(Credits: Far Out / Raphael Pour-Hashemi)
Sat 24 January 2026 19:34, UK
The magic behind the opening of any record wasn’t lost on Dave Grohl.
Although Nirvana was the exact opposite of everything that rock and roll was supposed to be in the glamorous 1980s, Grohl was still learning how to structure a record to make sure everything opened up with a bang. And while it doesn’t get much better than hearing his drum fills come in during ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, there were far more commercial bands that were showing him how the first few seconds of a record should sound.
Because when you look at the first song on any album, you have an opportunity here. This is the first taste that anyone has of listening to your latest musical statement, and everything from Black Sabbath’s debut to the first delayed notes of Guns N’ Roses Appetite for Destruction have taken advantage of the start by having everyone lean in a little closer to hear what they’re going to be in for. Concept albums might be the kings of that style, but Grohl figured it was better to kick the door down first.
His debut with Foo Fighters shouldn’t count since it’s basically a demo tape, but there are always interesting ways Grohl has found to keep things fresh. ‘The Pretender’ is one of the best openers that any band made during the 2000s, the one-two punch of ‘Doll’ and ‘Monkey Wrench’ on The Colour and the Shape is a great ramp up to the rest of the record, and no matter how much Grohl hated working on One By One, hearing the opening power chords of ‘All My Life’ makes you feel like a musical bomb is about to go off.
There’s a certain energy that no one can fake, but there were definitely artists who were more calculated than others when Grohl was growing up. He was a student of bands like Rush from the minute that he heard those warped sound effects at the top of 2112, but on the other side of the musical spectrum, there were bands like Kiss that were turning rock and roll into a circus every time they made an album.
While their first few records seemed like fairly standard rock and roll, Alive was when everyone got to hear them in their natural habitat. This was a band that lived and died on their stage performance, so when they made their next record, they couldn’t go back to the same studio setup. They needed a bit more, and when Bob Ezrin came into the picture, the opening ambience of ‘Detroit Rock City’ transformed an ordinary rock and roll song into the start of the biggest party in the world.
And that excitement wasn’t lost on Grohl when he heard those jingling keys and car engine giving way to one of the best riffs the band ever wrote, saying, “With nuclear anticipation, I let the needle drop on that legendary intro to ‘Detroit Rock City,’ perhaps the greatest introduction to any rock ‘n’ roll album ever recorded. It filled my speakers and my imagination. Thirty-four minutes later and 27 seconds later, KISS had filled my soul.”
The glam rockers really deserve most of the credit there, but there are a few pieces of the rest of the record that wouldn’t have existed without Ezrin doing some heavy lifting. He helped teach the band the guitar harmonies in the middle of ‘Detroit Rock City’, those demonic children at the top of ‘God of Thunder’ was his idea, and had he not had a keen ear for arranging, ‘Beth’ would have been a strange country tune instead of the proto-power ballad that it eventually became.
Even though Grohl’s heroes would later be people like Minor Threat and Iggy Pop, Kiss wasn’t a bad place to start for a 12-year-old kid with big dreams. They were superheroes, and while a lot of people grew out of the days when they were the biggest band in the world, no one will ever forget the way they made them feel back then.
Related Topics