Dave Grohl

Re: You're views on Dave Grohl? Technique

I always smile when I hear talk about Dave Grohl. I don't know how many others on the forum have been playing long enough to remember this...but...

When Dave Grohl first hit the scene, Modern Drummer featured him on the cover of the magazine. They received so much hate mail for doing so that it turned into the biggest controversy in the history of Modern Drummer. For multiple issues afterward, they were printing letters from people both bashing and defending Dave and the magazine itself. Supposedly, what they printed was just a tiny percentage of what they received. At a certain point, Modern Drummer printed an official end to the debate and encouraged people to stop the barrage of letters about it.

I'll bet they never taught you THAT in music history class! haha

Anyway, it's great to see that Dave made it through that initial rough patch and is now commonly accepted as a great rock drummer. He certainly is one of the most popular. If Modern Drummer put him on the cover next month, no one would think twice about it. Good for him.
 
Re: You're views on Dave Grohl? Technique

When I think of Dave Grohl, the word technique doesn't usually come to mind as much as performance and musicianship. Like other's have sid he has a nack for laying down exactly what the song needs and does it with confident power and just the right amount of flair.

The guy is immensely talented as a singer, guitar player and drummer and songwriter!
There are a lot of people that can lay claim to being multi-talented like that but very few who can actually pull it off on a professional level.

Dave rules in my book!
 
Re: You're views on Dave Grohl? Technique

I've been asking the question "why does he sound the way he does" since 1992... and it's been great fun learning from him.

His Scream stuff is pretty darn good too, as well as the Late!/Pocketwatch stuff...

I've only recently started to learn the details of his technique... I only used my ear and my brain before that, and what I mostly picked up on was the absolutely pure enthusiasm for playing drums, and his unabashed physical-ness behind the kit.

One can hit the drums too hard, too sloppy, and look and sound like a fool. Dav found a way to stay physical and monstrously powerful and that's made me appreciate him more than any other drummer.

Over the years I've found that there's a few of my other favorite drummers that also mix power with enthusiasm, and some of them are even more technically proficient than Dave, i.e: Dale Crover, John Bonham, Bill Bruford, Zach Hill... but nobody can blend simplicity with power with enthusiasm the way he does. He's without a doubt the spiritual successor of Bonzo.

I've thought about his drumming every day since I was 13; I've read everything I could about the different production tactics he's used in the studio, and I've accepted that he is my Rock 'n' Roll Hero. Becasue of him I've found a happy medium between QOTSA desert rock and Shellac post-rock that when further developed will help me to become a good drummer in my own right.

I have a heck of a lot to thank him for. His guitar work has also heavily influenced my (first Foo album & Probot more than anything), but most of all his drumming actually has shaped the path of my life itself... if he wasn't around I wouldn't have had the love I have for drumming.

How and when to use flams, really, really solid single stroke rolls/fills, full-set triplet rollovers... nobody else has his ear for what and when to do what. Yes, I acknowledge that other drummers such as Bruford Bonham Crover and Hill also know that stuff but it's different with them, respectively and individually.

On the drums, I don't want to BE Dave, I want to be me above all else, but I do feel that if I'm going to invest my time and effort on learning another drummer's ways, it's his stuff above everything else... I spend a little time working on my previously mentioned drummers as well as Iggor Cavalera.


The cool thing is that there IS a Dave Grohl school of thought. Josh Homme applies it with the drumming in QOTSA, and Joey Castillo is a great example of Grohl-inspired techniques. Taylor Hawkins, same deal (Get Up I Want to Get Down by The Coattail Riders is a great example)... the drum writing on recs of the flesh's two albums, Todd Trainer's stuff with Shellac... these guys apply similar dynamics but a lot of what they do traces back to Dave doing his thing. IMO there's nothing wrong with wanting to play like Dave; it's honoring him, it's adopting a unique and effective way of thought behind the kit, and it's a heck of a lot of fun... because if you can be physical behind the kit and still be that solid and effective, then who you play with will love pretty much every beat you lay down.

Rock On Dave.
 
In my (modest) opinion, I think Grohl is a modern day version of what Phil Collins was in the 70's and 80's - a supreme songsmith who had a sound that was just always somehow right on the money. That's not to compare style or anything else, just to say Grohl has a real place in the last twenty year's worth of popular music, that being, heavy catchy rock tunes that seemingly always have supremely confident rhythms.

The hyper-sophisticated drum tracker he's not, but he consistently makes music that boils it down to songcraft over style (although, like Collins, his style seems to be instantly recognizable). It's deceptively simple, I think, since it IS so simple. But it's far from simplistic, I think, which seems to suggest it's fundamental.
 
Re: DAVE GROHL

I know he has a plank of wood on his left. Like literally just a piece of a 2x4 plank, painted black. Is that the one you mean?
 
Re: DAVE GROHL

Really just a plank of wood? I thought it was carved so it had a mouth and had a more 'cross stick' style sound. It mustn't sound that good. Thanks.
 
Re: DAVE GROHL DOUBLE KICK?

Na, he does it with a gong bass drum/low floor tom tuned like a bass drum.

Me alternates hands. It's a cool trick! I use it alot.
 
Re: DAVE GROHL DOUBLE KICK?

People get all uppity about moongel, but it's really one of the easiest and fastest ways to get certain sounds, and furthermore, I think his kit is mic'd the vast majority of the time, so moongel can make the overtones much easier to deal with in the mix.

What gets me all uppity, though, is the way he makes little tape X's on his resonant heads. Oh well, his drums always sounded fine to me.
 
Dave Grohl - to me he's the single most powerful drummer on earth. He's like a f**ing machine. Just listen to "The Colour And The Shape" by Foo Fighters - Grohl plays on the whole album and it's such a pleasure to listen to.

Thought I'd create a thread here for us all to share our thoughts on mr. Grohl.
Peace
 
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