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Apart from The Wiggles, my earliest memory of singing was singing in the car, as a young boy, to Neil Diamond’s ‘Hot August Night’ and I’ve loved the album ever since. The seamless transition from the crescendo in the orchestra in the prologue into the rest of the band in ‘Crunchy Granola Suite’ is an incredible build of anticipation which pays off with the hook of the guitar intro in Crunchy Granola Suite. It sets the scene for the night perfectly and has stuck with me since the first time I heard it in my mum’s old Toyota.

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The first time I was exposed to Dave Grohl’s work, like many others I’m sure, was in Nirvana’s ‘Smells like teen spirit’. However, as a singer, my interest in the artist only peaked when I discovered the Foo Fighters second album ‘The Colour and the Shape’. I was in awe at the transition from his smooth vocals in the first track ‘Doll’, then got smacked in the face with the intensity and the grit in the following track ‘Monkey Wrench’.

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The Beatles – Ringo Starr

“Define the best drummer in the world. Is it someone that is technically proficient? Or is it someone who sits in the song with their own feel? Ringo was the king of feel.” (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2015) Ringo’s drumming sits perfectly in the Beatles tracks with his simple technical beats on songs like ‘Come together’ with the tapping on the hi-hats and rolling on the toms. This influence can be heard in Dave Grohl’s drumming on tracks such as ‘Something in the Way’ by Nirvana as he knew the song was a slow and sombre composition featuring Kurt Cobain’s vocals and the meandering instrumental in the background didn’t necessarily require any flashy drum solo or crazy fills.

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Dave Grohl has described John Bonham, the late drummer of iconic hard rock/heavy metal band Led Zeppelin, as the greatest drummer of all time. From an interview with Rolling Stone, Dave is quoted saying “I think he will forever be the greatest drummer of all time. You have no idea how much he influenced me.” Also, in the interview he talked about how he would spend years in his room listening to Bonham’s drumming, attempting to “emulate his swing or his behind-the-beat swagger, his speed or is power” (NME - Dave Grohl on Led Zeppelin, n.d.). However, he was not just emulating Bonham’s style but rather to get himself to a position where he could have a similar instinct and direction that the legendary drummer had seemingly perfected.

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Before Dave Grohl moved to Seattle and joined Nirvana, he was the drummer for a band called Scream from Washington D.C. In his 2021 autobiography ‘The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music’, Dave mentions that his “teachers” were fast and dissonant punk records “with drummers who most would not consider to be traditional”, and that he will “always owe so much to these unsung heroes of the underground punk scene” (Grohl, 2021).  He lists D.C. punk drummers such as Ivor Hanson of Embrace and The Faith/Void, Earl Hudson of Bad Brains, and Jeff Nelson of Minor Threat who were great inspirations for him. In a video published by Visit Seattle T.V Grohl describes how he was touring with the punk band Scream when they split up and became stranded in Los Angeles. This was a turning point in his career as the lead singer from The Melvins asked Dave if he’d heard of Nirvana and soon after that he was headed to Seattle to meet Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic.

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Neil Diamond attended NYU’s medical school on a fencing scholarship after spending time with Barbara Streisand in his high-school chorus. However, he dropped out after receiving a $50 per week contract to write songs for Sunbeam Music where he would work in New York City’s famous Brill Building. There he would work alongside the likes of Carole King, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weill, Neil Sedaka and Lieber & Stoller, all of which wrote songs that would go on to forever change pop music in the 50’s and 60’s

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Before his career took off in 1966, being signed by Bang Records, to produce hit singles such as ‘Cherry Cherry’ and ‘Solitary Man’, Neil had spent years writing songs which he would give to other artists to perform. Likely the best example of this is The Monkees playing his song ‘I’m a Believer’. Though, this wasn’t the only song he had written for the band, he also wrote them songs like ‘Look Out, Here Comes Tomorrow’, ‘A Little Bit Me, A Little bit You’ and ‘Love to Love’, to name a few

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Neil had been approached by Hollywood many times to star in film, but it wasn’t until 1980 that he decided to appear as “the son of a Jewish cantor trying to succeed in the music industry.” (Neil Diamond | Kennedy Center, n.d.). Though the reviews to the film ‘The Jazz Singer’ were rather negative, starring alongside the likes of Laurence Olivier and Lucie Arnaz combined with his star power to rake in “more than three times its budget and produced a hit single ‘America’.” (Neil Diamond | Kennedy Center, n.d.). Part of the reason he chose to star in the movie was to pay tribute to a childhood idol of his, Al Jolson.