89 Best Dave Grohl Quotes to Live Loud and Fearless

1. “What we feel most comfortable doing is playing loud, screaming rock songs.” – Dave Grohl

2. “Life is just too damn short to let someone else’s opinion steer the wheel.” – Dave Grohl

3. “A musician should only sound like what they do, and no two musicians sound the same. It’s an individual-feel thing, you know?” – Dave Grohl

4. “Usually, when you go in to make a record, you have 30 songs, and you record 30 of them, and 12 of them make it to the record.” – Dave Grohl

5. “It’s good to wander into the studio and walk out with something that’s better than you’d imagined it to be. If everything was as you imagined it to be, it just wouldn’t be as much fun.” – Dave Grohl

6. “I’m told that my blood sugar level was twelve times the legal limit – I was sweating honey.” – Dave Grohl

7. “I think that if you’re passionate about something and you’re driven and you’re focused, then you can pretty much do anything that you want to do in life.” – Dave Grohl

8. “The human element of making music is what’s most important.” – Dave Grohl

9. “Different boards do different things to the sound that’s coming through them. An old Neve desk does embellish it in a way that makes it sound sort of bigger or warmer. It doesn’t change the performance but it does enhance the way that it sounds.” – Dave Grohl

10. “When you’re young, you’re not afraid of what comes next. You’re excited by it.” – Dave Grohl

11. “When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn’t even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.” – Dave Grohl

12. “I get confused between the rock and roll thing and my movie star thing… We’re f – -ing movie stars.” – Dave Grohl

13. “My mother was a public school teacher in Virginia, and we didn’t have any money, we just survived on happiness, on being a happy family.” – Dave Grohl

14. “A lot of the records you buy, there’s nothing you can hold in your hand, it’s all 1’s and 0’s, this digital cloud floating in the ether. but with analog albums, you can hold it in your hand.” – Dave Grohl

15. “When there’s so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you’ve already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?” – Dave Grohl

16. “You will only be great at things you love to do don’t pursue a career in something you hate to do.” – Dave Grohl

17. “The most important thing for me is my family, and my health and happiness, and making sure everyone’s cool.” – Dave Grohl

18. “One of the great things about Taylor Hawkins is his…shirtless body, really.” – Dave Grohl

19. “It’s funny; recently I’ve started to notice people’s impersonations of me, and it’s basically like a hyperactive child.” – Dave Grohl

20. “I’m so not macho. It’s crazy. My man cave is so not a man cave.” – Dave Grohl

21. “There’s nothing better than having a bottle of beer in your hand in the waves.” – Dave Grohl

22. “It’s not always the kid that fails the school. Sometimes it’s the school that fails the kid.” – Dave Grohl

23. “I love everything about my job, except being away from the kids.” – Dave Grohl

24. “I think people should feel encouraged to be themselves.” – Dave Grohl

25. “Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument – learning to do your craft—that’s the most important thing! It’s not about what goes on in a computer!” – Dave Grohl

26. “I stopped doing drugs when I was 20. I was finished with drugs before Nirvana even started.” – Dave Grohl

27. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s gathering people together to do something fun.” – Dave Grohl

28. “People should never be afraid that Foo Fighters are ever going to break up, it’s like your grandparents getting divorced – it’s not gonna happen.” – Dave Grohl

29. “For, in a world full of Barbies, every girl needs a Joan Jett.” – Dave Grohl

30. “I stopped trying to understand fate and destiny a long time ago, but dumb luck seems to be my specialty.” – Dave Grohl

31. “There’s something about heartbreak that makes for great music, but the same could be said for Jägermeister. Hangovers make for great music, too.” – Dave Grohl

32. “Always have the highest bar for yourself.” – Dave Grohl

33. “Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.” – Dave Grohl

34. “I mean, I never liked being told what to do. It’s one of the reasons I dropped out of school.” – Dave Grohl

35. “When I listen to music these days, and I hear Pro Tools and drums that sound like a machine – it kinda sucks the life out of music.” – Dave Grohl

36. “Sometimes, you can’t save someone from themselves.” – Dave Grohl

37. “It’s nice when people are happy to hear that you’re still alive, rather than feeling like “Oh, finally he’s dead?”” – Dave Grohl

38. “There is a reason why I still to this day have never done cocaine, because deep down I know that if I did coke the same way I drink coffee, I’d be sucking dicks at the bus stop every morning for an eight ball.” – Dave Grohl

39. “Going out and playing music – that’s what I do. I don’t do much else.” – Dave Grohl

40. “That I would celebrate the ensuing years by embracing the toll they’d take on me.” – Dave Grohl

41. “Though I have never been one to collect “stuff,” I do collect moments. So, in that respect, my life flashes before my eyes and through my ears every single day.” – Dave Grohl

42. “I love being a drummer but I love being a musician in general and I love the Foo fighters.” – Dave Grohl

43. “How do I stay humble? Because I’m the best at being humble.” – Dave Grohl

44. “I never needed much, and I never thought I’d get more than what I had. A trip to Burger King was the biggest thing in the world to me. Heaven.” – Dave Grohl

45. “I owe everything to Nirvana. But I can’t let that overshadow the future. For the first few years, I didn’t even want to talk about Nirvana. Partly because it was just painful to talk about losing Kurt but also because I wanted the Foo Fighters to mean something.” – Dave Grohl

46. “I can understand how some people might resent me for having the audacity to continue playing music, but it’d take a lot more than that to stop me from doing it. I started Foo Fighters because I didn’t want to retreat.” – Dave Grohl

