¶ Intro / Opening
Pushkin.
The magic of Dave Grohl isn't just that he's one of rock music's great rack and tours, or that he's one of the greatest drummers in frontman of the last thirty plus years. It lies instead in the sheer number of lives he's gotten to live within rock and roll. I mean, just think about his trajectory. Girl starts out as a drummer of one of DC's great, if not underrated hardcore band's scream mingling with Ian Mackay and all
the other amazing discord artists from that time. Then he joins Nirvana, where he more than makes his mark as a drummer for one of the most consequential bands since the Beatles, not only changing music forever, but also becoming an indelible part of the story of Seattle's music scene that forget about grunge and subpop for a second, goes all the way back to Jimmy Hendricks and Quincy Jones.
And then if that one enough, Girl launches one of the most successful acts of the post Nirvana Boom Foo Fighters, which he does literally single handedly, and Prince or Stevie Wonder like fashion write and recording every song on the debut himself, except for some guitar work by Greg Dooley
from the Great Afghan Whigs. And then when it's time to fill out the band, he gets to pulling guys like Nate Mendel from Sunny Day Real Estate and Pat Smear from the Germs in Nirvana, and all the other really talented and interesting guys that have joined the group over the years. It's almost an embarrassment of riches, but then God Dave Girl realizes it and relishes the opportunity to tell stories from his remarkable career. We're sitting down with Grol at the Foo Fighter Studio to talk about
their twelfth album, Your Favorite Toy. We talked about all of it, including how their new album came together, but we started with the story that I've always wanted to ask him about. It's from a song from his first solo project, he called Late, from an album called Pocketwatch that to this day has only ever seen a cassette release. This is Broken Record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my
interview with Dave Grohl. Head over to YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast if you want to see the video.
Walking through here. It's like a Hall.
Of You and Barry Manilow amazing. You know, there's so
¶ Recording first album, Pocketwatch
many little gems. As you walk through. One of the things, I was like, wow, I'll start with it just because so I don't forget it is the pocket Watch album. Oh my god, story of Skeeter Thompson actual true story.
That is a true story.
That was when I first started recording stuff on my own in a studio. My friend Barrett Jones, that was actually the first person I ever recorded with when I was fourteen years old. He had like a four track studio in the laundry room of his parents' house, and through friends of friends, we wound up recording our first demo, this punk band I was in called Freak Baby, and we we recorded four songs in his laundry room, like the drums were in his bedroom and the vocals were
in the bathroom and whatever. Over time we became really close friends, and he upgraded to an eight track and still had a studio in his house.
But it was around then that.
I realized like, oh, if there's eight tracks, I could lay down a drum track and then put a bass over it, and then put some guitars over it, and then put a vocal on it, and it'll sound like a band even though it's just one person. And I kind of understood multi tracking from when I was really little. I had two cassette decks and I would record a drum thing on this one cassette on a boom box, and then I'd take and the drums were pots and pans, and then I would put that in this stereo and
hit record on this one. Hit play on the drum thing, play guitar along with it, and then I'd have this cassette that would have drums and guitar on it, and I'd take the cassette and put it in that and just sort of like bounce.
That way back, yeah, beatlestyle, I guess. Yeah.
So I understood like the concept of multi tracking, but then I thought like, oh wow, this is like an eight track studio. And my friend Barrett I would always say like, hey, do you have any tape left at the end of that reel, Like, yeah, probably have like a couple of minutes, and I would go in really quickly so it's to not waste his time. I usually had everything worked out in my head and I would just blast a drum track really quick, put two guitars on it, a bass on it, and then bring it
home and listen to it. And that's when I realized, like, oh my god, I could, like I couldn't write songs and record them and make it sound like a band, even though I didn't necessarily like the way I sang. I didn't think I was a great guitar player, but it was this fun experiment.
So I was.
Recording songwriter at the point, did you write songs for like and you spare time for fun?
I mean I was writing songs about my dog when I was eleven years old, and you know, I had journals and stuff, and I was, you know, a complicated teenager of writing all of this shit that I considered poetry but it was just not And so I was just starting to kind of explore this new way of expressing myself for just like a new to me. It was almost like a puzzle, like a game, just seeing
how far I could take it. Like I only had eight tracks to deal with, so I couldn't, you know, I couldn't do this, but anyway, so like a song like that was just something recorded for fun. And that pocket Watch cassette was the first time I released music on my own, but it was a cassette only release. I don't know how many they made.
Only ever come out on cassette.
Yeah, it was a friend of ours. So this is in Washington, d C. In the early nineties. Everybody had a record label, right yea, and the DC scene was
¶ Formation & collaborative spirit of Scream and the DC hardcore scene
was amazing because it was it was very independent and the ambition was really pure. It was to create good music, to create art to be shared, but also to sort of like foster this community and scene. It wasn't a huge scene, but it was a really like a strong and connected scene of friends and really creative people. So a girl named Jenny Toomy, she was the one with the Simple Machines.
Label. That one was Simple Machines. Yeah.
But at the same time I was in Nirvana. I'm like, why would I want to complicate my musical experience by putting out something like the story of Skeeter Thompson, the bass player of Scream, which is just an instrumental with a spoken word over it, and it's a true story, but it's ridiculous. While I'm in this other band with one of the greatest songwriters of all time, and I get to just bang away at the drums behind this amazing songwriter and it's pure and it's beautiful, and it
was powerful and it sounded good. I saw all of the things that I do now. They were like my little side project thing that if I needed to blow off steam, I would just record things on my own, but never never wanted to.
You know.
It's the famous drummer joke. Was the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band. Hey, guys, I have a song that I think we should play like That's I knew that.
Yeah, yeah, I lived that because you do. Did it happen? Scream ever?
