{"id":295653,"date":"2025-12-02T22:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T22:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/295653\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T22:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T22:37:09","slug":"the-greatest-american-songwriter-according-to-dave-grohl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/295653\/","title":{"rendered":"The greatest American songwriter, according to Dave Grohl"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dave<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Raphael Pour-Hashemi)<\/p>\n

Tue 2 December 2025 19:37, UK <\/p>\n

When Nirvana split up following the tragic death of Kurt Cobain, nobody expected Dave Grohl<\/a> to become one of the best songwriters of his generation. <\/p>\n

Yet when a self-titled album was released in 1995 \u2013 an effort that Grohl had written and recorded himself entirely \u2013 no one in the industry could quite believe it was him. The legendary drummer had stepped out from behind the kit and pushed himself into the songwriting spotlight. <\/p>\n

Since that moment, he has grown and grown into becoming one of the foremost rock songwriters of the last 30 years. With Foo Fighters, Grohl has established himself as one of the best, taking a range of influences into his work to create truly anthemic rock music. The Beatles, Rush and Led Zeppelin can all be heard in the band\u2019s tunes. <\/p>\n

It might seem challenging to place Grohl\u2019s songwriting influences from that first album. Like his ex-bandmate Cobain, Grohl clearly held a special place in his heart for the Beatles, but last year, he gave us an insight into the clear influences on his writing. Discussing those to have impacted his own creative vision, he claimed to be indebted to H\u00fcsker D\u00fc\u2019s Bob Mould. <\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up with The Beatles, I loved Led Zeppelin, I fucking loved the Bad Brains and punk rock,\u201d Grohl told Classic Rock in 2011. \u201cBut when it comes to guitar playing and song structure, I think that H\u00fcsker D\u00fc might be my biggest songwriting influence. I was a huge H\u00fcsker D\u00fc fan, and obviously Bob Mould\u2019s music has influenced the way I write music and the way I play guitar. A lot of what I do comes from Bob.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dave<\/a>Dave Grohl performing with Foo Fighters. (Credits: Raph Pour-Hashemi)<\/p>\n

Grohl continued<\/a> in his praise of Mould: \u201cBob Mould should be placed in the highest ranks of America\u2019s greatest songwriters and lyricists. You can argue that he\u2019s just as influential in his own right as Tom Petty \u2013 he\u2019s a classic American songwriter, only writing from a different place to most.\u201d<\/p>\n

Punk music was Grohl\u2019s first sonic love, and he eventually played in the hardcore punk band Scream before joining Nirvana<\/a>. Discussing punk, H\u00fcsker D\u00fc and Mould, in particular, Grohl said: \u201cWhen I discovered punk rock in the early \u201980s, there were bands that stood out because of their heaviness or speed or dissonance. But H\u00fcsker D\u00fc, which was Bob Mould\u2019s original band, had this sense of classic melody \u2013 it was almost like a punk rock band playing Byrds songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evidently, the melodic nature of Mould\u2019s H\u00fcsker D\u00fc songs touched something in Grohl, most likely to do with that profound love for Lennon and McCartney\u2019s writing. Grohl added: \u201c[H\u00fcsker D\u00fc] were the first punk rock band that I listened to that had a double album \u2013 the Zen Arcade record, which went from breakneck thrash buzzsaw guitars to acoustic ballads. And having been raised on The Beatles and loving the White Album, there was something about that dynamic that I loved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grohl had, of course, been known for his pounding drumming, which is why the sensitivity of the early Foo Fighters output was all the more surprising<\/a>, but it\u2019s clear that he took significant influence from Mould. He added, \u201cIf you go back and listen, you\u2019ll hear his influence in the stuff I\u2019ve done. So much that I reference H\u00fcsker D\u00fc in a lot of lyrics.\u201d In fact, Grohl had recently referenced H\u00fcsker D\u00fc on last year\u2019s LP, Medicine at Midnight.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for Grohl, he finally managed to meet his hero and express his gratitude. \u201cI\u2019d seen him play in 1984 or \u201985, but I was just a stage-diving, slam-dancing kid singing along to the songs,\u201d he said. \u201cI finally got to meet him maybe ten years ago. I said, \u2018I just have to thank you because I\u2019ve really taken a lot from your music.\u2019 And he said, \u2018I know\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Raphael Pour-Hashemi) Tue 2 December 2025 19:37, UK When Nirvana split up following the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[83405,23794,96,21017,83406,128,6796,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-295653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bob-mould","9":"tag-dave-grohl","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-foo-fighters","12":"tag-husker-du","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-nirvana","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}