Three Lessons Dave Grohl Inadvertently Taught Me About Writing

Thursday night I took a break from writing my newest novel to watch Off Camera, an interview show with host Sam Jones. Sam Jones is a podcaster and interviewer who usually interviews film industry moguls (directors, producers, actors), but since Dave Grohl recently directed a his documentary Sound City, Jones was interviewing him for that.

As in any interview with Dave Grohl, the conversation gravitated back toward music, his time with Nirvana, his founding of The Foo Fighters, but Grohl said something so profound about creating and making art that I had to share.

I will paraphrase, but basically Grohl started talking about how he learned to play guitar and drums. He learned to play guitar on a bunch of old boxes and pillows, didn’t hold the sticks “just right” or follow proper form. He found his own way of learning. When it came to guitar, he thought of the upper three strings as the drums and the lower three as symbols. This method informs all guitar riffs he creates. Secondly, he said that people who create should bypass the “machine” of creation (i.e. producers, agents, record labels) and just make good music. In his opinion, if you are good at what you do and you play enough live shows, people will follow you. People will buy your cds, listen to your music, become fans.