PROBOT
Interview With Dave Grohl
By Micha Kite (aka DAMNATION GULCH) for StonerRock.com...
Flashback to the spring of 1986, I was a Jr. in High School smack dab in the middle of a military town. Friends of different cultures came and went but the cool thing about bumping elbows with so many people was the amount of musical knowledge I obtained. I remember my first thrash metal compilation that was passed on to me from the strange looking kid in band class. Bands I had never heard off but more importantly sounds I had never heard. Sure I had METALLICA and MERCYFUL FATE but SLAYER, EXODUS, POSSESSED and HELLHAMER? That shit was scary! I could only listen to so much before I would have to mix it up with LOUDNESS or DIO. Fast forward to the spring of 2004, I just got done listening to the PROBOT album and another strange looking kid from band class is calling.
Micha: Are you still as much of a fan as a musician and would it be likely to find you scouring some obscure record store in Osaka?
Dave: Probably not in Osaka but when we go on the road you would probably find me at home digging through the shelves more than anywhere else. On the road I`m a couch potato, cause I`ve seen it. I`ve seen Cleveland Ohio a hundred and fifty times and I want to sit in my room and eat room service, but at home it`s always a quest to find something cool. That search for a riff or a cool band you want to go see when they come into town. You know that feeling you get when you discover a band and you really fall in love with them? That`s still there and I think everyone has that for the rest of his or her life. I remember the first time I heard REFUSED and thought, "this is the fucking deal". I got their record the week they broke up and I was really bummed about that but then there was STRAPPING YOUNG LAD. I heard this song on a compilation that I listened to like forty times a day just because it was super fast and proficient but I thought the dude sounded like DIO.
Micha: What expanse of time was PROBOT recorded in?
Dave: The whole thing started in January of 2000 because I missed heavy, well I gotta go back a little bit. When I was young I got into hardcore in 82 or 83 and that`s all I would listen to for years. I didn`t want to listen to anything that wasn`t as fast as D.R.I. or that wasn`t as fuckin noisy as DISCHARGE. The only shows I went to were hardcore shows and then after about four years of listening to nothing but, BAD BRAINS, G.B.H., VOID, MINOR THREAT, M.D.C I started listening to some metal too. I had a buddy who listened to hardcore but was into bands like MAIDEN. He got this mail order catalogue and he started ordering stuff out that and that`s how we discovered bands like CELTIC FROST, VENOM and TROUBLE. We loved it because it had the energy of all the hardcore stuff but it was heavier, darker and more sinister. You name it we tried it, LUDICHRIST? That`s pretty cool but have you heard KREATOR? No, what about DESTRUCTION? We just kind of went down the list so from the time I was thirteen to eighteen every weekend was spent searching the record stores for albums. A lot of times you were buying albums for their art. You would think it looks pretty brutal and get it home and it sucked (laughter).
Micha: How many times did that happen right?
Dave: All the time. So in 2000 THE FOO FIGHTERS had just got done with our third album and I wanted to record something heavy. It was something I had never really done before and I just went downstairs and recorded some riffs. I didn`t intend for them to be songs or FOO FIGHTERS records and I didn`t think they would amount to shit. For three or four days I went into the basement and sit around on the couch with a guitar and write something I thought was cool. Then I would put down a basic drum track, slap some guitar and bass on it and within forty-five minutes I would have a finished instrumental. After a few days of this I had to go back on the road so I wrote PROBOT on the reel. I made a couple of copies for people and one of my friends who grew up listening to the same kind of stuff said "you should see if Cronos will sing on this song". I was like "Cronos? What in the fuck is he gonna do with the guy from FOO FIGHTERS", you know there was just no way. So we kinda came up with this wish list of all of my favorite vocalists from that time and it basically reads like my record collection. While I was on the road my buddy started calling people and one by one they started calling back saying yes. You, know a lot of them wanted to hear the track first because I think they were pretty suspicious and wondering what this idiot knows about metal. Once they agreed to do it we would send them some money and the reels. We didn`t tell anyone what to do, didn`t go into the studio with them, well I went into the studio with Wino and Lemmy but everybody else was done by mail. You would send it out and within a month they would send it back and you would have a finished track. It was amazing to hear something you had recorded in your basement come back with Cronos`s vocals on it with a signed card from Cronos saying "hell yeah"!
Micha: So basically nothing was recorded with preconceived notions as far as vocals go?