Like?
Were you ever trying to? Like?
Scream was very collaborative in that the guys in the band, they were older than me. They're you know, eight ten years older than me, but they've grown up with each other. They were best friends through high school and stuff. So Franz the guitarist was a great guitar player, is a great guitar player, and a great songwriter. Pete was and it is a great singer and a great lyricist songwriter.
You know.
At the time when Screamed, before I joined the band, they were one band in Washington, DC that was far more kind of musical and rock and roll than a lot of the other bands in town. Yeah, and that's one of the things I loved about them. Like I loved the Bad Brains, I loved you know, the Dead Kennedy's and Minor Threat and all of the early hardcore bras. But I loved Foght Yeah, you know, like I loved Zeppelin. I was a rock and roll kid from the suburbs.
Scream were sort of that band that put all those things together. But when we would collaborate, we really did have that thing when a specific group of people get together and play, it makes a specific sound. And so that connection, not only musically but as people as friends was really strong.
Those are great records, and your drumming on those are I mean, it's like in your book you tell a great story about Skeeter basically changing to the drum set and they wanted to play a groove over and over like can or something, you know, Like.
Yeah, basically, I mean before I joined Scream, I was like a wild horse. I was just reckless, and of course I wanted to have tempo, I wanted to have feel, but I was like a hyperactive child, you know, and you give me a drum set and something's gonna break and it's gonna maybe be faster than it should and I'm probably going to fill up those empty spaces with things that only I love.
Yeah.
So basically, Skeeter sat me down and when I first joined the band and he said, we're gonna smoke a joint and we're gonna play this one riff for half an hour and you're not.
Going to do a drum fill.
I was like, yeah, okay, great, and we sat down and I don't remember what it was. It was a simple groove and almost like an itch that I needed to scratch. Within thirty seconds, I blasted some drum fill and he looked at me and kind of winked, like, no,
¶ The Power of Live Recording
you can't do that. You gotta stay on it, and he broke me like a horse and it really worked. It was it was my one valuable drum lesson was from a bass player.
Well of course, right, I mean fucking of course now, I know.
Yeah, back then, I was like, wait, what just happened?
That's so funny, man.
And but you know, like you listen to the records, You're like, oh yeah, like you can hear that, like you're an unchained maniac in some way. You were at one point because the power is there, like you know, it's like the fucking powers there.
But then there is like a restraint and a groove on those records.
Have you ever been to You probably haven't. The The engineer producer that made most of the DC records is a man named Donzie and Tara so Donzie. He was like the first person to record the Bad Brains. He was the first person to record all of the discord stuff, all of that stuff. It was in a room about a fifth the size of this room, this tiny room.
You know, they're recording analog to tape. I don't know what machine he had, but it was not only like spatial restriction, the basement of a house in Arlington residential neighborhood. And when you listen to like some of those for Gazi recordings where you've got that incredible band tracking live in a space the size of like a bath towel, and you listen to it and it sounds so huge.
And one of the reasons why it sounds so huge is because it's the combination and energy of those people in that moment, so sonically, like the sonic element has a lot to do with it, but beyond that, it's the energy of what's happening between those people in that moment, and that's kind of how we would record. Yeah, you know, I mean it's the same thing like when we recorded the one picture we took from the studio.
There's only one picture.
I swear to god, there's maybe three pictures, Like one of them is the three of us in the control room. That was the drum setup for recording. Nevermind. The reason why it worked is because when we recorded live, you know, those songs, we just we'd count in it and we'd do it.
We'd do a couple of takes, and then we didn't have a lot of time, so we had to move on to the we're only there for twelve days or whatever it was anyway, so that's a really important part of the process that lends to the the energy of a song.
Yeah, you know, that picture brings joy to my heart because I look like that's simple, like Mike set up for you know, it's just that's fucking perfect.
Well, it was also that room, and it was also this board and so.
Which is a long way from the boom box dubbing exactly.
If I had this when I was eleven, O fucking Beethoven, we'd be a lot further along.
Yeah, hard to imagine, just to put a pin on it, though, Hold on real quick, Okay.
Is this puss? It's link, It's kind of it's like a vulgar story. It's great, it's hilarious.
So we were in Amsterdam. That's exactly how the song begins. Whatever screen would tour Europe. I think I was like eighteen years old the first time I went. Amsterdam is our home base, not only for obvious reasons, but because we had a good friend there, a guy named Toss, had an apartment, and so we would go there to prepare for a tour. We'd go there and we'd start rounding up equipment because there's no way we could fly our back line equipment too.
We had no money.
We'd fly standby on this airline called Martinair. It was amazing. You could fly out of BWI for ninety nine dollars out of BWI and you could reserve a stand by ticket, which is weird because usually if you fly stand by, you sit and wait and cross your fingers. Martinair it was a Dutch airline Martinair. They would tell you whether you're on the flight or not, like two days before the flight, so you basically reserve a seats for ninety nine bucks. So we would all work our jobs at home.
I worked on a furniture warehouse. Pete worked at the Washington Post delivering papers, and we get ninety nine bucks and we'd get our tickets and get over to Amsterdam but have nothing, and we would sleep on Toss's floor. We'd sort of try to pick up odd jobs to make a little bit of money. And how did you know Toss scream New Toss? I think I think from
the first time day before I joined the band. They toured Europe in maybe like nineteen eighty three or eighty five or something, but so yeah, they just met Toss scene.
Yeah, I mean that was.
Sort of like that networking community those days. People helped each other out. There's always a Florida crash on and if he didn't have a guitar, there was always one that someone would end.
So Skeeter.
