he used to use a lot of jazz chords that are very unusual in a rock context. it's coming out of a melodic hardcore background. i suppose he also used to play the drums, but it's those jazz chords that made the foofighters sound like the foofighters. it's really a shame that he dropped that aspect of his sound. without that harmonic depth, what's left is generic and mostly pretty boring.
those chord voicings are pretty much the dominant factor that separates interesting hardcore (regardless of how much pop is worked into it) from boring hardcore. whether you're as poppy as it gets (foofighters, offspring, touche amore, sdre) or moving into abrasive territory (loma prieta, defeater), being able to get out of the power chord trap is the way out of being boring with the form. i mean, you're throwing these slabs of complex sound out there that move with the drums - you can be boring about it in sticking with 1/5 (sometimes three) or interesting about it in throwing in 9ths, 6ths, 7ths, 13ths, etc. i'm not oversimplifying, it really is that easy. grohl actually legitimately used to be good at this. alas...
sounds crazy, i know. but hardcore at it's best is jazz. it's voice leading. ginn was on to something with that.
Ashwin Rao
I believe pre-nirvana he played with a hardcore punk band called Scream
deathtokoalas
yeah, but he was a giant ian mackaye fan. he actually even claims he was in the audience for the first rites of spring show. think bad brains and black flag for the jazz chords.
