Everyone and their dog must feel like they know the secret to the longevity of Dave Grohl.
The man’s mystique may have taken a pretty uncomfortable hit in the last year or so, but this was a guy that, up until that point, had lasted in the public eye for 30 years as, more or less, a good guy. A few missteps here and there (Google Nate Mendell, Alive and Well for more info), but broadly speaking, he was Uncle Dave, ‘the nicest guy in rock’. The big questions were twofold, though: First of all, how?, and second of all, why him?
Pretty much everything we ascribe to our rock heroes doesn’t apply to Dave Grohl. A hitmaker? Sure, people love his music, but the Foo Fighters have never really been a chart concert. Legendary stories? Eh, Grohl’s bad behaviour stayed very much behind the scenes. Until it didn’t. Speaking of, was it his sex appeal? Sure, he’s a handsome guy, but the Foos were never pinups and never claimed to be. Grohl simply made a global rock superstar out of being a down-to-earth guy.
I think we can all agree this just doesn’t really happen. Something else had to give. There were several options to pick apart the secret to his success. A die-hard Foos fan would say his songwriting and its true, the man can surely connect with an audience. A cynic would say that the association with Kurt Cobain is one that dies hard, and they’re not entirely incorrect. Someone in the middle would say that the Foo Fighters developed into one of the great live bands of the era, and that does wonders for a band and its frontman.
What is the secret to the success of Dave Grohl?
To me though, there’s something else. Something that goes a lot further than the vast majority of the songs he’s written, or his live shows, or any story about him doing something nice flying in the face of rock star douchebaggery. To me, the thing that resonates the most about Grohl is that he is a genuine, die-hard fan of music. That may sound simple on the surface, but hear me out here, I think his love of music is vanishingly rare at his level of success.
Pop music, like anything, becomes a job, especially at the upper echelons of stardom. Yet Grohl has an almost boyish enthusiasm for music that, if he were any less genuine a person, probably would have been beaten out of him around the time of In Utero. Get him talking about music, not just his heroes but anyone he loves from The Prodigy to OutKast and everyone in between, and few people at his level sound as much like a genuine music fan as he does. It’s one of the few cases where a multimillionaire rock star genuinely sounds “just like us”.
It’s even more apparent when you do get him talking about his heroes. How many times have you been at the pub with your slightly toasted mates and heard them say stuff like “I think Jimmy Page took guitar to place no one has ever been, and I don’t think anyone can ever duplicate what he does. He just had a way with [a] guitar, where he spoke his own language with it. The guy is just probably the most passionate player I’ve heard in my life”. Sound familiar? It shouldn’t, because it’s Dave Grohl talking in an interview with Steve Lamacq.
That love of music, I think, has done more to endear him to rock fans than a million ‘Long Road to Ruin’. Here’s hoping we can see a few more with that same love for music pop up in due course.