DAVE GROHL Clarifies His GRAMMY Comments
February 17, 2012FOO FIGHTERS won big at Sunday night's (February 12) Grammy Awards, taking home five trophies for "Best Rock Song", "Best Rock Performance", "Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance", "Best Rock Album" and "Best Long Form Video". In his televised acceptance speech for "Best Rock Performance", frontman Dave Grohl — sporting a vintage SLAYER T-shirt — took the music industry to task for producing too much music on computers and with technology, while forgetting about playing real, live instruments. However, in a new open letter, Grohl clarifies his speech by saying he is a fan of electronic music and that his words were misinterpreted.
Dave writes: "Never has a 33-second acceptance rant evoked such caps-lock postboard rage as my lil' ode to analog recording has. OK....maybe Kanye has me on this one, but....Imma let you finish....just wanted to clarify something...
"I love music. I love ALL kinds of music. From KYUSS to KRAFTWERK, PINETOP PERKINS to PRODIGY, DEAD KENNEDYS to DEADMAU5.... I love music. Electronic or acoustic, it doesn't matter to me. The simple act of creating music is a beautiful gift that ALL human beings are blessed with. And the diversity of one musician's personality to the next is what makes music so exciting and.....human.
"That's exactly what I was referring to. The 'human element.' That thing that happens when a song speeds up slightly, or a vocal goes a little sharp. That thing that makes people sound like PEOPLE. Somewhere along the line those things became 'bad' things, and with the great advances in digital recording technology over the years they became easily 'fixed.' The end result? In my humble opinion.....a lot of music that sounds perfect, but lacks personality. The one thing that makes music so exciting in the first place.
"And, unfortunately, some of these great advances have taken the focus off of the actual craft of performance. Look, I am not Yngwie Malmsteen. I am not John Bonham. Hell...I'm not even Josh Groban, for that matter. But I try really fucking hard so that I don't have to rely on anything but my hands and my heart to play a song. I do the best that I possibly can within my limitations, and accept that it sounds like me. Because that's what I think is most important. It should be real, right? Everybody wants something real.
"I don't know how to do what Skrillex does (though I fucking love it) but I do know that the reason he is so loved is because he sounds like Skrillex, and that's badass. We have a different process and a different set of tools, but the 'craft' is equally as important, I'm sure. I mean... if it were that easy, anyone could do it, right? (See what I did there?)
"So, don't give me two Crown Royals and then ask me to make a speech at your wedding, because I might just bust into the advantages of recording to 2-inch tape."
FOO FIGHTERS will hit the road again later this year in support of their "garage" album, "Wasting Light".
Grohl, meanwhile, is working on a documentary about the defunct Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, where NIRVANA's "Nevermind" and other classic albums were recorded.
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