Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl recently did a live conversation in Toronto for Canadian Music Week with his mother Virginia Hanlon Grohl, and he revealed that growing up he would listen to ‘satanic’ death metal. He said his mother never told him what type of music to listen to, though she’d put on the Manhattan Transfer.
Variety reported:
“I was learning to play by listening to hardcore music like Bad Brains with these fat sticks, and then I would play normal drums and I would break everything,” he recalled, adding that he was never one for formality and learning. “We didn’t have jazz drum lesson money.”
His future as a musician became clear to both of them early on. “I decided by age 12 that this is my life and my life will be music,” recalled Grohl, who eventually dropped out of the school where his mother taught to tour Europe with hardcore band Scream.
“She never told me to not listen to anything. When I was 14 I was listening to satanic death metal — she’d put on the Manhattan Transfer and I [would follow that up with Slayer’s 1986 classic] ‘Reign in Blood.’”
Dave Grohl has a history with metal, even releasing his ‘Probot’ album with metal legends over a decade ago. Foo Fighters recently finished recording a new album, and they are set to tour North America to celebrate their 25th anniversary, recreating their spring 1995 ‘van’ shows, but this time in arenas and without original drummer William Goldsmith. Foo Fighters will be eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year.
