Grohl's Quotes

#1. I had a little indie label called No Core and Dave Grohl's first band was called, Dain Bramage so I out an album for them and for whatever reason, he's never forgot it and has always been super nice to me since.

Reed Mullin

#2. It was supposed to be gross, and now it's gorgeous.

Dave Grohl

#3. I like Dave Grohl, I guess he's a little newer. It makes you shake, it's uppity and spirited.

Ted Nugent

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

Dave Grohl

#5. 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.

Dave Grohl

#6. No, there's something about the sing-song cadence of children's music that has its place in rock.

Dave Grohl

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

Dave Grohl

#8. Mick Fleetwood was one of my first interviews. And if you've ever talked to that dude, he's the sweetest guy in the world - he's just a trip.

Dave Grohl

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

Dave Grohl

#10. I think actually singing the words is more therapeutic than just sitting down to write them, because then you are letting it out, and it's coming from your gut.

Dave Grohl

#11. It's nice when people are happy to hear that you're still alive, rather than feeling like "Oh, finally he's dead?"

Dave Grohl

#12. Through Kurt I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down.

Dave Grohl

#13. 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.

Dave Grohl

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

Dave Grohl

#15. There's a band in a garage right now writing songs for an album that will do the same thing 'Nevermind' did some 20 years ago. We don't know who and where, but it will f***ing happen again. All it takes is for that storm to break.

Dave Grohl

#16. I think I'm scared a lot. I'm scared of almost everything. And I'm constantly trying to work my way through each obstacle, whether it's a present, past, or future relationship.

Dave Grohl

#17. Different boards do different things to the sound that's coming through them. An old Neve desk does embellish it in a way that makes it sound sort of bigger or warmer. It doesn't change the performance but it does enhance the way that it sounds.

Dave Grohl

#18. If you were to sit me down in a classroom, with fluorescent lights humming and some woman trying to teach me Italian, there's no way. But scream goes to Italy, we stay in a squat, and the only way you can ask someone where to take a piss is to do it in Italian. So I learned Italian.

Dave Grohl

#19. I've experienced great things, I've experienced great tragedies. I've done almost everything I could possibly ever imagine doing, but I just know that there's more.

Dave Grohl

#20. It's funny; recently I've started to notice people's impersonations of me, and it's basically like a hyperactive child.

Dave Grohl

#21. There's poetry in being the band that can sell out Wembley but also makes a record in a garage. I don't like doing what people expect me to do.

Dave Grohl

#22. 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.

Dave Grohl

#23. When it comes to making an album I take that very seriously. I am meticulous, overworked. That's my time to put everything under the microscope.

Dave Grohl

#24. It's good to wander into the studio and walk out with something that's better than you'd imagined it to be. If everything was as you imagined it to be, it just wouldn't be as much fun.

Dave Grohl

#25. At school where you a dunce or a teacher's pet? All of the above. I was stupid so they thought I was cute.

Dave Grohl

#26. 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.

Dave Grohl

#27. It's a weird thing when you make records. You try to hear it before you make it, so you walk into the studio with this idea of what you expect to happen, and that usually changes. That usually turns into something else, and that's a good thing.

Dave Grohl

#28. I didn't start sweating until I had children. That was one of the first things I realized when my daughter Violet was born - I started getting wicked BO. You know there's a difference between basketball BO and stress BO? This was definitely stress BO. Like, new dad BO.

Dave Grohl

#29. It's not until recently that I could even imagine myself as an adult. But these kids today, they look at me like I'm Neil Young. Nirvana is the band their parents listen to.

Dave Grohl

#30. 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.

Dave Grohl

#31. I've always been a fan of melody and emotional melancholy, whether it was Rites of Spring or Tears for Fears or Neil Young. If I hear a song that has a sweet melody, I'm a sucker for it, whether it's Linkin Park or Little Richard.

Dave Grohl

#32. I would love to interview Dave Grohl. I just think he's an amazing musician, and I grew up listening to Nirvana, so I have so many questions about that.

