Dave Grohl is excited to get back behind the drum kit for his new project, Them Crooked Vultures.

Currently, Grohl is lead singer and plays electric guitar in the Foo Fighters.  He was previously known as the drummer in Nirvana.

He has now hooked up with Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and Led Zeppelin’s bass guitarist, John Paul Jones in a new supergroup, and the resulting band will unveil their debut album later this month.

“I don’t need to be the lead singer of a band,” Grohl told BBC 6 Music.

“Within the first couple of minutes of playing, I just knew this is going to be good.”

Grohl and Homme have collaborated before, most notably on the Queens of the Stone Age hit No One Knows in 2002.

However, the Foo Fighters star added that while he had “hung out” with Jones in the past, he had before never had the opportunity to jam with him properly.

Millions of adoring fans, platinum records, two studios (depending on which coast you feel like being on). What do you get for the rock star who already has everything? How about your very own street? That is right, Dave Grohl, our favorite drummer / jack-of-all-trades is to have a street in Warren, Ohio named after him.

The once Market Alley will soon become ‘Dave Grohl Alley’ as Warren, Ohio celebrates its biggest rock star. Now lets just see how long city officials in Warren can keep THAT roadsign from being stolen. ROADTRIP!

Modern Drummer has a new feature on their website called “Drum Gods” where they re-print older interviews and basically do a profile of the chosen drummer(s). The first installment is on Dave Grohl, they re-visit the first interview they ever conducted with him in 1992. In it, he offers plenty of insightful tips and knowledge on drumming and the way he approaches it.

Some choice excerpts are…

“The drums have to propel everything.” That’s an important element. Whether the drums stand out to people or not isn’t what’s really important. That it sounds like a big bomb going off is.” He also believed that louder is usually better, often hitting two toms or two cymbals at once and focusing his energy on powerful playing with less notes. However, he also understands how to use dynamics and does so very effectively.

Regarding “Bass Drum Technique”

Grohl’s bass drum technique is all about optimum transfer of power: “I don’t put my heel down when I play my kick drum, I kind of pounce on it with the ball of my foot. That way I can hit harder and put more weight into it. Also, by sitting very low—I sit as low as possible—I can put a lot more weight into it because I’m pushing forward.”

These are great tips but I thought the most profound excerpt was this…

Dave believes it’s very important for drummers to think like songwriters, “Composition and songwriting should be just as important to a drummer as they are to a singer,” he went on. “There are hooks in songwriting, those moments that catch you and stick in your brain. Drumming should be the same way.”

Overall a very insightful read. I’ve always been a huge fan of Dave Grohl as you can probably tell by this site, but I’ve never seen this interview before. Also, it doesn’t mention anything about the specifics of his kit at the time, but I know he was a Tama drums and Zildjian Cymbals endorsee and that his Nirvana-era kits were an Artstar Customs.

Source.

Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl is one of the featured musician in an upcoming holiday compilation entitled “We Wish You A Metal Xmas And A Headbanging New Year.” The album which is being released by Eagle Rock Records on October 14^th, will include metal renditions of 12 classic Christmas songs like “Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer.”

This album features many unique collaborations such as Dave Grohl, Lemmy and Billy Gibbons on “Run Rudolph Run,” a song made popular by Chuck Berry in the 1950’s. You can here a sample clip of it on their myspace page. Grohl’s drumming is awesome as always. Other awesome drummers on the album include Korn touring drummer Ray Luzier, former White Zombie drummer John Tempesta and Alice Cooper.

And if that doesn’t have you excited, how about “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” performed by Black Sabbath vocalist Ronnie James Dio and Tony Iommi! You’ve never heard this song played right until you’ve heard played by the original riff-master himself.

Get all of the details about the performers on each track here.

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl spoke to the BBC regarding the band taking an extended hiatus.

Grohl said ” “We’ve never really taken a long break, I think it’s time,”.

The former Nirvana drummer continued: “After doing Wembley [the band played Wembley Stadium on June 6 and 7] we shouldn’t come back there for 10 years because we’ve played to everybody.

“We’re over in the UK every year, every summer, so I think it’s time to take a break and come back over when people really miss us.”

