(Credits: Far Out / Raphael Pour-Hashemi)
Sat 25 October 2025 19:45, UK
Dave Grohl has never been the kind of artist who likes to sit still for too long.
He wanted to perform every single genre that he loves at the same time more often than not, and while that can make some of his projects sound like they’re coming out of left field, it’s better for him to make the music he wants than forcing himself to get in the mindset of making a by-the-numbers Foo Fighters record. But sometimes the odd collaboration could have as much staying power as his own classics.
It’s not like Grohl didn’t have a wealth of people to choose from, either. The biggest names in music were practically coming to him half the time, and it was bound to take a strong artist not to say ‘yes’ when someone like Tom Petty asked him to join the Heartbreakers. But Grohl knew that if he wanted the career that he yearned for, it was about making his own music rather than sitting at the back of the stage forever.
Then again, Grohl’s fixation with drums never really went away, either. He already had a firm idea for how the drums should sound on every Foo Fighters record, and even if he and Taylor Hawkins were joined at the hip throughout most of their career, it was always easier for him to have fun playing drums for whoever asked him to jam, whether that’s Trent Reznor, Jack Black, or Josh Homme. Of all those people, though, his relationship with Homme felt different.
Both of them were as close to musical brothers as possible, but since Queens of the Stone Age were far from a side project, Grohl wasn’t about to throw away Foo Fighters to play with Homme for hours on end. He had to choose his sessions carefully, and outside of a few collaborations with him on Foo Fighters records, Grohl couldn’t believe his luck when Them Crooked Vultures started.
They could have easily made it work as a duo, but when John Paul Jones walked in the room, it felt like the musicianship went up by 70%. Jonesy had already developed a relationship with Grohl for a while, but when it came time to play music together, it truly felt like the best of both worlds by having that Zeppelin-esque stomp with Homme’s alternative approach to writing melodies.
Even though the band released only one album, Grohl was convinced that the band could do anything that was thrown their way, saying, “It’s a simple band to be in, because you rely on this person next to you and you have this trust with everyone. When we have those moments where we go off on a jam, on our way to somewhere we’ve never been before, we’re not worried about how to get back. As long as the three of us are there together, we’ll make it.”
Whereas most people would get bogged down at the idea of being in a “supergroup”, no one in the band really saw it that way. This was more of a project than a group half the time, and while there were a lot of opportunities for them to show their chops, none of them were going to step on each other’s toes, either. They were going after a certain vibe, and in doing so, they managed to crank one of the greatest classic records that 1974 never bothered to spit out.
It might take some getting used to for people who only know Grohl for his more poppy tunes in Foo Fighters, but outside of those jamming ‘Learn to Fly’ and ‘Best of You’, this is what he would have sounded like had he been competing with John Bonham back in the day. It wasn’t the most mainstream record to come out of the late 2000s, but you weren’t going to find a more accomplished group of musicians still working.
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