As well as being the frontman and leader of one of the world’s biggest rock bands, Dave Grohl has also been a very willing to jump back behind the kit to be guest drummer over the years. Some of the acts who have benefitted from his powerhouse grooves include (deep breath) Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, Queens Of The Stone Age, Tenacious D, Nine Inch Nails, Cat Power and, umm, The Muppets. That’s a whole lot of Grohl. A collaboration with ex-Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher had long been mooted – Grohl and late Foos drummer Taylor Hawkins were always staunchly Team Liam in the battle of the Gallagher brothers – and in 2022 it finally came to fruition with the track Everything's Electric. Speaking to this writer that year, Grohl said it was all down to producer Greg Kurstin.
“I'm friends with Greg Kurstin, the producer - we made our last couple of albums with him,” Grohl said, referring to 2017’s Concrete And Gold and 2021’s Medicine At Midnight. “We made friends by chance at a restaurant years ago. I didn't even realise he was a producer, he was in one of my favourite bands called The Bird & The Bee and I recognised him from across the restaurant and I went up and say, 'Oh my God, you're from The Bird & The Bee, I love your band'. We became friends and then I realised 'Oh shit, this guy's one of the biggest producers in the world!'. And so I've watched him over the years, work on hit after hit after hit after hit.”
Kurstin has also worked on each of Liam Gallagher’s solo albums – 2017’s As You Were, 2019’s Why Me? Why Not. and 2022’s C’mon You Know – and it was whilst making the latter that he had an idea he wanted to run past Grohl. “He called me up and said, ‘Hey, Liam’s looking for a rock’n’roll song with a fucking Beastie Boys Sabotage beat.’ And I was like, 'Okay, I can do that.' Greg cut up the drums to make them be that powerful track and it was funny because the whole experience was satellite. Liam was in the UK, Greg and I were here in Los Angeles and it all came together and it's a fucking banger, man, I love that song, not to mention it's an honour to be on a song with Liam. It really is. I've recorded with a lot of people and I've jammed with a lot of my heroes and now I've got fucking Liam on that list as well and I'm very proud to say that.”
Grohl will add to that list this year – indie-pop experimentalist St. Vincent revealed in a new interview about her forthcoming seventh record recently that the Foos man plays drums on a selection of tracks. Listen to his team-up with Liam below:
