Violet Grohl steps out of her famous father's shadow with a haunted, alt-rock debut

The rubric of Violet Grohl’s debut album, “Be Sweet to Me,” started arsenic an wrong joke.

“‘Be Sweet to Me’ is simply a operation that my champion person and I accidental to each different erstwhile we’re play-fighting,” says the rising singer. “It’s what we bash to enactment an extremity to it. Like, ‘Oh, beryllium saccharine to me!’”

The operation mightiness besides transportation a treble meaning, 1 Grohl is inactive parsing. At immoderate constituent successful the naming process, idiosyncratic successful her ellipse asked Grohl if she was making a plea. Remembering that moment, Grohl pauses to consider.

“I guess it tin beryllium seen arsenic a pretext for the album. Just … beryllium sweet,” she says. “But astatine the aforesaid time, it’s virtually conscionable what my champion person and I accidental to each different erstwhile we’re calling each different idiots.”

Intentional oregon not, nary 1 could blasted the 20-year-old for inserting an earnest petition for audiences to proceed with kindness arsenic she readies her debut album, which yet landed Friday.

The reasons are beauteous self-explanatory: Grohl is the eldest kid of modern stone icon Dave Grohl, the highly decorated laminitis and centerpiece of Foo Fighters and onetime drummer of Nirvana, and his wife, erstwhile exemplary and TV shaper Jordyn Blum. In an property of “nepo” accusations and net dogpiles, it would beryllium wholly understandable for Grohl to consciousness anxious astir her album’s reception.

But if she is, it doesn’t show. On a lukewarm time successful mid-May, Grohl appears relaxed and self-assured — but not arrogant — arsenic she idles connected a sofa successful a cozy Studio City ADU owned by her publicist. Encased successful a long, achromatic sleeveless dress, she’s giving a substance of off-duty stone prima and summertime goth. Her arms big an array of intricate tattoos; I spot a raven, a skull and a vintage lace fan. Next to her is simply a bulging Balenciaga mini bag, and a brace of oversized sunglasses connected her caput are perched atop a mop of pitchy achromatic curls. The precocious opposition of her pale, makeup-less tegument and swept backmost hairsbreadth makes her round, gray-blue eyes look adjacent much pronounced.

“Everyone wants you to beryllium an idealized mentation of … not adjacent yourself, but of what they privation you to be,” she says. “Sorry, that’s conscionable not gonna hap with me.”

(Bella Newman)

Any clip spent with her reveals that Grohl is the benignant of idiosyncratic who is ultra-sensitive to the vigor of places, radical and adjacent the long-deceased. In her escaped time, Grohl is an avid person of thing paranormal. “The aforesaid clip I got into fearfulness movies, I started watching ‘Ghost Adventures’ connected Travel Channel,” she says. “It wholly sent maine down this rabbit spread of the supernatural.”

When I inquire if she’d ever made interaction with immoderate ghosts, Grohl nods emphatically earlier describing a travel to a hunting property adjacent the Scottish Highlands. “It is the astir haunted spot I’ve ever been successful my full life,” she says. “I walked into the house, and it was similar a blast of acold air, chills everywhere. It’s this instinctual feeling of, I’m not unsocial present … I heard footsteps and disembodied voices, I saw shadows, I had brainsick f–ing dreams. It’s truthful eye-opening, but it’s not evil oregon negative.”

Chilling films and Lynchian surrealism pervade the tracklist of “Be Sweet to Me,” which relies connected symbolic lyricism to exemplify coming-of-age stories. From a sonic perspective, listeners volition beryllium thrilled to cognize that her debut does not conscionable marque for an entertaining perceive — it’s a dedicated towpath to the precise squealing bosom of alternate rock, built by an creator who understands her euphony past connected a granular level. Across a choky 11 tracks, “Be Sweet to Me” careens crossed late-’80s and ‘90s experimental genres, from ripping alt-rock connected “Bug successful the Cake” to hazy imagination popular connected “Mobile Star” to aggro Clinton-era alt metallic connected “Often Others,” and adjacent a spot of chugging hardcore connected “Cool Buzz.”

As galore references arsenic she brought to the signaling process, led by shaper Justin Raisen (a known collaborator of Charli XCX and Kim Gordon, who made the introduction), Grohl is not attempting to cosplay the grunge era. Instead of simply mirroring influences, she deftly puts her ain rotation connected each statement with inventive, grabby arrangements, razor-sharp accumulation and her versatile vocals, which tin bellow similar Courtney Love, murmur similar PJ Harvey oregon crook ethereal similar Elizabeth Fraser.

“Justin has a unit of musicians that helium works with, and they’re each adjacent friends of his,” Grohl explains of the album’s backing band, which Raisen assembled to mimic the Wrecking Crew, a escaped corporate of league players who appeared connected immoderate of the astir beloved albums of the 1960s and ‘70s. “They’re the coolest, astir talented, genuine euphony lovers, and earnestly talented musicians … I’d ne'er been successful that benignant of signaling situation before. Everyone would propulsion retired ideas oregon I would stock a reference, and immoderate it was astir the song, [we’d ask] however we tin physique and marque it a wholly new, antithetic thing.”

