Dave Grohl, Reed Mullin Explain Punk Supergroup Teenage Time Killers
“It was like hardcore karaoke with a bass,” the ever-affable Dave Grohl says of recording with the all-star punk and metal project Teenage Time Killers. “I just sat there, ripping to my favorite drummer [Corrosion of Conformity‘s] Reed Mullin and my favorite vocalists — Randy [Blythe] from Lamb of God, and fucking Neil Fallon, the singer of Clutch, and Pete [Stahl], the singer of Scream.”
Along with Grohl’s appearance, Teenage Time Killers’ debut features 29 other guest shots by some of heavy music’s biggest names. The record, cheekily titled Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and due out this week, sports a collage of current and former members of Fear, the Germs, Slipknot, Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, Bad Religion, Alkaline Trio, Prong and many others who play a mix of catchy punk rock and electrifying gutter metal. The sheer talent on the record (see the full track list here) makes it one of the most exciting punk projects in years, but Greatest Hits’ most notable feature is its effortless feel. Despite the mix-and-match cast, nothing here sounds forced.
“To me, it’s a mixture of Dave Grohl’s Probot project and the seminal fucking punk-rock comp Let Them Eat Jellybeans,” says Mullin, a member of the triumvirate that led the group, referencing a 1981 compilation that featured Dead Kennedys, Flipper and Subhumans. “I don’t know what I’d call Teenage Time Killers, but I do know it’s a supergroup of fucking badass musicians and singers.” By Mullin’s own estimation, the whole thing wouldn’t have happened without Grohl’s generosity and loyalty.
The roots of the project stretch back 30 years. In the early Eighties, Mullin and his Raleigh, North Carolina–based bandmates began making regular trips to Washington, D.C. to check out the city’s booming hardcore scene, led by groups such as Bad Brains, Void, Scream, Minor Threat. At these shows, the drummer talked to other fans and struck up a friendship with “this one kid” over a shared love of Chuck Biscuits, then the drummer for D.O.A., Black Flag and Circle Jerks.
“It took Dave Grohl, like, two weeks to figure out all the shit I knew how to do on drums.” — Reed Mullin
“This kid would approach me every time we’d play D.C.,” says Mullin, whose razor-sharp memory helps him recount long, intricate tales. “It ended up being Dave Grohl, and he followed me around and learned how I did triplets and stuff like that. It took him, like, two weeks to figure out all the shit I knew how to do.”
“Reed was my drumming hero when I was 15 or 16 years old,” Grohl says. “Corrosion of Conformity had a record called Animosity, which was one of the defining albums of that hardcore-metal genre. It’s a classic. It’s the Odessey and Oracle of fucking crossover hardcore metal albums. I’ve stolen so many of his fucking riffs from that record over the years.”