This is sad news for Foo Fighters fans but at the same time the band’s return will probably be well publicized. It also makes sense for the band to go on hiatus at this point in time, considering Dave Grohl and his wife are raising their first child.

Source.

Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” album hit stores Friday and a lot of buzz is still swirling around about it. I came across something I think a lot of drummers will be interested in.

Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame, as well as Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, interviewed Metallica about their new album “Death Magnetic” and some of the songs were broadcast for the first time during the event. Luckily, it is on YouTube currently and features info about the band’s songwriting process and the general theme of the album.

Let it be known that Dave Grohl should seriously consider getting his own radio show. He is a pretty funny guy, as most people know, but he is pretty hilarious asking Metallica all kinds of questions. You can tell these guys have a mutual respect for one another and Dave Grohl even states that he has been a hardcore Metallica fan since 1984.

I usually hate lists, but I figured why not start some debate. Here is a list of my 5 favorite drummers in no particular order.

-Brendan Canty (Fugazi)

-Danny Carey (Tool)

-Bill Bruford (King Crimson, Yes)

-Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters)

-Bill Ward (Black Sabbath)

To anyone reading, feel free to post your Top 5 drummers in the comments of this post. Just hope the debate won’t get too heated…

Sub Pop Records 20th anniversary celebration is happening soon in Seattle, WA where a whole slew of new and old Sub Pop bands will perform.

Pitchfork Media, have a great piece on the label which includes a pretty in-depth interview with founders Jonathon Poneman and Bruce Pavitt. In it, the two discuss the formation of the label from a little-known zine, early bands such as Soundgarden and Nirvana and the insane direction the label took after the success of Nevermind. This includes discussion of Nirvana’s first album “Bleach” which as many people know, did not feature Dave Grohl, but drummer Chad Channing.

“BP: Bleach is almost double platinum, yeah. And it cost $600 to record, so…I would venture that, just from a business point of view, the return on investment from Bleach might make it the most profitable record in the history of the world. $600 for two million in sales, that’s pretty unusual.”

Source.

So I’ve been out of town for the past week on vacation. There’s been a ton of stuff going on…

I will be checking out Russian Circles this coming weekend and there will definitely be a review posted here, and hopefully some live photos. This show should be great and will be the second time I will have seen them live. The first time, last year, the band was just starting to play one or two tracks from their (then) unreleased “Station” album and I only caught 15min of their set. I’m looking forward to this show…

Just a few days after I will be checking out Earth live at The Echo and I will post a review here again, as well as try to get some live pics, if possible.

Some current drummer news bits…

The Foo Fighters played Wembley Stadium in London a few days ago (June 7th), and were joined by none other than Jimmy Page and Jon Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. Dave Grohl manned the drums for one song, and video is available on YouTube. It’s always great to see him playing drums. He didn’t have his own usual Tama drum sets, but instead sat in on Foo drummer Taylor Hawkins’ kit. Check out more on that here…

Foo Fighters & 1/2 of Led Zeppelin

Also, Meg White of the White Stripes “sat in” on a Raconteurs gig two days ago in Detroit. The audience thought they might be getting a surprise White Stripes performance but that didn’t happen.

Source.

I mentioned this in my post about Metallica the other day. Many music sites and publications have been running stories on “Dave Grohl’s Open Letter to Metallica” or similar headlines. It turns out this wasn’t really true, as Dave himself has personally stated via FooFighters.com…

“Just wanted to write a quick note to clear up this whole “Open letter to Metallica” fiasco……For the record, I never “wrote” anything to Metallica. I was asked by a journalist, at the end of a long interview (abut the Foo Fighters) to give a quick message to Metallica in the studio. So, I rattled that quote off the top of my head. No biggie, right? Somehow it became my “open letter” to the band, and now it’s been picked up by everyone from Blabbermouth.com to Rolling Stone (as if anyone really cares!). Now, it’s true that I’ve been a loyal fan of this band for 25 years, and I can’t wait to hear the new shit, but an “open letter” to the band?!!?? Nah. Not my style. I’d rather just text ‘em……”

Turns out it’s just the media trying to drum up, (get it?) some controversy. Oh well…no Foo Fighters vs. Metallica feud yet…