Dave Grohl
Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond
Pushkin Industries
4.5 • 4.3K Ratings
🗓️ 28 April 2026
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The magic of Dave Grohl isn't just that he's one of rock music's great raconteurs, or one of its greatest drummers and frontmen of the last thirty-plus years. It's the sheer number of lives he's gotten to live within rock and roll.
Dave started out drumming for Scream, one of DC's great, underrated hardcore bands, running in the same circles as Ian MacKaye and the Dischord crowd. Then he joined Nirvana and more than made his mark in one of the most consequential bands since the Beatles, and an indelible piece of Seattle's music story dates all the way back to Jimi Hendrix and Quincy Jones.
And then, as if that weren't enough: Foo Fighters. Which Dave Grohl essentially built by himself — Prince and Stevie Wonder-style — writing and recording nearly every note on the debut alone, save for some guitar from Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs.
On today's episode Justin Richmond sits down with Dave at the Foo Fighters' studio to talk about their twelfth album, Your Favorite Toy. But they start somewhere unexpected talking about a song from a cassette-only solo record in 1992 he made under the pseudonym "Late!"
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Dave Grohl HERE.
Time-coded chapters:
(02:20) Recording first album, Pocketwatch
(05:58) Formation & collaborative spirit of Scream and the DC hardcore scene
(09:53) The Power of Live Recording
(20:07) Community in Music Today
(28:04) The Creative Process Behind Foo Fighters' New Album
(34:04) The Enduring Passion for Music
(36:15) Writing Through Life's Challenges
(37:48) Cooking as a Parallel to Music
(43:39) The Surprising Influences of Musicians
(48:42) Exploring Themes in New Music
(53:22) The Evolution of Musical Style
(57:21) Reflecting on Musical Journeys
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin. |
| 0:10.8 | The magic of Dave Grohl isn't just that he's one of rock music's great raconteurs, |
| 0:15.5 | or that he's one of the greatest drummers and frontman in the last 30-plus years. |
| 0:19.7 | It lies instead in the sheer number of lives he's gotten to live within rock and roll. |
| 0:24.6 | I mean, just think about his trajectory. |
| 0:27.5 | Girl starts out as a drummer of one of DC's great, if not underrated, hardcore bands, scream, |
| 0:32.4 | mingling with Ian Mackay and all the other amazing Discord artists from that time. |
| 0:36.3 | Then he joins Nirvana, where he more than makes his mark as a drummer for one of the most consequ Discord artists from that time. Then he joins Nirvana, |
| 0:39.0 | where he more than makes his mark as a drummer for one of the most consequential bands since The Beatles, |
| 0:42.2 | not only changing music forever, |
| 0:43.9 | but also becoming an indelible part of the story |
| 0:46.0 | of Seattle's music scene. |
| 0:47.5 | That, forget about grunge and subpop for a second, |
| 0:50.0 | goes all the way back to Jimmy Hendricks and Quincy Jones. |
| 0:53.1 | And then if that one enough, |
| 1:28.7 | Grohl launches one of the most successful acts of the post-Nirvana boom, Foo Fighters, which he does literally single-handedly in Prince or Stevie Wonder-like fashion, right in recording every song on the debut himself, except for some guitar work by Greg Dooley from the Great Afghan Whigs. And then when it's time to fill out the band, he gets to pulling guys like Nate Mendel from Sunday Day Real Estate and Pat Smir from the Germs in Nirvana and all the other really talented and interesting guys that have joined the group over the years. It's almost an embarrassment of riches, but thank God Dave Grohl realizes it and relishes the opportunity to tell stories from his remarkable career. |
| 1:36.6 | When sitting down with Grohl at the Food Fighter Studio to talk about their 12th album, your favorite toy, we talked about all of it, including how their new album came together. |
| 1:40.2 | But we started with a story that I've always wanted to ask him about. |
| 1:44.2 | It's from a song from his first solo project he called Late, from an album called Pocket Watch, that to this day has only ever seen a cassette release. |
| 1:51.5 | This is Broken Record. Real musicians, real conversations. |
| 1:59.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 2:02.8 | Guaranteed Human. |
... |
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