It’s been a rocky road for Dave Grohl.
The Foo Fighters frontman opened up about his hearing loss last week on “The Howard Stern Show.”
“If you were sitting next to me right here at dinner, I wouldn’t understand a f—ing word you were saying to me,” he told Stern on Feb. 15. “That’s the worst thing about this pandemic s—, it’s people wearing masks. I’ve been reading lips for like 20 years, so when someone comes up to me and they’re like (incomprehensible noise), I’m like, ‘I’m a rock musician. I’m f—ing deaf, I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
Grohl, 53, has been rocking for well over half his life, first with Nirvana and then with Foo Fighters. He says he hasn’t been to a doctor, but he’s confident they would diagnose him with tinnitus.
Stern questioned why Grohl didn’t wear earpieces like many other musicians, both to help them hear better on stage and to protect their ears.
“I wanna hear the audience in front of me and I want to turn around and be able to hear Taylor (Hawkins) right there and go over here and hear Pat (Smear), and go over here and hear Chris (Shiflett) and stuff like that,” Groh said. “It just messes with your spatial understanding of where you are on stage.”
Grohl has spoken about his hearing loss in the past. In 2011, he told Stern that his left ear was “almost gone.” Ten years later, he told the BBC, “I’m deaf now” and described the ringing in his ears as a long-term problem.
Last Tuesday, he explained to Stern that while he might struggle to hear in a crowded restaurant, his musical ear is still tuned in during recording sessions.
“If I hear something that’s slightly out of tune, or a cymbal that’s not bright enough or something like that in the mix, I can f—ing hear the minutiae of everything that we have done to that song,” Grohl said.
The multi-talented frontman is one of a long line of rock musicians who have chronicled their hearing issues, including Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Eric Clapton, Ozzy Osbourne and Neil Young.
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