Dave Grohl Quotes

It's tough to go to sleep at night, and I wake up after five hours because I feel like I'm wasting time. I just sit up at night and think about what I can do next.

When digital technology started becoming the norm, you've got 50, 60, 70 years of recordings on tapes that are just deteriorating. Like, a two-inch reel of recording tape won't last forever. It dissolves. It will disappear.

I love being a drummer but I love being a musician in general and I love the Foo fighters.

People are so into digital recording now they forgot how easy analog recording can be.

'Some Kind Of Monster' is such a nightmare for any musician to watch because you're watching a band be honest to each other. Not a good idea, man!

CBGB represents a lot to New York City and to underground rock and to new wave and post-punk and whatever. But, you know, it's like tearing down the Jefferson Memorial or something.

I had a Super Grover doll growing up. Super Grover was very clumsy, he wasn't very good-looking. But in his own way he'd always save the day.

When I joined Nirvana, I was the fifth or sixth drummer - I don't know if they'd ever had a drummer they were totally happy with. And they were strangers. There was never much of a deeper connection outside of the music.

The word ‘grunge’ became a household term, and fashion runways were filled with flannel shirts and long underwear. Oh, how we laughed… Every now and then when I’m feeling a little nostalgic, I put on my ‘grunge tuxedo’ - flannel shirt, long shorts with long underwear underneath them, and a pair of Doc Martens - and dance around the house to Tad records.

From the time that 'Nevermind' came out in September of 1991 to the time that Nirvana was over, it was really just a few years, and a lot happened in those few years.

I had never been in charge of anything. I'd always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I'd never been in charge of an organization.

Your personal history is a part of what happens with your hands and your head as you play music.

I mean, I never liked being told what to do. It's one of the reasons I dropped out of school.

Who's to say what's a good voice and not a good voice?

I know a lot of people who wouldn't be comfortable with everything that comes with being in a band as big as Nirvana. The thing that I don't understand is not appreciating that simple gift of being able to play music.

The human element of making music is what's most important.

That’s one of the great things about music. You can sing a song to 85,000 people and they’ll sing it back for 85,000 different reasons.

Always have the highest bar for yourself. Wake up everyday and no matter how crappy you feel, want to change something for the better. Do something that makes someone happy. Create something that inspires someone. Be someone's light when they are hopeless.

It’s every band’s right, you shouldn’t have to do f___ing Glee. And then the guy who created Glee is so offended that we’re not, like, begging to be on his f___ing show… f___ that guy for thinking anybody and everybody should want to do Glee.

Mom, thanks for letting me drop out of high school. Haha!

From one generation to the next, The Beatles will remain the most important rock band of all time.

I'm a skinny, geeky, high school dropout - it works, kids! Sensitive guys always get the girl. You'll get laid 10 times as much as that guy on the football team 'cause he's on steroids and he's gonna get fat.

The most important thing for me is my family, and my health and happiness, and making sure everyone's cool.

It's funny, there aren't too many musicians that also moonlight as studio engineers. There's a few - the really brilliant ones.

Always have the highest bar for yourself.

When you're recording to analog tape, it captures performance and you can't necessarily manipulate that in different ways. It is what it is.

The best time for gum is just before getting onstage. I need a minty-fresh microphone.

A musician should only sound like what they do, and no two musicians sound the same. It's an individual-feel thing, you know?

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it's just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

What's the last thing a drummer says in a band? 'Hey guys, why don't we try one of my songs?'

In this day and age, when you can use a machine or computer to simulate or emulate what people can do together, it still can't replace the magic of four people in a room playing.

I'm not into albums that are meant to sound perfect.

All I really had was a suitcase and my drums. So I took them up to Seattle and hoped it would work.

Be someone's light when they are hopeless.

I never needed much, and I never thought I'd get more than what I had. A trip to Burger King was the biggest thing in the world to me. Heaven.

I'm not allergic to fashion. I'm just one of those people who when they put on a suit look like they're going to a funeral or to court.

Most people don't take some things into consideration. When they hear an album, they hear the artist or they hear the lyric or they hear the melody. But they don't really think about the environment in which it was recorded, which is so important. It's that thing that determines what the album sounds like.

Usually, when Nirvana made music, there wasn't a lot of conversation. We wanted everything to be surreal. We didn't want to have some contrived composition.

I listen to boy band music before I have to fire someone.

I think that if you're passionate about something and you're driven and you're focused, then you can pretty much do anything that you want to do in life.

When I was a teenager, working towards dropping out of high school to starting to tour with bands, I'd drive around in my VW Bug every morning before school, very stoned listening over and over to Zeppelin. This song got to me because it just seemed mystical. There is something about those Celtic tunings that almost sounds Eastern. Somehow it would sweep me up into my own little trance-like state, like Sting with those shamans in the Amazon. But all I had was a bong and a Led Zeppelin cassette.

You know why Foo Fighters have been a band for 20 years? Because I've never really told anybody what I think of them. The last thing you ever want to do is go to therapy with your band.

I don't want to say that most rock bands live these formulaic biography existences - but they kinda do. There's always a divorce. There's always an OD. There's always a bad business manager.

When you're recording to tape, you usually just settle for what you have. There's not a lot of options to manipulate the performance.

There's something about pulling out a real tape from a shelf and looking at it and knowing that 'Everlong' is on it, or 'Best of You' is on it, and it's really special.

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's gathering people together to do something fun.

Actually, I didn't start sweating until I had children.

I think maybe what happened was the convenience of technology overshadowed the experience of holding an album in your hands, and sitting on your bedroom floor, and staring at a picture of John Lennon or Gene Simmons or Johnny Rotten. That tangible experience can sometimes become an even more emotional experience, because it's really happening.