Misfits’ Glenn Danzig (photo by Heather Kaplan), Dave Grohl (photo by Amy Harris)
Dave Grohl is discovering new and old music via his teenage daughter Violet. In fact, the 14-year-old aspiring singer turned her dad on to the Misfits, a band he never previously embraced despite his love of old-school punk and hardcore.
The Foo Fighters frontman was recently interviewed by YouTube’s Tiny TV channel, and the topic turned to punk rock. Grohl remarked, “You have to be a certain type of person to fall in love with and connect to punk rock music. I think it has more to do with your heart and your head than it does your ear in a way. So my daughter was born with that same heart and that same head as I was.”
He continued, “When she was young, and she had great taste in music, she would listen to Stevie Wonder, she would listen to the Zombies, The Beatles, things like that. But then she’s discovering music on her own like she discovered the Misfits.”
Before joining Nirvana, Grohl was rooted in the Washington, D.C., punk scene, having played drums for the hardcore band Scream. While he loved bands like Bad Brains and Minor Threat, he never got into the horror-punk stylings of the Misfits.
Grohl explained, “Now when I was young I never really liked the Misfits. I loved all these other hardcore punk rock bands but I never really liked the Misfits, and I don’t know why. So my daughter starts listening to the Misfits and now she’s turning me on to the Misfits. She’s 14-years-old. She’s like, ‘No, no, no Dad, you have to listen to this. So now I love the Misfits. My daughter made me love the Misfits.”
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He concluded, “It’s funny being a father and watching this next generation of kids discover music but also how they do it and why they do it. So if my daughter listens to crazy subversive punk rock music, I don’t think it’s because she thinks it sounds cool, I think it’s because she thinks it feels cool.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Grohl discussed last year’s drum battle with 10-year-old sensation Nandi Bushell, meeting AC/DC, and more. Watch it in full below.