Back in September 1991, Nirvana’s major label debut Nevermind arrived and soon ushered in the grunge-rock era and put the last nail in the coffin of ‘80s Sunset Strip excess. Their Seattle sound was a big sonic shift from the thrash metal and melodic hard-rock split paradigm that had been dominating rock music in the latter half of the 1980s and into late 1991. As a result of grunge and alternative rock taking over, metal lost a major foothold in mainstream music consciousness for years to come, with a few notable exceptions.
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Understandably, a lot of diehard headbangers were upset at the fact this new sound, which many of them didn’t like, had pushed out the music that loved. But the truth is that cultural trends regularly shift. Also the truth: Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl was indeed a big metal fan. He just happened to be in a band that had a different type of sound.
Fast-forward to 2000, and with the dissolution of Nirvana following singer Kurt Cobain’s suicide a decade earlier, Grohl had found success fronting his own band Foo Fighters, who had released three studio albums by that point. The Foos were a hard rocking band with a sense of humor and a sound that occasionally dipped into power pop territory. But something was missing for the drummer-turned-singer/guitarist. That is how Probot reared its monstrous metal head.
Grohl Goes Back to His Roots
In a May 2004 interview with Modern Drummer, Grohl explained, “Probot is just me going back to my roots because I needed to prove to myself that I still had that music in me. I started listening to underground American hardcore in 1982. I had a relative that turned me on to punk rock, and by ’84 I was completely immersed in it. That scene was totally independent and underground. I had my own fanzine, and I started a band. It really instilled that DIY ethic. I started discovering bands like Venom, Motorhead, Slayer, and Mercyful Fate, bands that were similar to hardcore in that the aggression, rebellion, and energy of the music was still there, but they were even nastier.”
While Grohl had attempted to play along (on furniture, at first) with Neal Peart on Rush recordings, he also enjoyed the intense physicality of hardcore punk and metal drummers like Earl Hudson from Bad Brains, Jeff Nelson of Minor Threat, and Dave Lombardo from Slayer.
So when he created his Probot side project, Grohl sought out genre icons of his youth, including Cronos from Venom, Tom G. Warrior from Celtic Frost, and Max Cavalera of Sepultura and Soulfly fame. While some people may have been surprised by this unexpected smorgasbord of metal and some punk influences, it made sense given Grohl’s personal history. And the music was good too.
A One-Man Basement Experiment
In 2004, Grohl told Entertainment Weekly Probot started in 2000 as a one-man basement experiment that was never meant to be an official album. He conjured a series of riffs and laid down guitar, bass, and drum tracks.
“I didn’t even call them songs because they were bare instrumentals with no intention of putting vocals on them and no direction as an actual song,” Grohl told EW. “Then after recording seven or eight of the instrumentals, not knowing what to do with them and deciding, fantasizing about my favorite vocalists singing over them, it started to come together and happen. And three years later the album was pretty much finished, and I had to seriously consider what to do as far as releasing.”
The Probot name came from an obscure character in Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. The metallic creature inhabiting the cover illustration from Voivod drummer Michel “Away” Langevin represented something more menacing and apocalyptic than that. And it fit the music on the disc.
Mail-In Tracks
Like many modern collabs, Probot was mostly recorded by the contributors sending in their tracks. Back in 2004, a lot of it was still on tapes which Grohl assembled it his studio. There were 12 songs and 12 different vocalist/lyricist contributors. Some musicians added bass or guitar parts as well. Only Lemmy and Wino visited his studio to record their contributions. The final collection sounded impressively cohesive.
Some of the standout tracks on the self-titled Probot album included the slow-doom metal grind of “Ice Cold Man” with vocalist Lee Dorrian of Cathedral and Napalm Death, and guitarist Kim Thayil of Soundgarden; the psychedelic, ambient trippiness of “The Emerald Law” with guitarist Wino from St. Vitus and The Obsessed; and the evil-sounding “Sweet Dreams,” which spotlighted King Diamond of Mercyful Fate fame. There’s also the hidden track “I Am the Warlock” at the end featuring Jack Black in exaggerated Tenacious D mode over heavy riffs.
The second single “Shake Your Blood” featured Motorhead bassist/frontman Lemmy and channeled his band’s sound, and the video that was shot was the antithesis of Nirvana’s gloomy “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” A few dozen pin-ups from the Suicide Girls adult website flanked the trio of Grohl, Lemmy, and guitarist Wino—the ladies gyrated, made out, and even engaged in light bondage. And it was done without any irony and in earnest. Seeing the impish grin on Grohl’s face at the end of the clip proved that he really did enjoy making the music and video.
Probot never toured. Given how many guest musicians contributed to the album, it would be challenging to pull off with one steady band lineup. But an incarnation of Probot did perform “My Tortured Soul” on MTV2’s Headbanger’s Ball – drummer Grohl, the late Trouble singer Eric Wagner, lead guitarist Wino, rhythm guitarist Greg Anderson (of Goatsnake and Sunn O)))) on lead guitar, and then-Foo Fighters producer Nick Raskulinecz on bass guitar. The Foos have also performed “Shake Your Blood” twice with Lemmy, in 2006 and 2011.
Looking back, Probot was not only proof that Grohl could be a potent metal riff merchant, but it acted as an unintentional apology to those who resented Nirvana’s ascendancy. But truth be told, metal got pushed aside in the same way that grunge would be a few years later. The difference is that Probot arrived as both classic metal was returning and modern black metal was rising. There has yet to be a major grunge revival in America in terms of a new wave of bands coming in, but the inability of a Nirvana reunion to happen, and the untimely passing of most of the major frontmen of that era like Chris Cornell, Mark Lanegan, and Layne Staley, are likely big factors in that. One needs certain iconic figures to reignite that musical fuse.
Although Grohl has stated that Probot was a once-in-a-lifetime project, one should never say never in rock ‘n’ roll. In considering a possible Probot follow-up album, it should be noted that for the existing album that members of other bands were also considered. But for various reasons (including other commitments) they did not get involved. These included members of Possessed, Testament, Kreator, Destruction, Pantera, Hirax, and Candlemass (whose singer is operatic in style). There’s plenty of metal to pound on in case Grohl becomes inspired to go dive into the Probot universe again.
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