One day, as I was sitting on the couch listening to Tossa's amazing record collection, Skeeter walks up to me with his dick in his hand, and I think he was afraid that he had maybe contracted a nasty problem. I'm sorry, Skeeter. I don't want to call Skeeter out. And he said, does that look like pusty? And I said, nah, I think it's lint. And so it's so perfectly delivered on this song. Well, here's the thing, it's I mean, I'm never short for words, first of all, I never
have been. And I didn't know what to sing over this crazy like metal instrumental thing that I had done. So I decided just to tell a story. That was the story.
But long.
Hey, if you're long winded, you figured out to be really concise and economical.
It's all about the timing. All the timing perfect. It was perfect. And then I saw the.
Classic Cheech and Chong it's Dave, Oh my god, maybe that must be I remember listening to Cheech and Chong records when I was in.
Like sixth grade. It's weird, life.
Kind of changed around like ten or eleven years old, where you know, I had Beatles records, and I had Kiss records, and I had Rush records, and pre punk rock, I was listening to Cheech and Chong records which are amazing, and Days Not Here, that comic that's upstairs, and all those bits on those records are so funny. And then I went to a movie theater with my friend Larry Hinkle,
He's my best friend. We went one night to a midnight movie and we saw a C d c's Let There Be Rock Tour Moving, which is an ACDC performance in I think Paris from maybe seventy nine. It was just before bon Scott, the original singer, passed away, and their performance was so.
Moving.
It was so it was the first time I'd seen and it was in a movie theater with a concert pa in the theaters, Me and Larry and like three other people in the backs who were smoking weed and watching this ACDC performance. It was like their life depended on it. Angus Young is running, sweating, getting oxygen because he's going so hard that the drummer Phil Rudd, he's just breaking through snares and putting new snares up. And it was like it was the first time I felt
in my body that I wanted to explode. As much as I loved the complexity and the beauty and the melody of like the Beatles and things like that this just made me want to fucking tear the movie theater down, and that sort of like set this spark in me. And it wasn't long after that that I discovered punk rock music and I was like, I'm home. Okay, great, I found the thing that unlocks the thing. Yeah, I got the key now, so what am I gonna do.
It's amazing how closely related those things are, because you know, after a certain point, by the time I got into punk rock, it was like verbot and to like, you know, like God forbid you listen to like a Ted Nugent record or something you know, but then you and then you like watching an interview with like Henry Rollins, He's like.
He fucking loves Ted Nugent, Like, oh, he and Ian Mackay, I've had long debates. Actually it's funny. Ian Ian's old friend and he was you know, he's honestly one of my heroes in life. He's such an incredible person, incredible man. His truth and integrity and purity and creativity and the way he lives is like he's a righteous dude. He's amazing to this day, incredible to this day. So we've had long conversations about Ted Nugent. I'm like, are you really Ian? He's like yeah, man, like I guess he
and had we went to go see him. Play's like, here's this guy. He jumps out on stage with his guitar. It's loud as shit, he's wearing a loincloth and he's screaming his fucking brains on his hairs out to here.
He goes, yeah, Ted Nugent.
And so last year, for Ian's birthday, I got him a cameo from Ted Nugent No louking way, yeah, and it blew Ian's mind. I don't even think Ian knew what cameo was. And of course, like you have to sort of prompt the cameo say it's my friend Ian's birthday. He's a struggling musician and an avid bow hunter or whatever.
Like I, oh, yeah, I went there. He was just like, how did you do that? How does this? I'm like, en, It's like he's like an app you just played it. He's like blue is mine. He was super into it. Gee was not apparently. I would like to imagine at some point Ted Nugent realized that was really for.
Well, you know what's funny actually recently. I could say this now because Ian acknowledged it the other day. You know about the Albini Fugazi that came out recently. It's phenomenal. It's testament to how Steve Albini could take something to an entire, entirely different place. Like I'd never heard Fugazi sound like that. That record is a masterpiece and it's so incredibly powerful, and you know, everybody had heard it
was rumored that they made a record with Albini. But anyway, so when it came out on band camp, it was like, you know, nine ninety nine ten bucks or whatever, and you could donate money to a charity that was Albini's like favorite charity. So I buy the record and then I donate a bunch of money to the charity. But then you can also write a message to the band, and I said, thank you for finally releasing these Albini sessions. Currently listening to your album from my monster truck as
¶ Community in Music Today
I shoot flaming arrows at targets, love Ted Nugent, and I'm like, he's going to see this. It took it took about three weeks, and I just got the text the other day He's like, hey, nuge, thanks for the donation. I just texted back, I said, God bless America. But but right, so, no, the I mean both of these
things can be true. These two things can coexist. Yeah, you know, I think one of the complications in a lot of that punk rock list of ethos, ethics, whatever, it was like can't do this, can't do that, can't do this one of the things. Of course, like there were there were elements of that music where I was really inspired emotionally, personally, politically, all of those things, especially at that time in the eighties, Like I mean, we're here, we are again, but still like.
It seems quaint almost r so, like the world needs punk rock now more than ever. I think it's coming back. I'm telling the guitar is coming back. I hope, so fucking world needs guitars.
But there was also the musicale When I learned how to play the drums, it was literally sitting on a
floor in front of a couch, playing on pillows. But I could hear like Earl from the Bad Brains, I could hear the difference between him and John Bonham and Jeff Nelson from Minor Threat and Stuart Copeland, and so there was something about the musicality in all of their individual feel that I was like that to me was the challenge, like just go up there and like screamshit, Like go up there and like push it, to push as far as you can. And even in writing a song,
don't just stop there, like keep going. Sometimes it should stop there. But like a lot of the musicality I think came from those early rock and roll records, classic rock. Then the energy and the intention of punk rock. You put those two things together and you have a Pigazzi record.
Yeah you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, We'll be back with more from Dave Girl.
