Dave Grohl's Daughters Are Growing Up Fast
Dave Grohl is a rock 'n' roll icon, but he is also a proud father to three daughters, whom he shares with his second wife, Jordyn Blum. And try as he might, Dave isn't always successful when it comes to getting Violet Maye Grohl, Harper Willow Grohl, and Ophelia Saint Grohl into all of the legendary classic rock artists he loves. "I try to brainwash them with Beatles and Rolling Stones and stuff like that, but at the end of the day, 'It's All About that Bass,'" he said on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2014.
When the Nirvana alum's kids entered his life, he was more than willing to rise to the changes and challenges that fatherhood presents. "We don't talk about how much we drank last night [anymore]," Grohl said in an interview with People in 2007. "[Now] it's how much sleep we got, how much sleep the baby got, diaper rash, formula. We used to go on the road for three months at a time. It's a struggle for me to leave for even 12 days." He is also the type of dad who drops his kids at school and packs their lunches. While the star's daughters have grown up mostly out of the limelight, his eldest kid is a passionate musician, joining the family business and paving the way for a new generation of talent. Meet Dave Grohl's three girls.
Violet Grohl is a talented musician
Violet Grohl, Dave Grohl and Jordyn Blum's eldest, was born on April 15, 2006. Her interest in music began at an early age, and one of her first favorite artists was the late Amy Winehouse. "It's all about the 'Rehab' song. If she hears, 'Try to make me go to rehab,' Violet will go, 'No, no, no.' I know it's a little weird, but it's really cute!" the proud father told People of his toddler in 2008.
Violet continued to sing as she grew up, even collaborating with her father for a rendition of Adele's song "When We Were Young" in 2018. When Dave welcomed Violet onstage, he told the crowd, "Violet is the first one to tell anyone in the family that she's the best singer in the family." With this performance, she proved just how exceptionally talented she is.
Violet is credited with backing vocals on the Foo Fighters album "Medicine At Midnight" with the song "Making A Fire." She also joined the band on the North American leg of their tour to sing backup. In 2023, the father and daughter duo appeared onstage again, this time at the 2023 Glastonbury Festival. Dave is his daughter's biggest supporter, and he has big dreams for her future. "Violet is an incredibly talented musician," Dave told BBC in 2021. "She can pick up an instrument and learn it within a week. She has perfect pitch and sings from her gut. To be her drummer is one of my life dreams."
Violet Grohl has recorded music with her dad
Dave Grohl and Violet Grohl have shared the stage and the recording studio. In 2021, the father-daughter duo released a cover of "Nausea," a song originally released by punk band X in 1980. It was with great excitement that the musician posted about their collaboration on Instagram.
"I wanted to record a song that would not only pay tribute to the people and music that influenced me to become a musician but also to pay tribute to my long family history," Dave wrote. And with this in mind, who better to collaborate with than Violet? In the post, the doting dad praised his daughter for her singing abilities and shared his pride. The rocker also dug into his familial connection to the song: X's drummer, D.J. Bonebrake, is his cousin. "It felt so meaningful to have the first song Violet and I record together to be a tribute to our Bonebrake heritage," he wrote. "It was a moment that superseded anything musical. A life moment that I will cherish forever. A family moment."
Dave echoed this sentiment on an episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live." "[Violet is] an amazing singer, but it also kind of follows this lineage, this family history ... it's this Bonebrake family tree that means a lot to me," he said.
Violet Grohl has a collection of tattoos
Violet Grohl is a fan of body art, and she has showcased several of her own tattoos on Instagram. In an Instagram post from January 2023, she showed fans her back with two angel wings tattooed onto it. Another Instagram photo from February 2024 shows the top of her arm, which appears to have a heart and dagger tattoo design. She also has a septum piercing.
Dave Grohl has not publicly commented on his daughter's tattoos, but as his own collection of tats suggests, he sure is a fan of ink. His assortment of tattoos includes the Foo Fighters logo on his neck and three designs in honor of Led Zeppelin. "I did the first one myself when I was 16," he told Rolling Stone of one Zeppelin tat in an interview in 2009. "I tried to get different colored ink to make it seem pro, but now it looks like someone put a cigarette out on my f***ing arm." Luckily, the two pieces that followed yielded better results.
