A Brief History Of 15 Times Dave Grohl Proved To Be The Coolest

At this point, there’s a pretty solid chance you’re aware what happened to Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl on Friday night. If you don’t know, I’d first like to introduce you to Twitter, but anyway: Two songs into the band’s set at Ullevi Stadium in Sweden, Grohl broke his leg after jumping off the stage. He was carted off, only to eventually return and finish the show.

Dave Grohl did this because he is an amazing human being. Dave Grohl did this because he’s become the personification of rock ‘n roll. Dave Grohl did this because he’s Dave Grohl, and of course Dave Grohl would do something like this, but surprise no one because he’s Dave Grohl and Dave Grohl routinely does awesome Dave Grohl things.

The Sweden incident is just the latest example of Grohl flat-out capturing our hearts. In fact, there are so many occurrences of Grohl doing something that makes us love him even more that we’ve coined a term for it: Grohl-cidents. Recent Grohl-cidents include bringing a young fan on stage to sing a song and then bringing another young fan on stage at a different show, helping cross an item off of cancer patients’ bucket list, professing his love for Taylor Swift (Grohl is one of us), a letter being circulated that a 14-year-old Grohl wrote to Minor Threat frontman Ian MacKaye, and producing the fantastic HBO miniseries Sonic Highways.

Digging deeper, we complied a list of 15 other Grohl-cidents we love. These aren’t ranked; there’s no rhyme or reason to the order of this list. We have to imagine that’s not how Dave would do it, so that’s not how we’re going to do it.

Dave Grohl Makes A Documentary

In 2012, the Grohl-helmed and -driven documentary, Sound City, was released. The documentary told the story of Sound City studios, the legendary, albeit slightly infamous space in Van Nuys, Calif. where Nirvana recorded Nevermind. Tom Petty recorded there. So did Rage Against the Machine, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young and many more. The studio closed in 2011, and Grohl ended up buying a lot of the studio’s equipment, including its famous Neve 8028 analog mixing console. Feeling that the story of the console and Sound City as a whole needed to be told, Grohl set out to make his first documentary, which comes across as a heart-felt love letter to both the studio and music in general.

Dave Grohl Makes A Killer Soundtrack For His Documentary

If you’re making a documentary that is essentially about a mixing board, you’re obviously going to use that board to make a sweet soundtrack. This is exactly what Grohl did. Real to Reel featured contributions from a lineup that could easily be known as the Sound City All Stars: Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, Trent Reznor, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, Rick Springfield, Stevie Nicks and Corey Taylor of Slipknot. Grohl himself appeared on the majority of the tracks, but one in particular stood out significantly from the rest.

“Cut Me Some Slack” is a collaboration between Paul McCartney, Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear, meaning it was a song by a Beatle and the three surviving members of Nirvana. That information alone is enough to get people on board, but the fact that the song actually rocks is a total bonus.

Dave Grohl Is Cool With You Sharing His Music

There are many popular musicians out there today who aren’t fans of file-sharing. Count Grohl as one of those on the other side of the debate. When I was growing up, we taped everything. A block of blank tapes was one of the best gifts I could have received. It was through mixtapes and taped copies of friends’ albums that I discovered a healthy amount of the music that ended up defining my formative years. Grohl did the same thing when he was younger, sharing tapes of his favorite bands with friends. In a 2011 interview with Slate, he pointed out similarities between the complaints people had about sharing music via bootleg tapes back in the day and sharing music via the internet today. And while he knows that file-sharing has put a sizable dent in the side of the music industry’s bread truck, he shrugs it off. “To me, the most important thing is that people come and sing along when we pull into town to tour,” he told Slate. “Sharing music is not a crime. It shouldn’t be. There should be a deeper meaning to making music than just selling downloads.”

Dave Grohl Will Gladly Pop Up in Your New Muppets Movie

You might have missed him, but he’s there, making a brief cameo in the 2011 movie The Muppets. Grohl plays Animool, the drummer in a Fozzie Bear-led Muppets tribute band, the Moopets.

Dave Grohl Will Drown Out Your Protest In The Best Way Possible

Prior to a 2011 show at Kansas City’s Spring Center it was announced that the Westboro Baptist Church would be protesting in front of the arena. The Church picked a Foo Fighters should because “the entertainment industry is a microcosm of the people of this doomed nation… halfhearted, hell-bound, and hedonistic.” As you could expect, Grohl and company responded in the only way they knew how: Dressing up as hillbillies, the band climbed onto the bed of a tractor-trailer, which then pulled around to the front of the arena and parked directly in front of the protesters, who initially thought the country band was there to support them. They realized that wasn’t the case when they heard the phrase “hot man muffins.” Predictably, they didn’t take it well.

