In a heartwarming and truly surreal memory, Dave Grohl recently shared the incredible moment when Paul McCartney, the legendary Beatle, taught his young daughter to play the piano.
Speaking fondly during a recent interview, Grohl recalled how McCartney, one of his idols, sat down with his daughter at the piano and gently showed her the keys. “I’m sitting there, watching my daughter, and Paul McCartney is showing her how to play a Beatles song on the piano,” Grohl said, clearly still in awe of the once-in-a-lifetime experience. “It was like one of those moments you never forget. You can’t believe it’s actually happening.”
The scene was as magical as it sounds. McCartney, with his signature warm demeanor, effortlessly guided Grohl’s daughter through the notes, casually imparting his musical genius in the most humble way. For a father who had spent his life in music, witnessing such a moment left Grohl emotional—he was seeing the torch passed from one legend to another, all while his daughter was blissfully unaware of the magnitude of her piano lesson.
For Grohl, a lifelong McCartney fan, the experience was a beautiful reminder of music’s power to connect generations, as well as a memory he’ll cherish forever—both as a dad and a musician. After all, not every father can say that Paul McCartney taught their child to play piano!
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl last week (Oct. 1) shared a heartwarming story on The Graham Norton Show about how his middle daughter, the now 12-year-old Harper, received her very first piano lesson from legendary The Beatles member Paul McCartney.
Appearing on the British talk show while he was in the U.K. promoting his book The Storyteller (out Oct. 5), Dave revealed that Harper “had never taken a lesson to play any instrument at that point.” Still, with Macca, “she sat down and she watched his hands. … He was showing her what to play and they wrote a song.”
Watch the video down toward the bottom of this post.
Dave said, “Years ago, I made friends with Paul McCartney, and his wife [Nancy Shevell] and my wife [Jordyn Blum] swapped numbers. So, every time he’d come to Los Angeles, his wife would text my wife and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to dinner. Would you like to come to dinner?’ And, of course, my wife knows who Paul McCartney is, but I don’t know if he means the same to her as he does to me — he’s a Beatle, you know?.”
Dave continued, “We had just had Ophelia, our youngest, and Paul and Nancy were in town. They said, ‘We want to come see the new baby!’ … So they come over to the house. And, of course, my kids know who The Beatles are, because I brainwashed them when they were young with all of The Beatles’ music. We have wine and pizza and we’re hanging out, and it was time for Paul to go.”
But before the evening was over, Harper got the music lesson of a lifetime from the former Beatle after she made the funny joke of giving him a tip jar.
“There’s a piano in the corner of the room and he just can’t help himself,” Dave said of McCartney. “He sits down at the piano and he starts playing [The Beatles’] ‘Lady Madonna’ in my fucking house! And my mind is blown, I can’t believe this is happening. This is like the most full-circle, crazy moment of my entire life. … Harper, who I think was 5 at the time, is watching [him] on the piano. And she goes to the kitchen, she gets a coffee cup, she puts some spare change in it and puts it on top of the piano like it’s a tip jar.”
Dave added, “I thought, She’s a Grohl.”
The former Nirvana drummer’s oldest, 15-year-old Violet Grohl, is already a musician in her own right — she recently released a punk cover song with her dad and contributed vocals to a Foo Fighters tune.
Last week, Loudwire explored what Dave is whispering in “Everlong.” Foo Fighters’ latest album, Medicine at Midnight, arrived earlier this year with the singles “Waiting on War,” “No Son of Mine” and “Shame Shame.” This month, the band will be inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame.