It's a good time to bring up.
You guys are gonna go out on the road, and you guys have some incredible openers, I mean to the point to your point of like the world needs punk rock, Like you guys have some great openers, and I feel like mannequin pussy de Spits. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but de Spits. I don't speak you German or whatever, but.
There we go. Whatever you can figure it out. It's just a little band called Queens stone Age or Queens of the Stone Age. There we go.
I know, I feel like it does feel like you know, when I was thinking back about your career, it's like it's so it's like incredible, Like you're in DC and there's that saying it's Ian Mackay and you got bands like Scream, and then you come out to LA and there's like, you know, the whole LA thing, and then you up to see out and there's down of course, and then you get out of there and you're starting the food fighters and say, oh, Nate from fucking something
you did really say and then at some point and say, oh no use for a name like Litis grab Chris. And it's like there used to just be such a a like a wherever every town had this incredible network of musicians, and it felt like that was like splintered for a long time. But it feels I'm hoping that slowly is coming back. I mean, that's one of the things that's sort of amazing.
I mean, you kind of caught the last tree out of nom of helicopters. Nomen has sense like you kind of were.
Like you got to have that and work from that, and it just sort of went away.
Which is well, it's a trip because I think there was like sort of necessity in connectivity, you know, those punk rock scenes. First of all, the thing that I really loved about it back then that there was like there was this regional element to music. It's like if you if a band was coming from Minneapolis, you're like, Oh, they've got that Minneapolis thing, Decroitz and or Husker Do or whatever stuff like that, or southern California the SST
record stuff. You're like, oh, it's an SST record. All right, here we go, like what's this gonna be. It's gonna be weird, it's gonna be heavy, it's gonna be loud. And then over time, as things became more inter connected, it's not that that that regional aspect or element of the music disappeared. Things just sort of, you know, spread faster and quicker. But the community. I still feel like
there is community in music. And it's funny because I do feel like there's community in underground music as much as I feel like there's community in like bigger, skip broader scale like pop and things like that. Because I feel like musicians should stick together. Right If you put two musicians in a room in front of a board and we're talking about albums and stuff or just music,
you're gonna find common ground. You know, I probably have an easier time speaking with a musician than I would like a lawyer or a football player or something like that. So I do think that there is there is this this common ground community in most musicians. Now with the interconnectivity of everything, it's just just it's a different world. But I do think, and you know, I watch someone
like my daughter Violet or my daughter Harper. They're both musical, and they both reside in this really awesome place with their friends, and a lot of them are tons of musicians. Like there's drummers and there's guitar players, and this guy has a studio and this band's playing a show. Actually, oh my god. Recently I went and saw Max's band. Max's sixteen, seventeen years old. He and my daughter Harper
are like this. And his band was playing at this place that is a skate shop that sort of packs up and pushes everything to this side so that they can have punk rock shows at night. There's no door charge, but you can donate if you want. And so I went to go see Max's band. They're all probably around seventeen eighteen years old. It's a three piece. I didn't know what to expect. Max is a great drummer.
I walk in.
There's maybe thirty or forty people there, and all the kids from the bands are watching everybody else's band, which to me, that's like, that's that's that's the thing. They start setting up and this singer guitar player guy I don't remember his name, he unsip this duffel bag and he pulls out this line of pedals that looks like almost like like Christmas lights. He's it was like nineteen pedals. He pulls out and.
They're all kind it's all tangled up, and he's like.
I'm like, oh my god, here we go. And they get a thing set up and then he just goes crazy sound of cue. I think he's playing like a Jaguar or something like that. And wow, and now all of a sudden it's like Hendricks at Woodstock. I'm like, oh my god, what is happening right now? And then he just goes playing, and all of a sudden, it's like it's giving like Dinosaur Junior melodies chords.
I'm like, oh my god, this is great. The other two aren't even in the club.
Yet then he's playing the song the two and I'm standing by the front door. The two of them walk into the front door into the place. Through the front door, they get on their instruments and they just start going for like five minutes. I'm just like, now it's like Swans. Now, I'm just like, oh my god, this is insane. So eventually it's total chaos and it's beautiful. And the guitar player and he gets his guitar. There's maybe forty people
there in a really small room. He gets his guitar and he's pulling it through the crowd on the well. First he's handing his guitar to everybody, everybody's playing it. He's pulling it through the crowd by like the guitar on the floor is just running. So now the audience is split in two. And there's this like like the Red Sea. There's this aisle where he's just running back and forth dragging his guitar around. It's the most insane, beautiful,
¶ The Creative Process Behind Foo Fighters' New Album
chaotic feedback. It's like he's making music. It's just chaos, and I'm like, oh my god. Now it's the Nation of Ulysses. Now I'm just like, oh my God, this is I'm am.
I eighteen again.
This is insane, back and forth, back and forth, and those guys are and then all of a sudden, I'm looking around, like where the fuck did that guy go? And the front door opens up and he comes running through that he'd run around the block as the guitars on the ground going, and then the show ends in the most climactic I was so inspired, but I was also reassured because I'm like, great, it still exists. So
there's moments where you think like maybe it's gone. Maybe that thing that you feel at that age, independence, you know, identity. Here in this place, you're not a little kid anymore. You get to decide who you want to be. If you're lucky, and you've got this community of people that are like living, they're like, let's do this with each other and for each other.
Yeah, Oh it was so great. Does that something like that too? Does it? Does it still? Do you leave there?
Like?
Fuck it? I want to go to this. I'm gonna just pick up my guitar.
And I was like, I can't wait to go home and write some songs. Wow, you know, yeah, absolutely totally inspiring.
That's kind of I mean not necessarily that.
I don't know if something like that inspired this record, but the new record Foo Fighter's Records.
