There’s a version of Dave Grohl the public has known for decades.
Reliable. Charismatic. The steady centre of a band that, despite everything, just kept going.
But in a new interview, Grohl pulls back from that image, not dramatically, not theatrically, just enough to suggest that the last few years have been anything but straightforward.
Speaking to The Guardian, the Foo Fighters frontman addressed the fallout from his 2024 announcement that he had fathered a child with a woman outside of his marriage. It was a moment that cut through the usual noise, largely because Grohl himself made it public, stating at the time he was “doing everything I can” to regain his family’s trust.
Now, with some distance, his reflection is less about explanation and more about process.
“I have to be perfectly honest. Writing songs and writing lyrics about these things is sometimes enough,” he said.
There’s a limit, though.
“As far as having a deeper, longer conversation about them, I still do reserve a lot of this for my own personal life, as impersonal and public as it may seem.”
Which is about as close as Grohl gets to drawing a boundary.
What he does offer is an acknowledgement that something had to shift.
“But I think that for many reasons, I wound up in a place that I needed to stop and sit with myself and re-evaluate myself. It’s an ongoing process.”
That process, by his own admission, has been extensive. Over the past 70 weeks, Grohl says he has attended 430 therapy sessions, a figure that suggests not a quick fix, but a sustained attempt to understand where things went wrong.
And part of that has involved stepping away from the constant feedback loop of public reaction.
After confirming the birth of his youngest daughter on social media, Grohl made a deliberate decision.
He switched it off.
“I had to turn everything off, one of those things being my concern for what other people think.”
It’s a simple idea, but not necessarily an easy one, especially for someone whose career has been built in full view of an audience.
“Being able to shut off that part of yourself can be sometimes a very healthy exercise in considering life within your immediate radius,” he explained.
“Not giving all of that so much currency within yourself that it can completely destroy yourself.”
It’s less a defence than a recalibration.
And it arrives at a time when the band itself has been navigating its own series of upheavals.
Foo Fighters are preparing to release their 12th studio album, Your Favorite Toy, on April 24. The record follows a turbulent period that has included the deaths of longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins and Grohl’s mother, Virginia, in 2022, vents that shaped the tone of 2023’s But Here We Are.
There’s also been change within the lineup. Drummer Josh Freese, brought in following Hawkins’ passing, was let go after a single tour in 2024. According to bassist Nate Mendel, the decision was less about a single incident and more about direction.
“We made a decision that it was best for all parties,” Mendel said.
“To get into the personal details [with Freese], of why that didn’t necessarily sync up, just didn’t seem like it was going to benefit anybody. Some things are OK to be like, ‘This is what’s best for us, and we’re going in a different direction.”
It’s a line that could just as easily apply elsewhere.
Because if there’s a throughline to Grohl’s comments, it’s this:
Not everything needs to be explained.
Some things just need to be worked through.
