Dave Grohl has revealed that he had “no idea” that his daughter, Violet, had signed a record deal until she told him at dinner.
The rock giant star has been doing multiple interviews lately as Foo Fighters are preparing to release their 12th studio album ‘Your Favorite Toy’ on April 24 – an album Grohl has said will be stacked with “noisy, loud bangers” that feel like they come from “the old days”.
During a new appearance on The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X, however, the frontman spoke about his teenage daughter, Violet, launching her own music career, and admitted that he was not involved with the making of her music at all.
The Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter started dropping new music last month, when she shared the David Lynch-inspired ‘What’s Heaven Without You’ last week to mark the first anniversary of the iconic director’s death.
She then followed this up by announcing that she had signed with Republic Records / Island EMI and would be sharing two new songs, ‘Thum’ and ‘Applefish’.
Moyles told Grohl that her new music had been named ‘Record Of The Week’ on Radio X a couple of weeks ago, to which the Foo Fighters frontman was quick to share his high praise for her.
“This is amazing. So Violent, my daughter – she’s 19, about to turn 20 – she made this album with a producer named Justin Raisen, and she did it on her own,” he began. “She met the producer, and they would go to the studio every day and she would send me songs when she was finished. But I had absolutely nothing to do with this record at all.”
He went on to say that while he would have loved to be more hands-on with the project, he was left unaware of the massive progress she was making until she sat down and told him.
“I had no idea. I knew she was looking to sign a record deal, and she was like, ‘Hey dad, can I come over for dinner tonight?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure. What do you want me to make?’ And she came over and told me, like, ‘I signed my record deal today.’ I’m just like, ‘Oh my God!’ So, I’m totally uninvolved,” he added. “I’m the dad who wants to be there and know everything. And she’s just totally doing her own thing. It’s amazing.”
Grohl went on to describe Violet’s upcoming record as “amazing” and say that she is “so incredibly talented and has such great taste in music”.
He also said that seeing her work on new music made him feel “really inspired me to make” the new Foo Fighters record.
“It really did. The way that they made that record and the energy of it, I was like, ‘Oh, man. I’ve just been inspired by my daughter’s debut album.’ It’s cool,” he said.
In late 2024, it was reported that Violet was working on her debut solo album with Raisen (Kim Gordon, Charli XCX, Sky Ferreira). Her father has also previously expressed his desire to appear on Violet’s first record.
The two of them have worked together musically before, and released a cover version of ‘Nausea’ – originally by Los Angeles punks X – in 2021.
She began hitting the road with Foo Fighters in 2018 too, providing backing vocals at numerous gigs. She also performed with them at the tribute concerts held for late drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022, and after featuring on the band’s 2023 song ‘Show Me How’, she appeared with them at that year’s Glastonbury to perform the track.
Last year, the surviving members of Nirvana – Dave, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear – reunited for a four-song set at the Fire Aid benefit concert in LA, and Violet joined for lead vocals on ‘All Apologies’.
As for Foo Fighters, the band announced their 12th full-length effort, ‘Your Favorite Toy’ on Thursday (February 19), and shared its massive title track. In a four-star review, NME described the song as a “futureproof rock beast” that is “snarlingly unapologetic”.
The record is due for release on April 24, following on from 2023’s ‘But Here We Are’. It’ll also contain last year’s ‘Asking For A Friend’.
Since they announced news of the album, Grohl has admitted that he found it “really complicated” to continue with the band after the unexpected death of Taylor Hawkins in 2022, and also shared that he thinks every one of their albums could have been their “last”.
The band will head out on the road in the UK and Europe this year for a run of huge stadium shows, and are set to play some North American dates over the summer and autumn. They’ve announced an Australia and New Zealand leg, too, for 2026 and 2027. Find any remaining tickets here.
Over the past week, the band have played their new single ‘Your Favorite Toy’ for the first time on The Graham Norton Show, and announced a series of surprise shows taking place across London, Dublin and Manchester this week.
They kicked off the shows in Dublin on Monday (February 23) and used the intimate gig to debut some currently unreleased material from the record. The London show takes place tonight (Wednesday February 25) and Manchester’s stop will be on Friday (27).