Understand, did come from you just writing a bunch of songs.
It's weird because so we've made a bunch of records, and we've moved in different directions like almost on each record, because this is the first record, it's like there's Weenie Beanie and that's my version of a ministry song, you know. And then there's like big Me and that's my version of a you know, candy commercial or a Silly Kinks song or something. And then a song like I'll Stick Around or this is a call, like that's more sort of like that's that's my screen. That's it's like the
scream part of my heart right that's there. And then the second record there's like really beautiful Moment February Stars very sort of like big sort of emotional anthemic kind of vibes. And then the third record it's like there's elements like ain't it the Life? It's almost like a fucking Eagles song or so, I don't know, it's weird because that's what I'm saying, like you push, you know, and you want to see how where you can go
with what you've got, right. So then over time you have this like really wide playing field dynamic where it's like, Okay, is this like a sleepy acoustic thing? The fuck we've done that? Is this like some noisy ass, like screaming ass punk rock song.
We've done that? Man?
Is this like you know some orchestral weird you know, Zeppelin presence wanna be thing? We kind of did that, you know. And so you wind up in a place where you can't over analyze or overthink things because it will overcomplicate stuff. You just go with what you feel at the moment.
Yeah, right.
And so as we were making these songs, I had this bank of demos that I'd made. It was like forty or fifty things, just instrumentals, because still I'll walk upstairs, put down a drum track, put some guitars on it. Just like another story about Skeeter Thompson. I have an instrumental, and I'm like, what am I going to do with this? And so I have this bank of like fifty of them. It's almost looking in the pantry and you have sixty
different ingredients. Pick ten of those ingredients and see what you can cook up that's key's mallah and some don't work with each other.
So what you do? And so that's basically what happens. So how do you filter it?
Do you pick like your first couple of favorites and start to see what kind of works with those, or like you just pick a like twenty and start to whittle.
Well, what happened was I was lying there in bed in the middle of the night just listening to these down and I was like, Okay, that's kind of cool.
That verge is good. Oh, I like the pattern on.
That blah blah blah, and I'm just going down random sequence. That's kind of cool. I like that blah blah blah. And then randomly there were ten songs in a row that were just like boom boom boom boom boom.
Just sequenced already like that.
Basically yeah, And I was like, oh, wait a minute, why would I want to throw stay away to the heaven and in the middle of rock for light, you know what I mean? Like, it's like then that you can't. And I literally text everybody at five o'clock in the morning and I was like, Okay, I think this is what we should do. And let's start tomorrow at ten o'clock in the morning, Jesus, and we just blasted it out. Elan was done in what a week? He was done in about seven days.
Wow.
He would do three songs a day and just blast through it. But it was recorded in my house and again, limited space, like we couldn't fit the whole band in the room, even just sitting down or standing up. It was like this room is too small. It's small.
Going back to the discord, so it was like studio.
Okay, Alan, you come in and then Nate are you available at one? And so literally like tracking in order to have enough space for each person took play.
It's amazing and it was just blasting through it. But that was the thing.
It was just sort of this gut feeling of energy like right now, that's how we feel, like, let's go blast shit.
Yeah. You know.
We were out there doing all these smaller gigs in clubs and theaters, surprise gigs for fun mostly really just to sort of like, you know, bring Elan in closer and get tighter in those small shows.
It's like you get tight quick. And in those small shows.
We really celebrated like all of these older songs we hadn't played in a long time. Blah blah blah. But it was like, God, damn, that feels good. I'm fifty seven years old and it still feels good to scream
¶ The Enduring Passion for Music
bloody fucking murder over some squeal and ass feedback and hard hitting drums.
So yeah, and you can still fucking do it like relentlessly. It seems like because you don't stop, nothing's breaking.
The other day and the guy's like, okay, do you exercise, I'm like no, okay, he takes all my stuff. He's like, well, you're you're pretty good shape. I'm like, yeah, I run around screaming my fucking ass off for three hours, you know, four days a week or whatever. It's my that's my favorite exercise. Imagine going on a jog for three hours and singing Glory, Glory, Hallelujah the whole time, and you come back with some fucking washboard asks.
I just start doing that. Yeah.
But so when I look at a lot of our favorite musicians who have had these long, storied careers talking you know, McCartney and Joe Walsh and and Mick Jagger and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. They don't slow down, Yeah, they almost ramp up. Yeah, And you're like, how could that possibly be? And I don't think that it's a ticking clock. I think it's the heart grows and the gratitude and the appreciation as time goes on really grows where you're like, I can't believe I'm still fucking doing this.
I don't know what else I would do, but like I'm just really I feel really grateful that like we're here because it couldn't worry just like talking about shit, this is the fucking best.
Thank you.
I go get into fucking passport in forty five minutes so that I can go and do this somewhere really far away. Yeah, for the next year and a half of my life, and thank God, Like it's great because.
It could go the other way. It could be I've done it. It could be jaded, or could go that direction a thousand It just doesn't know.
And I've always thought the core intension, which you sort of find when you first start playing music, it's like
¶ Writing Through Life's Challenges
I just want to play music, Like you can't imagine it becoming the thing that you do for the rest of your life. Just an itch and it's like in your heart and that thing doesn't that doesn't go away. I mean there was a time once, you know, when Ravana ended, where I'm like, I don't know, I don't want to do music anymore, Like that hurts, and I'm like, no, what am I talking about? Like that's that's the thing that I always saved my life, Like yeah, I'm I have to do it.
Was there any part of you considering something like was there anything you were Yeah?
I mean, yeah, you know, I I I didn't know what it was. But time went by where I was just like, God, what do I do? Like I can't if I sit behind the drums, it makes me sad. If I listen to music, it makes me sad. Then I wrote songs. Yeah, And like when I was a kid with those stupid journals, I wrote my way through it. And so I think that's what happens. You know, that part of it is you sort of write your way
through life. While at the same time it's like the only other thing that I love as much as music as an activity is like cooking. I really love cooking, and I love cooking for people because it's a similar interaction in that I'm going to prepare something for you, and I really want it to be so good that you enjoy it and you come back for seconds. In your recipe is your song, and the cook itself is
¶ Cooking as a Parallel to Music
the process, and the serving is the concert, and the second plate is the on court. Like, it's a very similar reward when you do that for a large group of people, for friends, when you do that for people that don't have food, When you like to be able to have a a simple, human, loving, empathetic, caring interaction with someone else through a plate of food or a song, that is the best thing as the world. That being said, I would rather fucking rock the house than run the kitchen for fucking sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cooking for five hundred people much less fun than playing for five hundred people five hundred man's easy.
Well, because you brought that up. There's a saw.
I saw a clip one time of christ Novoselag. Yeah, saying I don't I don't know women who asked was just like something popped up. It was like, you know, people ask me like, am I like sometimes jealous that Dave like has all.
This success now with like and it's just a it'sch no, like this now fuck it just like put in the want.
You look at Dave, he's just he's putting in the fucking work, like he's just doing.
You're like, so, how could I be.
Talking about I'm proud or something, And it's just like from Afar, I mean, he has a more internal view of that, But from Afar it's always seemed like that way too, Like you almost like you brought a McCartney, like leaving the Beatles, what do I do, like just put a band together wings go, let's go, let's go hit the fucking let's go play colleges across Europe, like yeah, let's go figure it out.
Yeah, I mean, you know, the Nirvana experience was was I don't even know what the word is for it. It was just something else in all the best and worst ways. And when you go through something like that with like a small group of people, you're forever connected by that. You know, we're we're a big We're just we're a big family, all of the the people that were there, and and we all do love each other. Right When Nirvana ended, like I kind of knew what
well at first it was. It was hard for me to get through it, and then I realized that music is the thing that's going to get me through it. Have you ever met Christmas much.
One time when I was fifteen on a record store, as in a record store, and I didn't know he was I'm six six.
He was fucking taller than.
We did SNL one time with Charles Barkley, And yes, he was taller Charles Barkley.
Yeah, insane, insane.
Chris is has such a gigantic heart and such an amazing, brilliant, amazing mind. And Chris sees the world through an entirely different lens than anyone you've ever met in the most beautiful way. He's an artist and he's a writer, and he's still he's still that He's he's the same the first day I ever met him. He has not changed. And uh so the experience that we had together in Nirvana, like will will be connected by that forever then, just as we all continue to move forward in life and
live life. It's like we're still beautiful, loving friends. And whenever I see him, like it's it's a trip. I mean, it's like hugging a tree. You know, he's really big, but when you give that hug, it's like that's real ship.
You know, like the kind that you really feel. So, yeah, he's amazing.
Yeah, it's an incredible that you still get to play with like Pat too, you know, now, Nate was how many years of that'spen?
You know, it's like Pat seems like I've never got to meet Pat.
But again, going back to people, you get to pull from these things, like you get Pat from the germs, like what the fuck? You know?
The funniest thing. So we went back to I agree, it's a dream. That's a dream.
It's a dream, but the fuck like the decline of Webstern civilization. That live record soundtrack was, uh, like the first punk rock record I ever bought.
Wow.
And to think that in the germs are on that record, and so to think that I get to spend the rest of my life with the guy that inspired me to do this thing, it's amazing. Yeah, And you think that all the time, but you do have moments sometimes where you're like, like, zoins.
This is this is It's amazing.
It doesn't always work that way, you know, No it doesn't. And I don't know what I do without him. He's just like last time we played in DC, we played at the club the Black Cat in d C. Small place holds maybe like five six on other people. And in true DC fashion, we get there and we're set up upstairs and I start seeing like all of my old heroes.
Brendan from Fugazi shows up.
I'm okay, Joe from Fugazzi, shays hey Man, Alec mackay Ian's younger brother who was in Faith and Ignition, and all these amazing bands Faith. To be honest, it was a band called Faith. They were kind of my favorite DC band. So I look at Alec and I'm like, oh my god, like this is I'm starstruck.
Yeah.
I'd hate for him to know this, but I just am yeah. And we're sitting there talking. We were talking about I think Brendan's daughter had a band with Alex daughter, and we're just talking about the local music scene, and all of a sudden, he puts on a staff security shirt and I'm like, were you were you doing security?
And he goes, yay, I'm gonna be up. I'm going to be up like front of the stage by the barrier, and I'm like, really, I think he mostly only wanted to do it so he could stand in front of Pat Smear, who was his Heroes. Pat was in the Germs.
Yeah, and that must have felt the world away at
¶ The Surprising Influences of Musicians
that point too, by the way, like you know DC to LA early eighties, Yeah with that or set latest seventies early.
Who do you think Pat's favorite band is? Favorite artist of all time? Number one? Can you get a decade that folk like nineties eighties, nineties group?
He's just not going to get it. I'm not okay, I'm just number one and Roses.
So you would think it would be like maybe some rock and roll, maybe like some glitter from the seventies, baby, some punk rock, maybe some Prague. He's well versed in, Yes and Genesis. Oh yeah, he'll be all that stuff. Like number one Mariah Carey. I love Mariah Carey.
He loves Mariah Carey. Yeah, I talk to Pat. I love Mariah care.
You guys could have a big, long podcast thing about it. I'm sure he worked well, you know, I love Mariah just saying I.
Tried to go to the music cach things.
So you think, like, you know, Pat saw the sex Pistols at Winterland or wherever it was, and you know, like Pat is o G and so you think, like you look at his history and his past and all those things.
Mariah number one? Does he say due? Why? Why does he love Mariah? I will? I mean but telling you to be continued on the trip. Yes, I'm gonna do a deep dive with Patom Mariah.
Yeah, she's my favorite, one of my favorites. She's unbelievab one of my favorites, one of my favorite singers.
Just ridiculous. It's like Ian mcconnas. Wait, how's that well even more bizarre? Right? No, well maybe I don't know.
Ian mackay would ted nugent just because the politics is pretty pretty fast, pretty funny.
We're coming right back with more.
Dave Girl, you talked about like writing your way through things. I've also read I know kind of earlier on you mentioned like lyrics would really just be a last minute.
Oh yeah, they sometimes still are.
Ye, I was gonna say that all that's so, that's not always true, but if sometimes true and have that shakeout on this one. Do you actually just sit and write still like journal like teenager, like you when you were a teenager or early adult or is it yes.
And no not like I used to. Sometimes if I have an idea or a crazy dream, I'll write that down. It's still the part of the process that I like the least second, guessing self editing, unsure if it's clear, unsure if it's vague. And both my parents were writers, so I still have this like PTSD of living under the giant red pen that's just gonna go no, no, no no. So I remember what we were making a
record in my house in Virginia. This is I think the third record, Nothing Left to Lose, in small basement studio and everyone's downstairs waiting for me. The track is recorded, but I have to sing, and I'm like upstairs in my bedroom, blank page, just like, come on, Dave, like anything, you know, just writer's block. And I'm like, just gotta be something. And I come down into the kitchen and I think Nate was there, and he says, uh, He says, are you are you done? Are you ready? I'm like, no, man,
I'm kind of stuck. I'm not I'm not there yet. And he says to me, dude, not every song has to be imagined by John Lennon, you know that, right, So he kind of gave me this pass and I'm like, oh, yeah, you're right. Pressure's off, like weight is lifted. Wow, great. I can just I can write something and it could mean nothing to me, could mean everything to you, or something that means everything to me could mean nothing to you.
So then it sort of loosens the reins in that that I don't want to spend a month writing a bridge. I really want it to happen and to have that immediacy. So there are times where I'm like, shit, hold on, give you ten minutes.
And I go.
And I go in and do it and it sounds good and it works. I'm like great, and you already have the melody. Yeah, like I've got the pattern of the melody and whatever. And it's not until months later, as the song's mixed and finished that I listen and I'm like, wow, like I know what I was saying when I wasn't trying to say anything at all, Like it's almost you know, it's it's the it's the subliminal. It's not like this part of the cortext. It's like back here and sometimes it's just happening.
So I like that.
I like the you know, the restriction of I like the pressure of my guys sitting on the couch, like can I get down here before traffic you know that kind of thing, and I'm just like, great, all right, let's go, because otherwise I might manipulate something into something else.
Even less or being it's more appear in that way, maybe because it's coming from an a subconscious level under I'm not really a lyric person.
I try not. I sometimes it's years before I even.
¶ Exploring Themes in New Music
Understand know what a course, even a course is actually saying, or like the words of a course.
It's gotten me in trouble doing this because some do't you know what that songs about? It? No, I don't.
I don't even know the words, to be honest with you. But I don't often ask about lyrics. But Child Actor with something, I was like, well, what the that's interesting? And actors has come up like stacked Actors.
Yeah.
I was always a fascinating song to me for many reasons. But also there's like it seems like that's been a.
You know, the child actor thing with inspired by someone. All I wanted was for that person to like, hey, man, like you can be you with me right, like you don't have to you don't have to put on the thing like you just blacks like to be you, you know, and feeling like sometimes you meet someone and there's almost this someone who's trying to be the person that you want instead of the person that they want to be, right, Yeah, And it has to do with sort of like that
that validation. You know, that you're searching for some sort of acknowledgment or validation from others when really like you can't. You have to have it here first. So that's it's like turn the cameras off, right, like, it's not out there, it's actually in here. That one I wrote really quickly. Actually, that one happened pretty fast. I mean it's a simple song. It's not crazy or anything like that. But the intention and the idea and the concept and the feeling was
real in that song. At some point in life, you have to be able to sit and be like okay, you know, and you work really hard to get there, but you have to be able to turn all of that shit off. And so that was basically it. And I, you know, I was really excited. We were, and then we recorded it and I'm like, it's just going, don the cameras off. I say it a hundred times doing that, and I'm screaming my fucking balls off doing that cameras off.
And I'm really looking forward to doing it live because in that one moment, I hope that everyone puts their fucking phone on it, actually watches, get listens to the music. Yes, that's my interpretation. Someone else might feel differently, and that's just the way it is.
Yeah, after that great build up moment goes into my which I think because I listen. It's so hard when I'm doing The album's not out yet, so I don't I've only I've only been able to listen to it a handful of time, so it's hard. Like I fell in love with the first three songs and art time getting passed the first three. A few days ago, I finally discovered the last song on the record. Was just like yeah, like now I'm just playing that song over and over.
I always want to call it friend of a friend. It's not friend asking asking for a friend.
Yeah, amazing song, amazing they asking for a friend thing. That's funny because that happened before we really started making this record. That that song is like, I mean six seven months ago. It was just as Elne joined the band. We had jammed a little bit, but I was like, you know, what, come to the house. Let's record something. He's a incredible studio drummer. The guy can He's got like a photographic musical memory. You play him a riff, you play him a song one time and he goes
in and the first take is perfect. You're like great. But to be able to vibe and create with him, right, I wanted to see what it felt like. You know, it's almost like like we were on a date. Let's see if we vibe, Let's see what happens. You know, his times impeccable, and and his his his taste and his composition, and he's he's like a fully formed musician. He's amazing and a phenomenal drummer. It's insane.
