Last night I jokingly deemed Dave Grohl the king of music. After killing it on the Beatles tribute, fresh off Howard Sterns Birthday, fresh off the grammy’s, etc….. Everything he touches right now seems to turn to gold and he is the go to guy right now in the music industry. I find many things fascinating about this. Both his path to this spot on the radar and his current attitude towards his recent even more accelerated status.
There is a humility about him that is refreshing to me. There is a free will and originality that seems to be effortless. And to top it off he is just a great musician and songwriter that has simply worked hard and let the rest fall into place.
Lets talk about his path. A high school dropout who left to join a band hardly sounds like a success story. To him and his mother there was no other path. He was an exceptional musician at an early age and had the drive of….well a young Dave Grohl. To this day he credits his mother for encouraging him in this unorthodox start. How anti-rockstar. She saw something in him and let him follow his dream. In his day, like today, we hear the mantra that you have to go to college to succeed. There seems to be an awful lot at the top of their game who do the opposite, who discover their path at an early age and run towards it no matter what others say. Education is not a bad thing...but formal education including college is not for everyone.
Fast forward several years and you find him at the cusp of being in the biggest band in the world. In a band full of introverts he was the quiet one. You can argue about whether Nirvana was a great band or not but you can’t argue that Kurt Cobain was not a successful voice of his generation and effective songwriter/message carrier. What we did not know at that time is that there was another songwriter in that band who would one day go on to be the biggest rockstar on the planet in his own right.
In a world where every songwriter wants to be a frontman and have their name on the cover, here sits Dave Grohl behind a drumset with a collection of what would be classic Foo Fighters songs. Yet other than 1 or 2 examples he never shared them with his bandmates. There are many reasons why that is I am sure. Insecurity is a big possibility. But looking at the humble rockstar he is today its hard not to argue that he was simply happy to let Kurt be the front man.
Another thing I love about the man is that in a world where you have to have a degree in fashion to be in the music industry, where fedoras and low cut v-necks are as numerous as the sands on the shore, he has always just been a t-shirt and jeans guy. Never showy. Very modest. The most simple and plain looking guy in the room (a cue I think he took from one of his heroes, Paul McCartney).
Lastly I want to touch on possibly the most important aspect of Mr. Grohl. His talent. There has been much already written about his preference towards recording using reel to reel and other ancient practices compared to today’s digital landscape. To be honest today to make it in music you don’t have to be that great. You just need a great computer. Dave Grohl could phone it in a bit and no one would know it. But he does’nt. He is a guy that has had no formal training or lessons yet he can play as good if not better than the greats he rubs shoulders with. Is he special? Does he have some secret that none of us know about? Nope. He is just a hard worker who puts in hours and hours to be great at what he does and does not cut corners.
I will stop gushing now. I am a big fan of Dave Grohl’s and have been for a long time. Not just because he makes great music but because he is a man of humility and class. In a day where ego’s and shortcut secrets to success rule the day even among the average Dave Grohl does the opposite and stands out among the greats. He has not chased success. He has not mastered the art of self promotion. He simply put in the time to be great at what he does and opportunity came to him. He was willing to be great. He did not have to talk about what it means to be great or tell us how great he was. He just became great and we agreed.
No comments:
Post a Comment