there are few artists that a young musically-inclined individual could wish to replicate.
The three most essential albums in history, according to Dave Grohl:
- Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles
- Back in Black – AC/DC
- Saturday Night Fever – The Bee Gees
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