In his latest play in the ongoing rock battle with Nandi Bushell, Dave Grohl improvised a superhero theme song for the viral kid drummer.
Bushell, who is 10 years old, has 156,000 subscribers on YouTube and appeared on Ellen last year. Collectively, her videos have more than 18 million views. In August, the viral sensation challenged Grohl to a virtual drum off, calling on the “Rock Gods of old” to empower her beats. To kick off the battle, she covered the Foo Fighters’ “Everlong.”
Grohl, who received “at least a hundred texts” telling him to respond to Nandi’s challenge, borrowed his 11-year-old daughter Harper’s drum kit to face off his opponent. He hadn’t played “Everlong” on the drums since he recorded the song in 1997, he said.
“You are an incredible drummer, I’m really flattered…” Grohl said in his response video. “So today, I’m gonna give you something you may not have heard before.”
Then he launched into a drum cover of the song “Dead End Friends” by Them Crooked Vultures and challenged Nandi to duet him.
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Bushell mastered the cover in less than a week, posting her duet to Twitter. The video already has 1.4 million views.
“The Rock Gods of old are happy!” Bushell captioned the video.
Grohl would not be one-upped though. For Round 2 of this virtual rock battle, he donned another of his endless supply of flannel shirts and wrote Bushell a theme song “off the top of his head.” With his daughters (The Grohlettes) on background vocals, he exalts her ability to play any song and predicts that she’ll “save the world with rock and roll.”
“Number one supergirl, best drummer in the world,” Grohl sings, with The Grohlettes following. “Always right on time, hero wunderkind.”
The personalized theme song rendered Bushell speechless. In a reaction video she posted to YouTube on Monday, an enthralled Bushell yells, “He wrote a song about me!”
“We should cover it,” she adds after thanking Grohl. “All the instruments! All the instruments, we’re gonna cover. Let’s get started!”
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There’s one thing for sure: Nandi Bushell does not back down from a challenge. We’re bound to see an incredible response from her soon.