A video of Dave Grohl telling Pharrell Williams all of the drummers he copied to use for Nirvana's 'Nevermind' record is going viral.
The clip comes from a sit-down the two had as part of Grohl’s 2021 docuseries ‘From Cradle to Stage’. It begins with the Foo Fighters frontman telling Williams that he always wanted to be in a drum line but was not since he couldn’t read music.
After Williams says he’s always seen himself as a “decent drummer” but not quite on Grohl’s “level”, Grohl downplays his talent and reveals that a lot of his drumming on Nirvana was inspired by an interesting source.
“Stop saying that I’m a good drummer because I am the most basic fucking drummer. If you listen to ‘Nevermind’, the Nirvana record, I pulled so much stuff from the ‘Gap Band’, ‘Cameo’, and Tony Thompson on every one of those songs,” Grohl says before mimicking the drumming by slapping his knees.
Once he hears Grohl’s imitation, Pharrell's reaction is a thing of beauty. You can see why he does the mind-blown gesture after hearing the disco drums Grohl copied.
Dave recalls the time he thanked Tony Thompson for his music, and Tony knew Dave had copied him:
“I told Tony Thompson… he came to my house for a BBQ with somebody and I was like ‘man, I just wanna thank you… I’ve been ripping you off my whole life,’ he goes ‘I know’,."
It’s so cool that Grohl shared this but pretty crazy that no one had realised it for all these years. Who would’ve thought some old-school disco played such a big part in one of the greatest rock records of all time?
Grohl and the band he founded after Nirvana, the Foo Fighters (you might have heard of them) are set to return to touring some time this year. They stopped touring after their drummer Taylor Hawkins sadly passed away in 2022. It’s unclear who the new drummer will be but we all know Grohl can play the part if he wants to.
