Dave Grohl Confesses He's Been Reading Lips For Decades Due To Hearing Loss

Dave Grohl is opening up about the effects decades of touring has had on his hearing.

During an interview on "The Howard Stern Show" last week, the Foo Fighters frontman revealed that he is "deaf" and that he's been reading lips for the past 20 years.

"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 by a doctor. "'You have hearing damage tinnitus in your left ear, moreso than your right ear.'"

Grohl admitted that it is extremely challenging for him to hear other people in public places. However, communicating with others became even more difficult during the pandemic when he couldn't read people's lips due to face masks covering their mouths.

"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," Grohl continued. "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.'"

Tinnitus is commonly described as a ringing in the ears, but it also can sound like roaring, clicking, hissing or buzzing and can be soft or loud, high pitched or low pitched, according to National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

The condition 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.

Although he suffers from hearing loss, Grohl said he can still hear "the slightest little things" when recording in the studio and 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 added.

During the interview, Stern questioned why Grohl didn’t wear in-ear monitors like many other musicians, both to help them hear better on stage and to protect their ears.

The rocker said he doesn't use it because it "removes [him] from the natural atmosphere sound" and "messes with [his] spatial understanding of where [he is] on stage."

Grohl follows many other rockers who have struggled with hearing loss over the years, such as The Who's Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, Neil Young and Eric Clapton.

During a 2021 interview with AARP, singer-songwriter Huey Lewis, 71, said he lost 80% of his hearing in his right ear and was diagnosed with Ménière's disease in 2018.

He told Rolling Stone in 2020 of the Dallas gig where he suddenly lost his hearing, "I just heard this horrible noise and I couldn't find pitch or even hear myself. It was an absolute nightmare. The worst thing. Just horrible."