Violet Grohl delivered a stripped-down cover of The Cure’s “High” for Triple J’s Like a Version series, trading the original’s layered guitar work for a barebones acoustic arrangement built around her own vocal.
“I love the childlike joy of the lyrics… it’s such a cute love song,” Grohl told Triple J of the 1992 single, the lead track from The Cure’s Wish. She said “High” has been a personal favorite for years, and traced her fandom for the band back to age 12 or 13, when hearing “Friday I’m in Love” sent her deep into their catalog.
“I think it’s a perfect example of their sound during the early ’90s,” she said, “and I love all the imagery in the lyricism.” Grohl said she aimed to capture a “teenage crush kind of feeling” in the performance, adding of Cure frontman Robert Smith: “I adore Robert Smith… I would hope that they would at least think it was okay.” She also performed her own song “595,” from her debut album, in the same acoustic setting.
The dreamy arrangement tracks with the sound of Be Sweet to Me, Grohl’s debut album, released May 29 via Auroura and Republic Records. Recorded across 2024 and 2025, the project draws on alternative rock from the late ’80s and early ’90s, with Grohl citing The Cure, Cocteau Twins, the Pixies, Soundgarden and the Breeders as touchstones. “There’s something so powerful about that period of music, from the messaging to the visuals,” she said in a statement announcing the album. “It’s authentic and raw.”
Grohl, the eldest daughter of Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl — who’s been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame both with Nirvana (2014) and Foo Fighters (2021) — has spent years building toward a solo career around the family’s musical orbit. She’s contributed backing vocals to Foo Fighters tracks including “Show Me How,” which hit No. 21 on Hot Hard Rock Songs in 2023, and performed at the band’s 2022 tribute concerts for late drummer Taylor Hawkins.
In 2021, she and her father recorded a cover of X’s “Nausea,” which they later performed together on Jimmy Kimmel Live! alongside Krist Novoselic, Dave Lombardo and Greg Kurstin — though that appearance came as a guest alongside her father, not under her own name. Her true TV debut as a billed solo artist came in June, when she performed “Bug in the Cake” with a full band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Grohl made her own Billboard chart debut earlier this year when “THUM” entered the Adult Alternative Airplay chart at No. 38 — a small but symbolic milestone given her father’s own chart record with Foo Fighters, who have logged 44 songs on the Alternative Airplay chart, tied with U2 for the most in the format’s history.
She’s set to play a run of U.S. festivals this fall, including Riot Fest, Shaky Knees, CBGB Festival, All Things Go D.C. and Corona Capital, ahead of her own headlining U.S. tour and a stint supporting Beabadoobee on her upcoming European dates.
