Violet Grohl has revealed that her new single ‘595’ was inspired by an “old sex phoneline” T-shirt that dad, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, “hid” from her.
The singer dropped the song yesterday (Wednesday March 11) to accompany the announcement of her debut album ‘Be Sweet To Me’. The record is set to arrive via Aurora Records/Republic Records/Island Records UK on May 29, and will be the first from the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter.
The single ‘595’ is the third to be shared from the record – following on from ‘Thum’ and ‘Applefish’, which she released after signing a record deal at the start of the year.
Now, in a new appearance on The Evening Show with Dan O’Connell on Radio X, Grohl has revealed the story behind the song’s title, and said that she wrote the track after being inspired by a “sex phone line t-shirt” that she ordered online.
She bought the shirt on Etsy, and revealed in the interview that her dad hid it from her after seeing the NSFW design.
“‘595′ was inspired by a t-shirt that I have. It’s an old sex phoneline ad, and I got it on Etsy a while ago. And my dad actually opened up my package and saw the shirt, and then hid it in his studio for a couple months,” she said.
“I scoured the house looking for this shirt, because it said it was delivered, and then I found it in a box in his studio,” she continued. “But we went into the studio, and we had this kind of idea for a rocky, heavier kind of song… and the shirt was just such a main focus that day.
“It says ‘$5.95 per call,’ and there were so many little lines on the shirt that were just so perfect. And we were like, ‘This is kind of incredible. We should write a song about this!’”
In the interview, Violet also opened up about how she didn’t tell her dad that she had signed a record deal, and only told him when they were sitting at the dinner table, after all the paperwork had been signed.
“It wasn’t intentionally kept a secret, but yeah, I didn’t tell him until the day of, and I went over to my parents’ house for dinner, and I was like, ‘I signed a record deal.’ And we had a little celebratory dinner kind of thing,” she shared, dismissing rumours that she did it on purpose to avoid him “pulling in any favours” for her.
“It just kind of happened that way. We were both kind of busy at the same time off doing things. So, we would text each other and catch up, or I’d go over to my parents’ house for dinner, and then we both can talk about what we’ve been up to. And that was that week’s endeavour.”
‘Be Sweet To Me’ was recorded from late 2024 into early 2025 at producer Justin Raisen’s (Kim Gordon, Charli XCX, Sky Ferreira) Los Angeles home studio alongside musicians assembled in the “spirit of the Wrecking Crew session players in the ’60s and ’70s”, according to a press release.
In the interview with Radio X, Grohl also said that she was inspired by songs by Soundgarden, Cocteau Twins, Goldfrapp, The Breeders, Link Wray and more.
As well as the new material on the album, Grohl has also shared the David Lynch-inspired ‘What’s Heaven Without You’ to mark the first anniversary of the iconic director’s death. The track will be available with B-Side ‘Swallowtail’ as an exclusive 7 inch release on Record Store Day on April 18.
While the Foo Fighters legend was not involved in the upcoming debut album from Violet, the two have worked together before, and released a cover version of ‘Nausea’ – originally by Los Angeles punks X – in 2021.
The singer also began hitting the road with Foo Fighters in 2018, providing backing vocals at numerous gigs, and performed with them at the tribute concerts held for late drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022.
She featured on the band’s 2023 song ‘Show Me How’ too, and appeared with them at that year’s Glastonbury to perform the track. Last year, the surviving members of Nirvana – Dave, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear – reunited for a four-song set at the Fire Aid benefit concert in LA, and Violet joined for lead vocals on ‘All Apologies’.
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