At last, the war between Dave Grohl and child drummer Nandi Bushell has come to an end
Aux Features Music
We thought this day would never come. After war broke out between Dave Grohl, 51, and Nandi Bushell, 10, a few months ago, all signs seemed to point to a protracted, bloody drum battle between adult and child. And yet, now, even as our ears still ring from the sound of explosive tom rolls and the rattling of snares, the Grohl-Bushell conflict has come to a close.
The child won.
Grohl appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, ostensibly to promote Foo Fighters’ upcoming album. The real reason for his interview, of course, was to publicly announce his defeat. “She’s kicking my ass,” Grohl tells Colbert. “It got to the point where … sometimes you just have to concede defeat.”
Grohl seems to have been cowed by Bushell’s performance of “Rock And Grohl – The Epic Battle,” an original song that clearly demonstrated the endless reserves of energy a 10-year old can bring to a musical war. After a diplomatic meeting earlier this month, Grohl was left with few tactical options. “There’s nothing I can do,” he says on Colbert. “It was like being called out by the school bully.”
Fortunately, Bushell is a graceful winner. She’s accepted Grohl’s surrender with a video that shows her dressed in a cape, yelling: “Thou declare defeat at my feet. The rock gods of old watch you retreat. Your legend in history will echo in time, but still you resign to a child of three-foot-nine.”
The video ends with Bushell screaming in triumph, asking to collaborate directly with Grohl. For the sake of a continued peace, we hope he goes along with her terms.
[via Billboard]
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16 Comments
I think that this is the song that Bill & Ted were looking for!
Pre-emptive yes, Facebook is the devil, yada yada, but never has that been more apparent than the thumbnail they generated for Nandi’s speech of speeches:
I keep waiting for the picture to finish loading…This whole thing is adorable and has earned Dave Grohl a lot of points in my book, but I really hope that getting into dad-rock as a preteen means she’ll be into more interesting stuff in the near future. A drum prodigy over the age of thirteen who’s hung up on John Bonham would be such a shame..
She needs to learn about Janet Weiss and Sara Lund.
And Sheila E. while we’re at it.
Oh, hell yes.
I hope people appreciate what a drummer Dave grohl is. Yeah he can sing and his songs are nice blah blah blah. His foo fighters career has been great and I like them just fine. But no one should ever forget that this guy was the best drummer of all time not named john bonham. Drummers like that are like astronauts or Olympic figure skaters. I mean, I know what they’re doing and it’s obviously possible because they’re doing it but it doesn’t seem like it should be possible. Grohl was a big part of the reason nirvana was such a huge band. Really the only time I listen to them anymore is to hear the drumming. These guys make one drum kit sound like 3 or 4 and they are always turned up to 11. Bonham and grohl for me are the only guys who legitimately made me worry they were going to break their drums. I know there’s been lots of great drummers so not trying to slight anyone. But for me there’s always been a clear number one and a clear number two. Then everyone else.
“Best drummer of all time not named John Bonham.” LOL.
Tony Allen and a bunch of great jazz drummers like Art Blakey and Max Roach would like to have a word.
ROCK DRUMMER. I thought it goes without saying. We are comparing apples to apples. So no jazz drummers. Or bongo players, drumline participants, classical musicians, or those guys that whack the big gongs. Etc. Etc.
OK, that makes sense now that I understand that you’re talking about a relatively small slice of music, and excluding other R&B-derived genres like afrobeat (Tony Allen) or soul/funk (Bernard Purdie) or the jazzier versions of funk (Idris Muhammad).
Oh yeah. I’m just talking about the one sound, it’s only found in rock. That combination of explosions in time and speed and power. It’s so totally different from jazz or other genres you can’t even compare it. Like who’s a better racer, lance Armstrong or Michael Schumacher or Michael Phelps. You can’t really compare it but they’re all racing.
I love this whole thing and have been following the story. Props to Dave Grohl for graciously doing this, but I have to wonder if he’s asking himself when this will end because it keeps going and going and I imagine the guy has a ton of things to do.
His mom was a teacher. I’m quite sure he understands that there is no end to the learning process of a curious mind.
That’s a good point. I didn’t mean to demean the whole thing. I think it’s great and my daughter enjoys it (she’s a 10 year old guitarist). Dave being Dave and having a teacher mom makes him the perfect rock god to be contacted by Nandi.
Yep. Gotta admit, his humbly instructive and humorously supportive rock god behavior is very admirable, especially when contrasted with the self-satisfied weaponized narcissism I’ve come to expect from the majority of famous musicians.
I recently gave a good deep listen to Nevermind, and if you listen carefully, you can hear just how much fun Grohl has drumming. Bushell has that same kind of wild exuberance that makes me want to listen to whatever albums she inevitably winds up drumming on.