47. “There’s some things in life that you really consider to be priceless.” – Dave Grohl

48. “When something good comes your way, you better feel fortunate, because it doesn’t last forever.” – Dave Grohl

49. “My songwriting is like extending a hand to the listener.” – Dave Grohl

50. “There’s something about pulling out a real tape from a shelf and looking at it and knowing that ‘Everlong’ is on it, or ‘Best of You’ is on it, and it’s really special.” – Dave Grohl

51. “I was a bit of a misfit, longing to feel understood, waiting for someone to accept the real me.” – Dave Grohl

52. “It was that famous joke: What’s the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band? ‘Hey, I wrote a song.’” – Dave Grohl

53. “There’s always gonna be rock n’ roll bands, there’s always gonna be kids that love rock n’ roll records, and there will always be rock n’ roll.” – Dave Grohl

54. “Once you find that inspiration, you shouldn’t be afraid to follow it. Because anything is possible.” – Dave Grohl

55. “Don’t look at the poster on your wall and think ‘I could never do that.’ Look at the poster on your wall and think ‘I’m gonna do that!’” – Dave Grohl

56. “Sometimes I forget that I’ve aged.” – Dave Grohl

57. “Being in Nirvana was amazing an experience that will never happen again for me. And I look on them as some of the best and worst times of my life.” – Dave Grohl

58. “That’s one of the greatest things about music. You can sing a song to 85,000 people and they’ll sing it back for 85,000 different reasons.” – Dave Grohl

59. “What you think, you become, What you feel, you attract, What you imagine, you create.” – Dave Grohl

60. “I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better.” – Dave Grohl

61. “There’s poetry in being the band that can sell out Wembley but also makes a record in a garage. I don’t like doing what people expect me to do.” – Dave Grohl

62. “From one generation to the next, The Beatles will remain the most important rock band of all time.” – Dave Grohl

63. “Never lose faith in real rock and roll music. Never lose faith in that. You might have to look a little harder, but it’s always going to be there.” – Dave Grohl

64. “Rock stars are like sports stars: If you snap your ankle, you’re done.” – Dave Grohl

65. “Cause when you’re sequencing a record, you want the listener to stick with it from beginning to end, and in order to do that, you really have to map out the journey from the first song to the last.” – Dave Grohl

66. “I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands.” – Dave Grohl

67. “Wow, I get to wake up again? Ok. You have to make good with what you’ve got.” – Dave Grohl

68. “Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It’s a black wall. It’s a thief.” – Dave Grohl

69. “Ladies and gentlemen, god bless America – land of the free, home of the brave.” – Dave Grohl

70. “It’s tough to go to sleep at night, and I wake up after five hours because I feel like I’m wasting time. I just sit up at night and think about what I can do next.” – Dave Grohl

71. “I love to play music. So why endanger that with something like drugs?” – Dave Grohl

72. “Nothing’s going to keep me from making music. If I were in the want-ads in the back of the paper or playing to six people at a coffee shop, I’d still love to make music.” – Dave Grohl

73. “Your personal history is a part of what happens with your hands and your head as you play music.” – Dave Grohl

74. “It’s important to me that people feel connected to the band through the music, you know? I don’t want it to be wallpaper. I don’t want it to be background music. I want it to be clear: This is the song. These are the words. If you feel the same way as I do, sing it as loud as you can.” – Dave Grohl

75. “No one is you, and that is your power.” – Dave Grohl

76. “So, when you hear that parade coming down the street, spreading joy and love with every note, don’t just listen; join in the march. You never know where it may lead you.” – Dave Grohl

77. “I had no idea what I was doing and I faked it and it worked” – Dave Grohl

78. “Some people record onto tape, and then they pay for the tape, and download those onto a hard drive. Initially in a Pro Tools program. Other people go straight into digital, and use no tape at all.” – Dave Grohl

79. “What’s the last thing a drummer says in a band: Hey guys, why don’t we try one of my songs?” – Dave Grohl

80. “When you’re recording to analog tape, it captures performance and you can’t necessarily manipulate that in different ways. It is what it is.” – Dave Grohl

81. “Trust me, the sweet sting of a love refused is powerful enough to send any scribe scrambling for pen and paper.” – Dave Grohl

82. “There’s always gonna be rock n’ roll bands, there’s always gonna be kids that love rock n’ roll records, and there will always be rock n’ roll.” – Dave Grohl

83. “After all, you are only as happy as your unhappiest child.” – Dave Grohl

84. “You know why Foo Fighters have been a band for 20 years? Because I’ve never really told anybody what I think of them. The last thing you ever want to do is go to therapy with your band.” – Dave Grohl

85. “Always have the highest bar for yourself. Wake up everyday and no matter how crappy you feel, want to change something for the better. Do something that makes someone happy. Create something that inspires someone. Be someone’s light when they are hopeless.” – Dave Grohl

86. “A long time ago, I made a promise to myself: “Okay, you know what? I’m going to play music, and hopefully I’ll make enough money that I can go back to school. Once I make enough money to put myself through school, that’s what I’m going to do.”” – Dave Grohl

87. “If you play a Nickleback song backwards you’ll hear messages from the devil. Even worse, if you play it forwards you’ll hear Nickleback.” – Dave Grohl

88. “There’s nothing better than having a bottle of beer in your hand in the waves.” – Dave Grohl

89. “Be someone’s light when they are hopeless.” – Dave Grohl

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