Rocking for the White House: the conformity of the modern rock star

February 27, 2023 antivax, covid19

One of the most disillusioning aspects of the Covid-19 drama is the silence of rock musicians. Are they not meant to be libertarian, to ‘stick it to the man’, to rage against the machine? Sadly, few figures in the music scene spoke out (among them Richard Ashcroft of the Verve, the Right Said Fred brothers and Van Morrison). Recording contracts and festival slots were more important, apparently, than standing up for freedom. For some rock stars, however, it was not mere compliance but participation in authoritarianism.

On 20th June 2021 the Foo Fighters headlined the resumption of live music in New York, after a severe Covid-19 regime. The first major concert, however, was not for everyone. Dave Grohl, founder of the band, insisted on a vaccinated event. A few dozen protestors gathered outside Madison Square Garden, but the arena was filled by fifteen thousand fans happy to show their QR codes certifying two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.

‘Here’s what went down at the Foo Fighters’ huge, fully vaccinated New York show’, reported the NME on a successful evening of pseudo-medical segregation. With his considerable influence, Grohl was effectively pushing the mass vaccination programme, conveying the message that anyone refusing the shots would have a diminished existence as a social pariah.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Grohl was asked what he thought of Eric Clapton, who had complained of vaccine injury. Would he want to grab Clapton by the neck and say: ‘hey brother, we gotta get this together, what are you doing here?’ This was an insult to a rock maestro whose fingers had been numbed after the jab. Grohl side-stepped the question, explaining that he wanted to make each concert ‘as safe a place as possible, and I hope that we can continue to do it together’.

This togetherness was a prominent theme of the authorities in subverting individual rights for the ‘greater good’. Collectivism, as history shows, is inherently exclusive. Grohl had no interest in the minority who value their bodily autonomy and do not blindly follow orders.

Stay safe; do what your government says – how did Grohl get here? His autobiography The Storyteller (2021) gives us some clues.

Grohl began as a punk rocker on the local scene in Washington, DC. He joined the band Scream in 1979, abandoning his education to perform in indie venues across the USA. In 1990 the band fell apart on a European tour, but soon after Grohl was contacted by a band from Aberdeen, a small town in Washington state, who needed a new drummer. This was Nirvana, fronted by Kurt Cobain.

Nirvana drew a massive global following, their 1991 single ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ played constantly on MTV. But there was a problem with Grohl’s new band mate: –

‘I was in Los Angeles in January 1991 when I first learned that Kurt was using heroin. I had never known anyone who used heroin before and knew very little about it, so I was shocked. I had joined the band only three months before and was living with Kurt in a tiny apartment, and perhaps naively, I didn’t peg him as someone who would do that sort of thing. To me, heroin was a dirty street drug, used by prostitutes and junkies in dark alleyways downtown, not by gentle, kind, beloved artists with the world at their feet’.