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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.

-Dave Grohl

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I Taught Myself How

Dave Grohl

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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.

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Love Of My Life

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Personal History

I Guess It Was Exciting That Every Time I Pulled Up To The Gate Of My House, I Wondered If Someone Was Going To Jump Out Of The Bush And Stab Me In The Face.

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Dude, Maybe Not Everyone Loves 'glee.' Me Included. I Watched 10 Minutes And It Wasn't My Thing.

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Cbgb Represents A Lot To New York City And To Underground Rock And To New Wave And Post-punk And Whatever. But, You Know, It's Like Tearing Down The Jefferson Memorial Or Something.

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It's Tough To Go To Sleep At Night, And I Wake Up After Five Hours Because I Feel Like I'm Wasting Time. I Just Sit Up At Night And Think About What I Can Do Next.

When You're Thirteen And Listening To Punk, The Aggressive Nature Of Music Can Sway You To The Dark Side.

I Think Musicians Like Me Are Drawn To Those Older Desks, Not Just Because They're Legend And Lore But Also Because They Do Something Really Specific That Is Hard To Emulate Or Re-create Digitally.

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.

Just The Other Day Someone Threw A Bra Duct-taped To A Tennis Ball. I Just Stood There, Playing Guitar, Thinking How This Was Totally Premeditated. Some Girl Sat Around Inventing A Way To Get Her Bra Onstage From 40 Rows Back.

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?

My Songwriting Is Like Extending A Hand To The Listener.

Don't Look At The Poster On Your Wall And Think 'i Could Never Do That.' Look At The Poster On Your Wall And Think 'i'm Gonna Do That!'

Through Kurt I Saw The Beauty Of Minimalism And The Importance Of Music That's Stripped Down.

How Do I Stay Humble? Because I'm The Best At Being Humble.

A Lot Of People Are Promoting Records That Are Just Throw-it-agains T-the-wall-see- If-it-sticks Meaningless Bullshit. Everybody Has The Responsibility To Do The Right Thing And Promote Artists That Mean Something.

I Hate The Solo Artist Aspect Of Rock-'n'-roll. I Don't Have Enough Personality Or Charisma To Be A Solo Star.

Mick Fleetwood Was One Of My First Interviews. And If You've Ever Talked To That Dude, He's The Sweetest Guy In The World - He's Just A Trip.

I'm Big On Taking The Lady Out To Dinner. We Have Some Candlelight Romance Every Now And Then. And Our Whole Family Is Within A 6-mile Radius. It's Disgustingly Domestic. I'm Big On Costco.

I've Always Been A Fan Of Melody And Emotional Melancholy, Whether It Was Rites Of Spring Or Tears For Fears Or Neil Young. If I Hear A Song That Has A Sweet Melody, I'm A Sucker For It, Whether It's Linkin Park Or Little Richard.

People Are So Into Digital Recording Now They Forgot How Easy Analog Recording Can Be.

Who's To Say What's A Good Voice And Not A Good Voice?

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.

Wow, I Get To Wake Up Again? Ok. You Have To Make Good With What You've Got.

For Every Foo Fighters Record, We've Had Two Or Three Beautiful, Acoustic-based Songs, But They Never Usually Make Their Way To The Record, Because We Want To Make Rock Records.

I Think Actually Singing The Words Is More Therapeutic Than Just Sitting Down To Write Them, Because Then You Are Letting It Out, And It's Coming From Your Gut.

When I Was A Teenager, Working Towards Dropping Out Of High School To Starting To Tour With Bands, I'd Drive Around In My Vw Bug Every Morning Before School, Very Stoned Listening Over And Over To Zeppelin. This Song Got To Me Because It Just Seemed Mystical. There Is Something About Those Celtic Tunings That Almost Sounds Eastern. Somehow It Would Sweep Me Up Into My Own Little Trance-like State, Like Sting With Those Shamans In The Amazon. But All I Had Was A Bong And A Led Zeppelin Cassette.

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From The Time That 'nevermind' Came Out In September Of 1991 To The Time That Nirvana Was Over, It Was Really Just A Few Years, And A Lot Happened In Those Few Years.

I Stopped Doing Drugs When I Was 20. I Was Finished With Drugs Before Nirvana Even Started.

I Had Never Been In Charge Of Anything. I'd Always Worked For Someone. I Worked For A Furniture Warehouse. I Did Masonry. I Always Had A Boss Yelling At Me. So I'd Never Been In Charge Of An Organization.

Develop That Individuality By Working As Hard As You Can At What You Love.

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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 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.

There's Nothing Better Than Having A Bottle Of Beer In Your Hand In The Waves.

At School Where You A Dunce Or A Teacher's Pet? All Of The Above. I Was Stupid So They Thought I Was Cute.

There's Poetry In Being The Band That Can Sell Out Wembley But Also Makes A Record In A Garage. I Don't Like Doing What People Expect Me To Do.

I'd Love It If Everyone Knew One Foo Fighters Song.

I'm Not Like A Voracious Hoarder Who Has 50,000 Albums Of Vinyl Stacked In A Storage Space In The San Fernando Valley. But I Do Have Albums From The Last 40 Years Of My Life.

If You're Trying To Connect To People With Music - It's More Of An Outward Process And A Lot Of Times Musicians Can Be Very Inward.

No One Is You, And That Is Your Power.

Always Have The Highest Bar For Yourself.

That’s One Of The Great Things About Music. You Can Sing A Song To 85,000 People And They’ll Sing It Back For 85,000 Different Reasons.

Mom, Thanks For Letting Me Drop Out Of High School. Haha!

I Mean, I Never Liked Being Told What To Do. It's One Of The Reasons I Dropped Out Of School. 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.

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.

When I Joined Nirvana, I Was The Fifth Or Sixth Drummer - I Don't Know If They'd Ever Had A Drummer They Were Totally Happy With. And They Were Strangers. There Was Never Much Of A Deeper Connection Outside Of The Music.

In A Way, As Much As We Love To Be A Big, Loud Rock Band, The Acoustic Album Was A Lot Easier To Make Than The Rock Records. I Think Because It Was Brand New Territory For The Band.

You Will Only Be Great At Things You Love To Do Don't Pursue A Career In Something You Hate To Do.

Things You Love

Being In Nirvana Was Amazing An Experience That Will Never Happen Again For Me. And I Look On Them As Some Of The Best And Worst Times Of My Life.

Time Of My Life

You Can Make Yourself The Greatest Singer In The World Or The Best Drummer In The World With The Aid Of Technology.

Being In Nirvana Was Amazing An Experience That Will Never Happen Again For Me. And I Look On Them As Some Of The Best And Worst Times Of My Life. But We're In This Band, The Foo Fighters, Making Music For The Love Of Music. We All Came From Bands That Had Disbanded, And We Were Drawn To Each Other Because We Missed Playing - We Missed Getting In The Van, Loading Our Equipment, And Watching It Break Down In The Middle Of A Show. And That Feeling Hasn't Gone Away. There's Nothing I'd Rather Do Than Make Music. It's The Love Of My Life.

Love Of My Life

I Always Loved Writing Songs - Writing For Myself And Demo-ing Songs, Really With No Intention Of Ever Letting Anyone Else Hear Them.

Always Have The Highest Bar For Yourself. Wake Up Everyday And No Matter How Crappy You Feel, Want To Change Something For The Better. Do Something That Makes Someone Happy. Create Something That Inspires Someone. Be Someone's Light When They Are Hopeless.

Make Someone Happy

I Listen To Boy Band Music Before I Have To Fire Someone.

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Mary Lou Retton

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