David Eric Grohl (born January 14, 1969) is an American rock musician and multi-instrumentalist mainly known for his work as the most famous drummer of Nirvana and the creator and frontman of Foo Fighters, but he's also involved with a ridiculous number of side projects.

Having spent his teenage years in hard-working but little-known hardcore punk bands, Grohl's first exposure to popular attention in the world of music was as the last of several drummers for Nirvana, joining the band in 1990. Four years later, they disbanded after the death of frontman Kurt Cobain.

Grohl, dealing with grief and knowing his perception in the public's mind as just another drummer, decided to start his own band, Foo Fighters, and is the creative force behind their output. Almost every single sound on their first album was played by him, whether it was made by drums, guitar, bass or voice. He did not intend for the band to be a long-term project and is on record stating that if he'd known it was going to last, he'd have chosen a better name. Nonetheless, the band is still going strong after two decades.

Grohl is also very busy with other stuff as well; while the discography below is somewhat exaggerated, it's not joking about how much he's in demand. Certain snarkers have even joked that the Rock Band video games should be retitled "Dave Grohl Band," considering that he is or has been involved in at least six of the contributing acts (Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, Nine Inch Nails, Tenacious D), which is more than basically everyone else on the planet. In fact, Rock Band 3 has an achievement with that very name, which you get by beating three songs on whose recording Grohl was involved.

Discography:

Tropes:

• Alternative Rock: Operates purely in alt-rock and its offshoots. Obviously Nirvana was the defining Grunge band, with attendant Punk Rock / Hardcore Punk and Doom Metal influences. The Foos are more eclectic, from Post-Grunge, to Pop Punk and Emo, to general Hard Rock and Arena Rock.
• All Drummers Are Animals: Is well known for behaving like, well, Animal from The Muppet Show when he drums. To the point where he and Animal himself have a drum-off in The Muppets (2015). (He also played Animool, the drummer for a Muppet tribute band called the Moopets, in The Muppets (2011)). Ironically, Grohl has always claimed that his drumming ability is nothing special, even saying that Foo Fighters' Taylor Hawkins is far more talented than he is. It's thought that a lot of the attention given to Grohl's playing in Nirvana came from the fact that it was the first time the vast majority of people heard hardcore-style drumming.
  • The best direct aversion of this would definitely be his subtle, gentle drumming in "All Apologies" in Nirvana's episode of MTV Unplugged.
• Ascended Meme: The subject of one. The Rock Band franchise had the playfully derisive nickname of "Dave Grohl Band" due to featuring so many bands that Dave had been involved in. Rock Band 3 canonizes it with the "Dave Grohl Band" achievement/trophy, earned by beating five songs that fit that criterion, and it's not even difficult to accomplish.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Dave has a well deserved reputation as the "nicest guy in rock", but if you come to his show and try and start a fight, he will lose his shit with you as one jerk found out.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Not so much in his music, but in any live interview, watch out. Not harsh or angry, he just uses the word as punctuation.
• Doting Parent: To his three daughters. After the 2012 Grammys when he was asked how he stays so grounded, and his response was having kids who "don't fucking care that [I'm] a rockstar" and "don't give a shit" that he's in the Foo Fighters, and say stuff like "Daddy, I need a smoothie. Now." to which Dave responds "Okaaay..."
• Fun Personified: Certainly, and seems to have made it a personal mission to create more fun and uplifting music and concert experiences, probably in reaction to the infamously downbeat Grunge music he had a hand in popularizing.
• Genre Roulette: His variety of styles is impressive.
• Heavy Metal: His Probot side project was Dave writing metal songs in the styles of all his favorite bands from when he was growing up, and then asking those singers to participate. Not a single one turned him down.
• I Have Many Names: His incredibly workload and variety of projects leads to many aliases.
• I Am the Band: The first Foo Fighters album. Probot also has him playing almost all the instruments, with the exception of lead guitar on two songs (courtesy of Kim Thayil), and bass on two others (from famous singer-bassists Cronos and Lemmy).
• Must Have Caffeine: The famous FRESH POTS incident, which actually landed him in the hospital at one point.
• Nature Metal: Dave Grohl's heavy metal side project Probot has "Silent Spring", with lyrics and vocals by Kurt Brecht of punk/thrash outfit D.R.I. It's essentially a protest song ("That's not the way that I am / No") against runaway consumerism, pollution, war, and the defilement of a vividly anthropomorphized Mother Earth.
• Nice Guy: So much his nickname is "the nicest man in rock n' roll". Many fans have stories about him that show his humility, friendliness, and generosity.
• One-Book Author: A few of his side projects.
• Rockumentary: Not only has he appeared in several, most prominently Back and Forth (2011), he is also the director of the award-winning and critically acclaimed Sound City (2013).
• Self-Deprecation: He has always downplayed his drumming abilities, claiming in one interview that "I sit down and do an AC/DC beat." But as Probot proved, while he may not be overly gifted technically, he's certainly more than talented, able to play in the styles of the drummers of the bands from each singer he worked with.
• Supergroup: Them Crooked Vultures. Probot is also a collaboration with many notable singers.
• Thrash Metal