Decades of being a professional rock musician have come at the expense of Dave Grohl ‘s hearing. The 53-year-old Foo Fighters frontman recently opened up about the significant effect years of loud music has had on his ability to hear, and how he has picked up the ability to read lips because of it.
If you’ve ever been to a concert before, you know it can get loud enough to make your ears ring.
Unfortunately, being consistently exposed to those kinds of volumes can cause permanent damage to a person’s hearing. Foo Fighters frontman, Dave Grohl , is speaking out about how decades of performing rock music have made him “deaf.”
In a recent appearance on “The Howard Stern Show”, Grohl got candid about his hearing and how he has been relying on his ability to read lips for the last 20 years.
He began by admitting that he hasn’t had his hearing tested in a long time because he knows what the diagnosis is going to be.
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“I haven’t had them tested in a long time — I mean, I know what they’re gonna say,” the 53-year-old explained.
“‘You have hearing damage tinnitus in your left ear, morseo than your right ear.'”
He also explained that the pandemic has made it especially difficult to hear and read lips, as masks have been covering most people’s mouths.
“If you were sitting next to me right here at dinner, I wouldn’t understand a [expletive] word you were saying to me, the whole [expletive] time,” he said.
“There’s no way,” he added. “In a crowded restaurant, that’s worse.”
“That’s the worst thing about this pandemic [expletive], it’s like, people wearing masks,” Grohl continued. “I’ve been reading lips for like, 20 years.”
“So when someone comes up to me and they’re like [garbled noise], I’m like, ‘I’m a rock musician. I’m [expletive] deaf, I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
Despite the tinnitus in his left ear and the overall struggle to hear, Grohl is still able to pick up on certain frequencies that help him record and mix music.
He said that he is still able to hear “the slightest little things.”
“My ears are still tuned in to certain frequencies,” he explained. “And 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 [expletive] hear the minutiae of everything that we have done to that song, I really can,” he said .
During live performances, most artists will wear in-ear monitors that allow them to hear their own voice more clearly and directly into their ears. Grohl however, prefers external monitors that don’t take away from the atmosphere.
“I wanna hear the audience like, in front of me,” he shared .
“I want to turn around 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.”
“It just messes with your spatial understanding of where you are on stage,” he added.
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