So it was wild.
It was like, not only are we going to like go out and rip up stages from here to Sydney, Australia, but we're gonna do this together. And so we you know, we started vibing like that, and so that song like, I mean to me, that's that's bordering on like our magnus Opus side of like big, long, structured, heavy, like
empemic kind of things. I almost didn't know if that should go on the record because we'd recorded it and released it and then I'm like, I don't know if this fits with the other like short simple blasts of something like spit Shine or something like child Actor or something like of all people like does this thing fit in?
Can you tag something that I'm not going to compare it to anything because I'll get in trouble because but to me, like it's one of my favorite albums of all time is aunt Justice for All by Metallica, And it does not sound like Injustice for All, but that's about to me, it's like I listened to that arrangement.
¶ The Evolution of Musical Style
Then I don't know how Metallica writes songs. I don't know how they arrange her shit. But but to me, I was like, Okay, we've got different time signatures, we've got like different sections, we've got sort of overlapping melodies.
We've got this bridge. It's double time. I'm screaming.
It's a guitar solo. It's much different than the other songs on the record.
Different than like way different than Window or you know, it's like.
Well, yeah, and Window is the funniest thing, you know, Window that song. This is a great example of not overthinking shit. My daughter Harper plays the bass. She plays all the instruments, but like she really loves playing the bass. Her heroes Kim Gordon, Kim Deal. I wanted to record something with Harper, and I came up with this riff, this d bass just like really almost like a weird t Rex vibe. This is that kind of vibe, right, I'm like, hey, that's I wrote this thing that let's
record together. And we did and I had that riff, and I was like, she loves the Breeders, two favorite bands probably Breeders and Ween. She's the biggest Wien fan in the world. So to me, it's like that there's there's those moments that sort of have these sort of Breeders elements.
Now I saw your face, they're in the window.
So I just did it like it's this fun exercise Harper, and then I came back to it and I'm like, well, yeah, I'll just I'll write something. And I always had this idea, like if you've been in a hotel where like the window washer, all of a sudden you hear something and you look outside the window and there's a guy there, you know, like washing the windows.
What a weird gig? Terrified, I couldn't there's not money in the world.
But what this This guy's he's looking in it at everyone's most intimate moments.
He just is yeah, you fucking know it.
Yeah, sometimes people never notice him, but he's offering this service.
You know. That guy is there to bring in the light. Yeah, he wants you to see.
Everything clearly through a wonderful, nice clean window.
Yeah. Most people never consider that.
That was that thought kicking around. Actually, you know what's crazy. The drummer of the Faith, my favorite DC band, his name is Igor Hanson, I think, became a window washer and he wrote a book about it. I digress.
Maybe that that must be where that came bring it all together. I don't know, because where else is that.
That's a I don't fucking know, odd thing to be kicking around your head to just come out in a burst of beating a right site.
So then we record it and I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool and funny. And then also we started playing it for people and everyone's like, I love this song, and I'm like, you do. It's hard for me to like, I remember when we recorded best of You right here, Wow, And we recorded and I'm like eh, And then our manager John Silva we're playing the record. He goes, he goes, what what about that song where you say best of you one hundred times? And I'm like, I don't know,
is that any good? He's like I like it, And I was like, I didn't think it was that special.
You played that back and you didn't.
No, I mean, I know, like we completed the task, we got it to a place where we're like, yeah, that's cool, but I didn't really think anybody else would feel it. Wow, whatever. So that was like the Window song, and then everyone's like.
Yay Window, Like really it's cool. It's a cool song.
And then people are finding meaning like that. There's a line that says, please to finally meet you swinging from the ceiling, watch you hang around until someone lets you down. And everyone's like, that's so that's so heartbreaking watch someone hang around until someone lets them down.
I'm like, no, I was just talking about the fucking thing that the thing is standing on. Yeah.
Yeah, one day it'll hit you what that you know, you know one thing that actually it's funny to do interviews and talk about music or the music that you just made.
It's really sometimes that's the first time you think like, oh, yeah,
¶ Reflecting on Musical Journeys
that's what I is that what I did.
I don't know what I did, Like it's out like you can't even yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys also almost worked with David Briggs, right, Neil's long.
Time Yeah, we met with them. Did you ever meet with him? Yeah, he's like a rough character or what you know.
We went to Benny Hannah or something like that and talked about records.
He was really cool.
I mean, around that time, Neil had made the Ragged Glory record and I think that was Briggs who did that one. But right, so we knew like Briggs was very familiar with the idea of recording like a raw fucking band live to capture those moments, and that's kind of what we wanted to do. Briggs was really cool. I met with a couple of different people. Well ultimately it was like, but you got the right one.
We got but but you know, fascinating to think for when it was Briggs.
Now or even just could have gone a whole other direction.
Thousand questions, thousand things we can talk about, but I want to let you go. Man, this has been amazing to sit with you here in your place. I'm glad you am Yeah, man, where led Zepplin two hangs above the the liveary.
Make your way all the way down the hallways. I didn't want to go to I didn't want to kick it down, but I want like halfway down.
There's some like you wind up in like Tenacious D territory, like around that corner, and then there's some funny ship in there.
This is I'm glad you came. Thank you man, really appreciate you. Have to come back. I will listen, come back, do that Pat's interview. If you guys can episode, I'll do it. I'll do that ship next week. Cabby's on it all right, love it, thank you, thank you, appreciate you. Yeah, of course.
An episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist featuring our favorite songs from Dave Girls School here. Sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to see all our video and records, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record pot. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries.
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