Foo Fighters’s Dave Grohl Reports Significant Hearing Loss

Dave Grohl, the former drummer of Nirvana and current frontman and guitarist of Foo Fighters, has recently announced that he is suffering from significant hearing loss and has been reportedly “reading lips for 20 years.”

Grohl appeared on the Howard Stern show where he shared that he can hear the music when performing on stage and recording in the studio, but cannot hear someone sitting right next to him speak when in a restaurant. He told BBC several months ago that he has had tinnitus for 30 years.

Grohl refuses to wear in-ears to protect his hearing. When asked why, he said: “I’ve tried the ear monitor thing before, a long time ago, and the problem that I have with it is that it removes you from the natural atmosphere sound.” He also said that when he tries to put them in, “they just pop out. And I don’t want to look like a praying mantis with these things all over my head. I wanna go out there and go nuts.”

As a result of the pandemic, he has realized that he has been reading lips all this time. Masks have made it even more difficult for him to understand what other people are saying. He added: “I haven’t had them tested in a long time – I mean, I know what they’re gonna say: you have hearing damage tinnitus in your left ear, more so than your right ear.” He says this is because his snare drum and stage monitor are on the left side.