Dave Grohl Reveals He Began Recording His Band At Age 12 [VIDEO]

We know Dave Grohl is a multi-talented musician and we love the heck out of him, but what we didn’t know was how young he was when he began recording his own music as a band…until now.

The Foo Fighters frontman spoke with Fuse in an interview recently and during the conversation, he talks a lot about his musical upbringing as a child and even reveals what “shitty job” he had pre-Nirvana.

Here’s a few highlights of their convo:

Grohl talks about his first musical instrument:

There was an old guitar in the corner that no one ever played and I finally picked it up and learned how to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and I thought, “I’m gonna try to this.” I just started listening and playing along to records. And then my mother bought me a Beatles songbook and I would listen to these records and play along with it and that’s where I learned everything about song structure, composition, verses, choruses and melodies.

On Early Recordings

I’ve always loved recording. Even when I was 12, I would write songs about my dog and make these demos in my house. I’d do multi-tracking at home where I’d record a guitar on a cassette and put that cassette in another player and hit play and then sing along to it. It’d be me as a whole band. I never took lessons.

On Lack of Career Opportunities

I worked a shitty job at a furniture warehouse and every weekend, I’d play with my band to make me want to live another week at the f**kin furniture warehouse to then be in a band. With Nirvana, we got a record deal but we didn’t think we were going to be a huge band. We were just doing what we always did. If your foundation is just that you love to play, then all of this is f**kin’ awesome.

This brought up memories of when I was 12. I was definitely into music but didn’t really get into playing instruments (started with bass guitar) until I was about 14. At 12 I was babysitting during my spare time to make extra money. That and causing trouble with my friends of course. I should’ve started earlier…playing music really is a great release.

Anyway, you can see a clip of the interview below!