Dave Grohl Will Assemble A Monster Supergroup

Sometime around 2005 or 2006, rumors began circulating that Grohl was putting together a project with Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme and Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. It sounded too good to be true. A few years later, Them Crooked Vultures released their 2009 self-titled album, highlighted by one of the most badass rock songs written in the last few years, “New Fang.”

The band was a devastatingly loud blast of dynamite, combining the grizzled bounce of QOTSA and the murderous thump of Led Zeppelin. And throughout the whole thing, Grohl hammered away on drums with a smile as wide as the geographical distance that separates the California desert that Homme calls home and Jones’ native England. The band won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2011 for “New Fang.”

Dave Grohl Is Down To Play In Your Garage

Fresh off releasing Wasting LightFoo Fighters announced a contest in which eight winners would get a concert from the band in one of the most rock ‘n roll places there is… the winners’ garages. Is it too late to enter? I have a garage. Just in case entries are still being accepted: Foo Fighters should play my garage because it’ll give me a reason to clean it out. Also, I’m a big fan.

Dave Grohl: Champion Of The Human Element in Music

Foo Fighters cleaned up at the 2012 Grammys, including winning for Best Rock Album for Wasting Light. However, it was Grohl’s acceptance speech for the award that drew the most attention, as he seemingly threw shade at the growing popularity of EDM and televised music competitions like American Idol.

“To me this award means a lot because it shows that the human element of music is what’s important. Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that’s the most important thing for people to do. It’s not about being perfect, it’s not about sounding absolutely correct, it’s not about what goes on in a computer. It’s about what goes on in here [your heart] and what goes on in here [your head.]

But lest we forget that Grohl doesn’t own the title of Nicest Guy in Rock for no reason. The following day, he issued a statement, seeking to clarify his remarks. Essentially Grohl pointed out that he is cool with a lot of EDM acts and that the human element he was referring to was “that thing that happens when a song speeds up slightly or a vocal goes a little sharp. That thing that makes people sound like PEOPLE. In my humble opinion…a lot of music that sounds perfect, but lacks personality. The one thing that makes music so exciting in the first place.”

Dave Grohl, what a guy.

Dave Grohl Appreciates Good Service

While spending the weekend in Philadelphia for a wedding, Grohl did what a lot of us have done in that situation… spend some time at the hotel bar. Unlike you or I, though, Grohl dropped $1,000 tips both nights he was there.

Dave Grohl: Top-Notch Keynote Speaker

Grohl was asked to give the keynote address at the 2013 South by Southwest Music Festival and did not disappoint. His speech was anchored by the theme of “the musician comes first” and touched on subjects like his time with Nirvana, gave props to Edgar Winter, and once again tossed some barbs at American Idol. The highlight, though, was his lambasting of the notion of guilty pleasures.

“F*ck guilty pleasure! What about just pleasure? I can honestly say that ‘Gangnam Style’ is one of my favorite songs of the last 10 years.”

Dave Grohl Loves His Coffee

Grohl has shed a lot of the vices and habits of his earlier days as he’s gotten older. Yet one of his big bugaboos has stuck with him… his coffee addiction.

Seeing as how he’s constantly doing unbelievable things, good for him. He probably needs it.

Dave Grohl Will Not Have You Fighting At One Of His Shows

Grohl stopped mid-song at the 2011 iTunes Festival in England to publicly call out a member of the audience who was fighting. And while I have no issue with what Grohl did here, I do have one question: Who the hell is dancing at a Foo Fighters’ show?

Dave Grohl Can Rock A Strip Mall

Named Ambassador for the Record Store Day 2015, Foo Fighters played a show at the Record Connection, an independent record store in Niles, Ohio, near Grohl’s hometown of Warren. Playing for 150 fans, the band treated it like an arena show aa Grohl reminisced about growing up in the area and cruising past nearby Dave Grohl Alley on his motorcycle.

Dave Grohl Will Get You Drunk Just As Soon As You Get Out Of That Mine

Back in 2006, two miners were trapped in a Tasmanian mine for two weeks. To keep their spirits up, rescue crews managed to get them a MP3 player loaded with Foo Fighters songs, as per the request of the miners. When Grohl heard this he did what Dave Grohl would do, pass along the message that as soon as the two miners were rescued, they were all going out drinking. “I’m not just having one beer with those dudes,” Grohl said at the time. “We’re going for it. This is going to be a big night.”

Dave Grohl Is Like The North In Game of Thrones, He Remembers

Following a Foo Fighters show at the Reading Festival, Grohl ran into a girl with Cerebral Palsy who was a massive Foo Fighters fan. She had recently sent him a video of her dancing to their music. Grohl of course remembered, gave the girl a big Grohl-ian hug and hung out with her for 20 minutes or so. Grohl met the girl again a few weeks later, this time at a Queens of the Stone Age gig, and was so happy to see her that he invited her to a video shoot the band was doing the following day.

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