Dave: The first sessions I recorded seven songs and didn`t think about anybody singing on them or releasing it, they were just instrumentals. Then after the idea of having different vocalists sing on it and getting people to agree to do it I realized I had to do five more songs in order to have a whole record. So the next five songs I actually took seriously and thought, "OK, I know what people are going to sing on the record now. I don`t know who`s going to sing what but these arrangements have to be really tight". So the first seven songs which are Wino, Mike Dean, Max, Tom Warrior, Eric Wagner and King Diamond`s songs are all from the first session. Then Lee Dorrian, Lemmy and some of the others are from the second session. It wasn`t a matter of writing the song for the person but a matter of writing and recording the songs and figuring out which would be the most compatible with which vocalist.
Micha: I was going to add that a couple of the songs could have been switched around between vocalists.
Dave: We didn`t want to hand someone a song that was patronizing so we had to be gentle with it. With Lemmy, that`s a completely different situation. I had one song I was going to give to him and he agreed to do it but then I thought "I don`t want to give Lemmy a song that sounds like BAD BRAINS" or something like that you know? I wanted to give him something that was within his realm, not that he`s incapable of doing anything else but I thought I needed to pay tribute to him because of all the people on the record, that guy is the king!
Micha: Depending on who you talk to Lemmy and Wino are considered Godfathers of their respected genres and I think you might be the first person to bring those two together.
Dave: That was a trip man. One of the things about the whole record is that its really a dream come true for me. I could be creatively involved with all of these people I`ve listened to and considered hero`s or gods. The day we made the video for "Shake Your Blood" I wasn`t worried about what I looked like or what I was doing. I was pretending this was the band. If I could have my way that would be it, Wino playing guitar, Lemmy playing bass and me playing drums. So much about this whole thing has got me on cloud nine and sometimes I`ll think about it and realize I`m so lucky to be able to do something that is so meaningful to me.
Micha: So, what about peoples skepticism towards this album because it`s from the FOO FIGHTERS guy?
Dave: I`m a high school dropout dude. I never thought I would play drums for a living and only thought I would do it on the weekends and go back to my furniture warehouse job during the week. That`s what I was doing. When NIRVANA became popular I laughed my ass off and thought it was such a scam. How on earth can anyone support themselves from playing music? Living in a van, playing squats and stealing food� this wasn`t an option. It hasn`t changed, I mean I`m involved in this whole other side of the music industry and I don`t take it seriously at all. Partially because I don`t have to and thank the stars I`ve afforded myself the luxuries that others cant but I don`t have to worry about what other people think of me, and I never have. I could give a shit if anyone thinks "what`s that fag from the FOO FIGHTERS doing playing metal, he ain`t heavy". I don`t care dude. When I was fourteen years old and opening for THE OBSESSED its like�
Micha: "What were you doing when you were fourteen"?
Dave: Exactly, I don`t care man. I just play music and love playing guitar and drums and getting to meet other musicians and having beers and talking about records no one has ever heard of. That`s fun. I mean I get trashed and go to the Grammy`s and there`s Beyonce and its funny. Its just this big game and its like every once and awhile you go to the circus and its nuts and that`s what this life is like. But you know what? You build a studio in your basement in Virginia, you make a record and turn it into the record company and go out on the road and have a good time and that`s what its about.
At this point of the interview things were turned over to the peanut gallery. Enter Eric Wagner from TROUBLE and Cronos from VENOM.
Micha: Did you have any hesitations working with Dave Grohl?
Eric: At the time that Dave asked me to do this it had been about 5 years since I did anything so I was a little worried that I couldn`t write or sing. I was right, I still can`t.
Cronos: I would have been hesitant if he`d wanted me to wear a dress and make up, but considering he only asked me to help him record an insanely heavy album, then no problem or hesitations at all.
Micha: What are the pros and cons of appearing on an album like this.
Eric: I think it`s great besides there is nothing else to do.
Cronos: Dave`s other projects appeal to a different audience than VENOM so I`m interested to hear what his fans make of it. They`ll probably think he`s sold his soul to the devil, which I actually insisted on before the work started. He`s now a born again demon.
Micha: And the first thing you`ll buy with your royalty check?
Eric: A house, a used car, groceries and shoes.
Cronos: I`m giving it all to charity, Catholic animals sheltered housing. I`ll abbreviate their name on the check, then it`s off to the pub for my national sport, quaffing and guzzling.
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