Malin Akerman

#33. I'm kind of claustrophobic ... It's not even like enclosed spaces. It's like I hate being stuck in one band, you know? Just being stuck is the biggest drag, for fear that, you know, just that you can't get out.

Dave Grohl

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

Dave Grohl

#35. Going out and playing music - that's what I do. I don't do much else.

Dave Grohl

#36. If you're trying to connect to people with music - it's more of an outward process and a lot of times musicians can be very inward.

Dave Grohl

#37. There's a big difference between falling in love with someone and falling in love with someone and getting married. Usually, after you get married, you fall in love with the person even more.

Dave Grohl

#38. When you have kids, you see life through different eyes. You feel love more deeply and are maybe a little more compassionate. It's inevitable that that would make its way into your songwriting.

Dave Grohl

#39. A long time ago, I made a promise to myself: "Okay, you know what? I'm going to play music, and hopefully I'll make enough money that I can go back to school. Once I make enough money to put myself through school, that's what I'm going to do."

Dave Grohl

#40. I have to say that Dave's Grohl amazing too. You see all these interviews with him and he seems like the coolest and nicest guy on camera, but he really is when he's off too! I was fortunate enough to know him before he was a big rock star when I put out his very first band's album.

Reed Mullin

#41. Never lose faith in real rock and roll music. Never lose faith in that. You might have to look a little harder, but it's always going to be there.

Dave Grohl

#42. Dave Grohl have said a lot of really nice things about me that I don't know I deserve but it's nice of him regardless.

Reed Mullin

#43. Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It's a black wall. It's a thief.

Dave Grohl

#44. Nothing's going to keep me from making music. If I were in the want-ads in the back of the paper or playing to six people at a coffee shop, I'd still love to make music.

Dave Grohl

#45. 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.

Dave Grohl

#46. 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.

Dave Grohl

#47. Whenever I say I made a record in the garage, people just assume that I have, like, a Lear jet parked in there or something. But really there's old luggage, a couple of bikes. It's big enough to put one minivan in. That's it. No dartboard. I'm so not macho.

Dave Grohl

#48. 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.

Dave Grohl

#49. Neil Young is my hero. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That's what that guy does.

Dave Grohl

#50. 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.

Dave Grohl

#51. People should never be afraid that Foo Fighters are ever going to break up, it's like your grandparents getting divorced - it's not gonna happen.

Dave Grohl

#52. When I sit down to interview people, I don't hold questions and I don't know the answers. They're more like conversations that become lessons.

Dave Grohl

#53. When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn't even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.

Dave Grohl

#54. It's important to me that people feel connected to the band through the music, you know? I don't want it to be wallpaper. I don't want it to be background music. I want it to be clear: This is the song. These are the words. If you feel the same way as I do, sing it as loud as you can.

Dave Grohl

#55. What I really miss these days in music - is the music. I prefer to listen to melodies and songs, not just sounds.

Dave Grohl

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

Dave Grohl

#57. My whole life, I have listened to people like Neil Young, or Crosby, Stills & Nash, and artists that have made a career out of the mellow, folky, acoustic dynamic.

Dave Grohl

#58. Nickelback walks into a bar ... there's no punchline because ruining music isn't funny.

Dave Grohl

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

Dave Grohl

#60. The whole slacker generation totally didn't apply to us musically.

Dave Grohl

#61. 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.

Dave Grohl

#62. 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.

Dave Grohl

#63. When Nirvana became popular, you could very easily slip and get lost during that storm. I fortunately had really heavy anchors - old friends, family.

Dave Grohl

#64. We're in this band, the Foo Fighters, making music for the love of music. We all came from bands that had disbanded, and we were drawn to each other because we missed playing.

Dave Grohl

#65. Because you have things like 'American Idol' and you've got radio stations that play music made entirely by computers, it's easy to forget there are bands with actual people playing actual instruments that rock.

Dave Grohl

#66. 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.

Dave Grohl

#67. I can understand how some people might resent me for having the audacity to continue playing music, but it'd take a lot more than that to stop me from doing it. I started Foo Fighters because I didn't want to retreat.

Dave Grohl

#68. Develop that individuality by working as hard as you can at what you love.

Dave Grohl

#69. What we feel most comfortable doing is playing loud, screaming rock songs.

Dave Grohl

#70. As I get older ... I start to realize that life ain't half bad. Each year, I'm amazed that I'm still alive. I don't take any of this for granted, I'm a lucky dude.

Dave Grohl

#71. I'm not trying to be the next Dave Grohl or Phil Collins.

Taylor Hawkins

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

Dave Grohl

#73. My first instrument was actually the trombone, but that didn't last long. Soon I was playing guitar in bands from the time I was 11 or 12.

Dave Grohl

#74. 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.

Dave Grohl

#75. I was ready to quit music. It felt to me like music equalled death.

Dave Grohl

#76. A lot of people are promoting records that are just throw-it-agains t-the-wall-see- if-it-sticks meaningless bullshit. Everybody has the responsibility to do the right thing and promote artists that mean something.

Dave Grohl

#77. When there's so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you've already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?

Dave Grohl

#78. It was that famous joke: What's the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band? 'Hey, I wrote a song.'

Dave Grohl

#79. Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument - learning to do your craft - that's the most important thing! It's not about what goes on in a computer!

Dave Grohl

#80. Give me something to assemble, I won't look at the directions, I'll try to figure it out by myself. It's why I love Ikea furniture.

Dave Grohl

#81. It's terrifying to play your favorite band's song in front of your favorite band.

Dave Grohl

#82. I don't think of Kurt as 'Kurt Cobain from Nirvana'. I think of him as 'Kurt'. It's something that comes back all the time. Almost every day.

Dave Grohl

#83. I'm big on taking the lady out to dinner. We have some candlelight romance every now and then. And our whole family is within a 6-mile radius. It's disgustingly domestic. I'm big on Costco.

Dave Grohl

#84. I have crazy claustrophobic dreams, weird elevator dreams where the elevator closes in and all of a sudden I am lying down - oh my God, it's a casket. Just freaky stuff like that.

Dave Grohl

#85. A lot of the records you buy, there's nothing you can hold in your hand, it's all 1's and 0's, this digital cloud floating in the ether. but with analog albums, you can hold it in your hand.

Dave Grohl

#86. There's always gonna be rock n' roll bands, there's always gonna be kids that love rock n' roll records, and there will always be rock n' roll.

Dave Grohl

#87. You can make yourself the greatest singer in the world or the best drummer in the world with the aid of technology.

Dave Grohl

#88. I'd like to imagine I won't end up in Hell, but I think I've done too much acid and listened to too much death metal to sit on a cloud next to God with angels floating above my head.

Dave Grohl

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

Dave Grohl

#90. 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.

Dave Grohl

#91. My mother was a public school teacher in Virginia, and we didn't have any money, we just survived on happiness, on being a happy family.

Dave Grohl

#92. There are times when I feel like I'm a traveling minister. I'm trying to go out and get kids to pick-up yard sale instruments and change the world.

Dave Grohl

#93. You look up to your heroes and you shouldn't be intimidated by them, you should be inspired by them.

Dave Grohl

#94. I'm so not macho. It's crazy. My man cave is so not a man cave.

Dave Grohl

#95. 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.

Dave Grohl

#96. Once I got into punk rock, I started mail-ordering albums, because a lot of the record stores in my area didn't carry the punk bands from England or Sweden or Chicago or Los Angeles

Dave Grohl

#97. The Nirvana unplugged album was something we'd always knew we were capable of doing, but it was just a matter of doing it right.

Dave Grohl

#98. I was at a New Year's Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, 'I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,' and I actually meant it.

Dave Grohl

#99. I believe the history of American music is just as important as anything political because it's changed generations of people.

Dave Grohl

#100. There's some things in life that you really consider to be priceless.

Dave Grohl