While bands and music critics alike mourn the state of rock and roll (we're looking at you, Black Keys), at least one man thinks there's nothing wrong it.
That man is Dave Grohl.
"There's always gonna be rock 'n' roll bands, there's always gonna be kids that love rock 'n' roll records, and there will always be rock 'n' roll," the Foo Fighters frontman recently told Billboard. "I travel all over the world and play music, and it's easy to think rock 'n' roll has gone away when you're in a country like America. We just got back from a trip Down Under, we did a tour of Australia and New Zealand where we were pulling 40,000-50,000 people a night, selling out stadiums. To me, that means rock 'n' roll is alive and well."
While Grohl hailed rock's place around the world, he was careful to point at that the genre isn't in the forefront in America right now, saying: "In America, rock 'n' roll isn't in the forefront of the mainstream as it is the rest of the world. England is another country where rock bands are hugely successful: You hear them on the radio, they have hits and play stadiums, and it's almost like it's bigger than it's ever been. But for whatever reason, here in America there's not as much focus on rock 'n' roll bands. I don't know what it is, but it's one of the few countries in the world where rock 'n' roll is not huge."
You can read more from this Q&A with Dave Grohl here.
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Josh Hart is a former web producer and staff writer for Guitar World and Guitar Aficionado magazines (2010–2012). He has since pursued writing fiction under various pseudonyms while exploring the technical underpinnings of journalism, now serving as a senior software engineer for The Seattle Times.
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