Growing up successful Tarzana/Woodland Hills, Grohl says she’s been singing ever since she could speak. In a babe book, her parent wrote however Grohl, astatine 8 oregon 9 months, was “babbling and singing.” She took soft lessons with a teacher who taught her immoderate Beatles opus she wanted to learn. She aboriginal picked up the ukulele, and past a guitar. Now, it’s immoderate portion of gear, from bass to drums to a thigh dulcimer. “I conscionable emotion messing astir with antithetic instruments and seeing each the antithetic sounds I tin make,” she says.

Grohl besides had an perfect music-taste mentor successful her father, who told his eldest each astir Björk and acquiesced to playing Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” connected repeat. “I deliberation I was 4 oregon 5, and I retrieve sitting successful beforehand of his computer, and helium was talking astir however she was from Iceland,” Grohl says of those days. “And I was like, ‘Oh, she’s the princess of Iceland. That was my thought of Björk from a young age. Björk’s ‘Hunter’ euphony video was a turning constituent for me.”

By adolescence, portion connected the roadworthy with the Foo Fighters, Grohl would marque herself utile by assisting the band’s circuit manager. She remembers: “I had a walkie-talkie, I would manus per diems retired to people, I would tally the envelopes around, and bring my dada a towel aft the show, worldly similar that.” The live-music ambiance whitethorn person besides sparked Grohl’s curiosity successful songwriting, which she says began arsenic a mode of journaling. “I person cassette demos that I made with a tiny one-track recorder,” she remembers. “Then I started learning however to usage Logic close earlier I turned 13, and that opened up this full caller world.”

One nighttime successful May 2018, connected a interruption from the East Coast limb of the Foos’ Concrete and Gold tour, the elder Grohl headlined a payment performance for the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, wherever helium encouraged his daughter, past lone 12, to articulation him onstage to sing Adele’s “When We Were Young.” A fewer weeks later, backmost connected tour, Grohl jumped onstage to assistance sing backup connected a fewer tracks. “It wasn’t my archetypal clip singing connected a stage, but it was my archetypal clip singing connected a signifier with that galore radical successful [the audience],” she says of the 2nd experience. “I was truly scared, but erstwhile it was happening, and erstwhile it was over, I was like, ‘Oh, this is what I privation to do. This is my purpose.’”

Chilling films and Lynchian surrealism pervade the tracklist of “Be Sweet to Me,” which relies connected symbolic lyricism to exemplify coming-of-age stories.

(Bella Newman)

From there, Grohl became thing of a unrecorded fixture — a beloved Foos adjunct performer. But intelligibly 1 with her ain trajectory. In pre-pandemic 2020, Grohl joined the surviving members of Nirvana astatine the Art of Elysium Gala, wherever she sang “Heart-Shaped Box.” The adjacent year, begetter and girl recorded a duet of “Nausea” by L.A. classical punk favorites X. In 2022, Grohl opened the 2nd tribute to precocious Foos drummer, Taylor Hawkins, with an aching rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

It should decidedly beryllium said that Grohl is hardly pulling a Jacob Dylan arsenic it relates to her parentage — a item that really makes her look that overmuch much self-actualized and approachable, simply due to the fact that she isn’t trying to circumvent world or prosecute successful a furious circular of name-dropping. She freely discusses the agelong evening car rides astir Los Angeles she’d instrumentality with her dada and 2 younger sisters during the pandemic, the car becoming a music-recommendation feedback loop, with older and younger generations trading disconnected DJ duties. “My sister and I introduced him to Jockstrap,” Grohl chuckles erstwhile I inquire what bands she introduced her dada to during those rides. “I’d play him aged jazz standards, hip-hop. It was a changeless thing.”

During those evening rides, Grohl besides drank up the city’s otherworldly, vaguely haunted visage. “There’s thing peculiar astir L.A. that I can’t afloat describe,” she says. “There’s inspiration everywhere, truthful galore beauteous radical and historical buildings. I emotion creation astir L.A. — erstwhile radical notation L.A. successful their music, movies, oregon books. I grew up here, and I’ve lived present my full life. I conscionable consciousness that heavy transportation to it all.”

Like immoderate large artist, Grohl is simply a merchandise of her surroundings, and that can’t assistance but see a precise specific, improbable upbringing. In her ain matter-of-fact way, Grohl shrugs arsenic she acknowledges the inescapable unit of her past name. “Everyone wants you to beryllium an idealized mentation of … not adjacent yourself, but of what they privation you to be,” she says. “Sorry, that’s conscionable not gonna hap with me. You’re not gonna person maine to change. I’m doing this due to the fact that I emotion music, and that’s each I’ve ever known. Everyone’s gonna privation maine to beryllium something, and I’m not the idiosyncratic that volition springiness successful to that.”