Harper Grohl loves art
Harper Willow Grohl is Dave Grohl and Jordyn Blum's second child. Born on April 17, 2009, Harper's got a majorly creative side. Her personal Instagram account features snapshots of works of art and photographs of locations that have caught her eye, and her art account features pictures of her own sketches and paintings.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Like Willow, Dave has a deep appreciation for art — especially works created by Foo Fighters fans. "[The members of Foo Fighters] like sending each other weird fan drawings because we always think they're really funny," he told NME in 2017. "I love it when the fan will draw a picture and spend loads of time on it and be really proud of it and be like, 'I did it because it looks just like you,' and they're always just a little off."
The Foo Fighters frontman has been known to take to the canvas from time to time, too. In 2023, Dave pumped out some works of art for the Sea.Hear.Now Festival that went up for auction. One of the sketches featured a basic beer bong construction guide.
Harper Grohl wrote a song with Paul McCartney
Like her father and older sister, Harper Grohl is also a keen musician — and she's already worked with a bona fide music legend. On a 2022 episode of "The Graham Norton Show," Dave Grohl recounted the time his middle daughter showcased her own musical talents while the family happened to be hanging out with Paul McCartney. "So we had just had Ophelia, our youngest, and Paul and Nancy [Shevell] were in town," Dave recalled. "[McCartney] sits down at the piano, and he starts playing 'Lady Madonna.' In my f***ing house! My mind is blown; I can't believe this is happening." But the night got even better when the music legend offered to teach Harper, who was 5 years old, to play piano.
"She'd never taken a lesson to play any instrument at that point, and she sat down, and she watched his hands. They sat together, and he was showing her what to play," Grohl said. During that impromptu jam session, McCartney and Harper wrote a song together.
Alas, Harper's love for the piano was short-lived. "She's like, 'I want to be a drummer.' I'm like, 'Are you out of your mind?!'" Dave said. Harper was serious: In 2017, she joined her dad onstage in Iceland to play a rendition of "We Will Rock You."
Ophelia Saint Grohl appeared on Ryan's Mystery Playdate
Born August 1, 2014, Ophelia Saint Grohl is Dave Grohl and Jordyn Blum's third daughter. Her life remains the most private of their three girls, but she did appear on the Nickelodeon series "Ryan's Mystery Playdate" in 2019 alongside her dad. In the episode titled "Ryan's Legendary Playdate," Dave performed an altered rendition of "If You're Happy and You Know It." As the song began to wind down, Dave sang, "If you're happy and you know it, pie your dad." And what do you know, Ophelia happily obliged.
While Dave seemed to enjoy himself on "Ryan's Mystery Playdate," it sure doesn't sound like he's open to the idea of appearing on any TV series — especially singing competition shows like "American Idol." "When I think about kids watching a TV show like 'American Idol' or 'The Voice,' then they think, 'Oh, okay, that's how you become a musician, you stand in line for eight f***ing hours with 800 people at a convention center, and then you sing your heart out for someone, and then they tell you it's not f***ing good enough,'" he told Sky magazine (via Globe and Mail) in 2013. He also said that he believes music competition reality shows are "destroying" the industry.
Their dad lets them listen to what they want
Dave Grohl is one of the most revered musicians of his time and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, first with Nirvana, then with Foo Fighters. It should come as no surprise that he has some opinions about what his kids listen to. "The worst thing [my kids] impose on me is Katy Perry's latest album. ... Her music is a real test in terms of loyalty toward your kids," he once told The Red Bulletin (via Spin). Regardless, he lets them like what they like — and it sounds like he's definitely not the type to constantly suggest they listen to his own oeuvre instead.
That said, Violet Grohl has shown an interest in her dad's music, even joining him to play at the charity show for The Art of Elysium's annual Heaven Gala in 2020. Violet and Dave performed Nirvana songs "Lithium," "Heart-Shaped Box," and "Been A Son."
Dave also found it cool that Harper Grohl is familiar with Nirvana. "Last night actually, my daughter Harper, she's 11, she's like, 'Dad, can we just go drive around?'" He said on "The Howard Stern Show" in 2021. "And 'Come as You Are 'came on the radio, and she started singing. She's saying every word! I've never played her that record, we don't talk about Nirvana and stuff, and she was singing every word to the song! That to me, that feels good."
Their dad isn't keen on the idea of them dating musicians
When it comes to his daughters' dating lives, Dave Grohl has at least one rule. "If my daughter ever comes home with a musician, I'll pull him aside and say, 'I'll get you a record deal if you stop f***ing around with my daughter,'" he said on "The Project" (via Daily Mail) in 2015. A few years later, he shared this same plan on an episode of "The Kelly Clarkson Show." "I think this will work," he stated.
Grohl certainly knows a thing or two about how messy musicians can be, so it checks out that he wouldn't be thrilled to see one of his kids get wrapped up in that mayhem. Of course, he himself does not fit the "wild rocker" stereotype; Grohl is known as the "family man" of rock 'n' roll. And long before he met the woman he'd one day marry and have kids with, he saw himself as a family man.
"I always imagined I'd do [music] for a little while, it would end, and then I'd meet a nice girl, have a family, get some sort of job," he shared on "The Waterstones Podcast." That prediction only sort of came true: While he indeed did find love and start a family, his music career has yet to end.
They may not always ask their dad to help with homework
Dave Grohl dropped out of high school, and in a post for The Atlantic titled "In Defense of Our Teachers," he called himself "a terrible student." He has achieved great success without a high school degree, but when it comes to academics, he has joked about how his smarts and skills are best used in other ways.
"My kids know who I am, okay? I've read my report cards to my kids before, so they're not necessarily going to come to me for anything academic — they just don't," Grohl told "BBC Breakfast" (via NME) in 2021. "I could be a cheerleader, I could make you a great breakfast, and I could make you smile before you start your day, but you don't necessarily want me in your history lessons; you don't necessarily want me helping you with trigonometry."
Grohl has also publicly discussed the value of education and the importance of teachers. In an October 2020 video chat that was shared on the Foo Fighters' X page (formerly Twitter), the musician, his mother, and Jill Biden talked about the subject. "I was raised by a school teacher, so I knew as a child how hard my mother worked, not just at the school, but within the community," Grohl said.
They have influenced their father's music
Fatherhood has, of course, impacted Dave Grohl's life, but it has also shaped his music in a big way. "When you have kids, you see life through different eyes," he told Time in 2009. "You feel love more deeply and are maybe a little more compassionate. It's inevitable that that would make its way into your songwriting."
"Waiting On A War," the fourth track on the Foo Fighters album Medicine at Midnight," was inspired by a conversation he had with Harper Grohl about current world events. As he told the BBC in 2021, one day she asked him, "Dad, is there going to be a war?" This not only stuck with him, but reminded him of how scared of war he was when he was a child. "I guess that she'd turned on the television and had seen something about North Korea or Iran, or whatever it was," he said. "[I]t was heartbreaking to think that she was feeling that same hopeless fear that I had when I was a kid."
The Grohl girls' dad loves being a dad
Dave Grohl's mom, Virginia Grohl, could not be more proud of the dad her son has become. In an interview with The Guardian in 2017, she praised her son for being a hands-on father. "He makes their breakfast, he packs their lunch, and then he goes to the studio," she said, before noting that he "really is as nice as everyone says."
In his aforementioned 2014 "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" interview, Dave opened up what his morning routine looks like now that he's a dad. And yes, just as his mom said, he's involved in all the day-to-day minutiae. "I get up, and I get in the shower and get my act together," he said. "And then I gotta get them up out of the bed, but then I gotta get the snack packs going, they come into the kitchen, and I get the breakfast going. Once they've had breakfast, I get them dressed, and they get dressed, and I get the backpacks and the snack packs into my minivan."
As the frontman of one of the biggest rock bands in recent history, Dave has spent a lot of his life out on the road. However, when his kids entered the picture, he was ready to make a significant change to his work-life balance. As he told Time in 2009, "I used to tour nine months out of the year. Now I don't like being away from my kids for more than 12 days."