Drummers on TikTok Can’t Stop Playing This Dave Grohl Drum Intro
Drummers on TikTok can't seem to stop playing Dave Grohl's unforgettable drum intro from Queens of the Stone Age's "Song for the Dead" — including a bucket drummer dressed like a horse and a Halloween-themed rocker in corpse paint.
Over the last few months, the drum covers of the hard-hitting intro to the 2002 Songs for the Deaf song have grown in number on the video-sharing social app. Thanks to that, the Queens of the Stone Age track is having a bit of a viral moment. Grohl, the longtime Foo Fighters bandleader and former Nirvana drummer, was an official member of Queens of the Stone Age in 2001 and 2002. He recorded Songs for the Deaf with the band.
Watch the videos down toward the bottom of this post.
The "Song for the Dead" drum craze on TikTok goes a little ways back. Drum instructor Brandon Towes posted his performance of the drum part last year. Then, this spring, several others shared videos of themselves drumming the intro. And lately, many more have added to the phenomenon by giving the drum section a go. Have you caught any of the play-throughs when scrolling TikTok?
For rock fans, it's easy to see why the "Song for the Dead" drum intro is so captivating. Recorded when Grohl was on a break with Foo Fighters, the rolling cavalcade of complicated percussion starts the Queens of the Stone Age song with a rhythmic stop-start motif that exudes creativity and talent.
On the album version of the song, the lead vocals are performed by the late Mark Lanegan, the Screaming Trees singer who was a frequent Queens of the Stone Age contributor. Lanegan died at age 57 in February. Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died at 50 the following month.