If there's one thing I'm good at, it's gathering people together to do something fun.
Dave Grohl
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.'
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?
Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It's a black wall. It's a thief.
I'm happy that I have my family, and I'm happy that I had Virginia, where I grew up, to retreat to any time I felt overwhelmed. Whenever there were times when I felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me and I was floating in this crazy space, I would stop and go back to that neighborhood and realize nothing's changed, really.
There's a big difference between falling in love with someone and falling in love with someone and getting married. Usually, after you get married, you fall in love with the person even more.
When you're young, you're not afraid of what comes next. You're excited by it.
Wow, I get to wake up again? Ok. You have to make good with what you've got.
When you're thirteen and listening to punk, the aggressive nature of music can sway you to the dark side.
My songwriting is like extending a hand to the listener.
Give me something to assemble, I won't look at the directions, I'll try to figure it out by myself. It's why I love Ikea furniture.
Through Kurt I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down.
I mean, I never liked being told what to do. It's one of the reasons I dropped out of school.
I think people should feel encouraged to be themselves.
From one generation to the next, The Beatles will remain the most important rock band of all time.
You know, Nirvana used to start rehearsals with the three of us just jamming. For, like, a half an hour, just noise and freeform crap - and usually it was crap. But sometimes things would come from it, and some songs on Nevermind came from that, and 'Heart Shaped Box' and stuff on 'In Utero' just happened that way.
Because you have things like 'American Idol' and you've got radio stations that play music made entirely by computers, it's easy to forget there are bands with actual people playing actual instruments that rock.
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.
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.
A musician should only sound like what they do, and no two musicians sound the same. It's an individual-feel thing, you know?
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!
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.
In this day and age, when you can use a machine or computer to simulate or emulate what people can do together, it still can't replace the magic of four people in a room playing.
Neil Young is my hero, and such a great example. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That's what that guy does. Sometimes you pay attention, sometimes you don't. Sometimes he hands it to you, sometimes he keeps it to himself. He's a good man with a beautiful family and wonderful life.
At 13 years old, I realized I could start my own band. I could write my own song, I could record my own record. I could start my own label. I could release my own record. I could book my own shows. I could write and publish my own fanzine. I could silk-screen my own T-shirt. I could do this all myself.
If I ever felt like I was getting lost in the hurricane that was storming around Nirvana, I'd just go back to Virginia.
I think maybe people see bands and musicians as some sort of superhero unrealistic sport that happens in another dimension where it's not real people and not real emotions. So, I grew up listening to Beatles records on my floor. That's how I learned how to play guitar. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be a musician.
Ladies and gentlemen, god bless America - land of the free, home of the brave.
Actually, I didn't start sweating until I had children.
I have crazy claustrophobic dreams, weird elevator dreams where the elevator closes in and all of a sudden I am lying down - oh my God, it's a casket. Just freaky stuff like that.
People are so into digital recording now they forgot how easy analog recording can be.
Whenever I say I made a record in the garage, people just assume that I have, like, a Lear jet parked in there or something. But really there's old luggage, a couple of bikes. It's big enough to put one minivan in. That's it. No dartboard. I'm so not macho.
The most important thing is that you honor that musical integrity, whether you make music that sounds like ABBA or you make music that sounds like Void.
Chicago gave me more music than any other city in America.
I don't think of Kurt as 'Kurt Cobain from Nirvana'. I think of him as 'Kurt'. It's something that comes back all the time. Almost every day.
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.
When Nirvana became popular, you could very easily slip and get lost during that storm. I fortunately had really heavy anchors - old friends, family.
No, there's something about the sing-song cadence of children's music that has its place in rock.
Your personal history is a part of what happens with your hands and your head as you play music.
I love everything about my job, except being away from the kids.
I love to play music. So why endanger that with something like drugs?
It's a weird thing when you make records. You try to hear it before you make it, so you walk into the studio with this idea of what you expect to happen, and that usually changes. That usually turns into something else, and that's a good thing.
I had a Super Grover doll growing up. Super Grover was very clumsy, he wasn't very good-looking. But in his own way he'd always save the day.
I dropped out of high school and I couldn't go to college 'cause I wasn't smart enough, so I'd resigned myself to loading trucks and playing punk rock on the weekends.
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.
I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn't see any rock & roll bands.
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.
All I really had was a suitcase and my drums. So I took them up to Seattle and hoped it would work.
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.
I didn't start sweating until I had children. That was one of the first things I realized when my daughter Violet was born - I started getting wicked BO. You know there's a difference between basketball BO and stress BO? This was definitely stress BO. Like, new dad BO.
