Not every musician is meant to be at the top of the heap when it comes to rock and roll grandeur. Most people might want to be the second coming of The Beatles every time they get in front of a microphone, but if the tunes aren’t there, then it’s going to be hard to get a foothold whenever trying to touch hearts on that wide of a scale. Dave Grohl was never concerned with that kind of mainstream success, and as long as he kept Ian MacKaye’s ideals in mind, he knew he would be perfectly happy.
For all of the great music that Grohl has made in the stadium rock circuit, he was also just as concerned with making the most ferocious punk statements ever created. Even when looking at Foo Fighters’ later output like Wasting Light, songs like ‘White Limo’ weren’t placed on the track list by accident. Grohl knew his hardcore punk from back to front, and that came from coming up in the DC hardcore scene.
While he was first exposed to punk through his cousin in Chicago, DC had begun its ascent as one of the biggest punk scenes in the world. Outside of Bad Brains delivering the most feral rock and roll ever conceived, MacKaye’s debut with Minor Threat was about much more than destructive behaviour.
Looking at their only album, Out of Step, MacKaye was proudly celebrating what it meant to be different. He knew that his music was never going to get played on stations next to Michael Jackson, and that was completely fine as long as he continued to speak his truth every time he stepped up to the mic.
The same could be said about him working in Fugazi. Sure, they still had their roots in the post-hardcore scene, but no matter how high their star rose during their time together, MacKaye was never concerned with going down in history as a hitmaker. He just knew that he was better off trying to be the best artist that he could.
While Grohl eventually saw the big time with Foo Fighters, he felt that MacKaye was about as righteous as a punk could hope to be, saying, “He’s a saint. Untouchable. That guy is 100% right on. No question. I don’t know that he’s ever made a mistake in his life.” And even if Grohl did have a few more melodic tricks up his sleeve, it’s not like he’s forgotten the lessons MacKaye instilled in him.
Throughout both Nirvana and Foo Fighters, Grohl is more than happy to make music just for the love of making it rather than what’s popular at the time. The last thing that he wanted to do was be cynical, and if he was going to etch something in stone for eternity, he felt that it had to be worth remembering in 20 years’ time and still be happy with.
But MacKaye was never one to preach about the greater problems with the world and how he could solve them. It was leading by example, and if more people took cues from the punk legend, maybe we would have more authentic music today.