Dave Grohl Details Hearing Loss, Describes Himself as 'F--king Deaf'

Dave Grohl is getting candid about his hearing loss.

The 53-year-old Foo Fighters frontman was a guest on The Howard Stern Show, where he revealed the full extent to the damage his years on stage have done to his ears, describing himself as “f–king deaf.”

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“I haven’t had them tested in a long time — I mean, I know what they’re gonna say,” he said of getting his ears checked out by a professional. “‘You have hearing damage tinnitus in your left ear, morseo than your right ear.’”

Tinnitus is a ringing in the ear that can develop over time when ongoing exposure to noise damages tiny sensory hair cells in the inner ear that help transmit sound to the brain, per the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

Dave went on to say he found it especially challenging to hear people during the pandemic, as he relies heavily on lip-reading and can’t understand people when they’re wearing masks.

“If you were sitting next to me right here at dinner, I wouldn’t understand a f—ing word you were saying to me, the whole f—ing time,” he explained. “There’s no way. In a crowded restaurant, that’s worse. That’s the worst thing about this pandemic s—, it’s like, people wearing masks. I’ve been reading lips for like, 20 years, so when someone comes up to me and they’re like [garbled noise], I’m like, ‘I’m a rock musician. I’m f—ing deaf, I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

Despite his difficulty, Dave said that he’s still able to hear “the slightest little things” when recording or mixing albums.

“My ears are still tuned in to certain frequencies, and if I hear something that’s slightly out of tune, or a cymbal that’s not bright enough or something like that, in the mix, I can f—ing hear the minutiae of everything that we have done to that song, I really can,” he said.

While many performers opt to where in ear monitors on stage in order to get a direct source of sound and protect their ears, the “Learn to Fly” singer shared that he prefers to perform without them as it “removes [him] from the natural atmosphere sound.”

“I wanna hear the audience like, in front of me and I want to turn around be able to hear Taylor [Hawkins] right there and go over here and hear Pat [Smear], and go over here and hear Chris [Shiflett] and stuff like that,” he noted. “It just messes with your spatial understanding of where you are on stage.”

He also said that the same person has mixed his monitors for the past 31 years, who makes sure everything on stage is “f—ing perfect.”

The Foo Fighters appear in a new movie called Studio 666 and you can check out the trailer here!