Dave Grohl has opened about the ’90s rock scene, claiming that Marilyn Manson is responsible for the downfall of grunge.
Back in the early ’90s, grunge and alternative rock was undoubtedly one of the biggest genres in the world. Loud, sweaty bands playing distorted guitars helped to replace the glam-metal scene of the ’80s, and listeners began to relate to these bands on a much more personal level.
While bands like Nirvana dominated the scene, their 1994 demise opened the door for drummer Dave Grohl to kick off his own project, the Foo Fighters. However, in a new interview with Los Angeles radio station Alt 98.7, Grohl says that grunge was dying out by this time thanks to acts like Marilyn Manson.
“In the ’80s you had all these rock bands that got huge,” Grohl began. “There was so much glamour, all the dudes had crazy hair, limos, they were shooting their videos at Crazy Girls, riding Harleys… it kind of went its course or whatever.”
“Then there were a lot of bands that loved playing rock music, but didn’t have anything to do with that. It was more about we’re just dirty kids who play in garages and write these songs.”
“That was sort of born out of the punk rock thing. Then all of a sudden that becomes huge, and that becomes huge for a while, and after that you are sort of like ‘Damn, man, I sort of want a rock star.’”
However, Dave Grohl explained that the downfall of this DIY garage rock scene came about thanks to the spectacle of acts such as Marilyn Manson, while hip-hop began to showcase the hedonistic attitudes that glam-rock had previously owned.
“Then Marilyn Manson gets big, and you’re like oh cool, now you’ve got something that is really fantastic to look at, it’s really moving, and really powerful,” Grohl continued. “The imagery and the music too, you are like, ‘Wow that’s cool man!'”
“The hip-hop scene sort of took over all of the glamour that the rock and roll thing sort of had in the ’80s. It’s kind of cyclical in this weird way, eventually you’ll get to a place where you’ll have a hip hop artist who doesn’t go that route, or a rock band that does go the glam route.”
“Things kind of roll in this cycle.”
Check out Marilyn Manson’s ‘The Beautiful People’:
