You don't just become the coolest motherfucker in rock overnight. It requires years of training, your entire life in fact. Dave Grohl is a lifer! In fact, he recently shared a photo of a letter he hand-wrote to Minor Threat's Ian McKaye that proves this fact:
Look what my hero Ian Mackaye (Minor Threat/Fugazi) just found: a letter I wrote to him when I was 14! Haha! pic.twitter.com/Ak8gxZz5m6
— Foo Fighters (@foofighters) May 28, 2015
This is how hard it was to discover new music. While today, we have endless options between Spotify, Youtube and everything in between to discover music, back then, you had to tape trade. And you had to find people to trade with. So you would write a letter, and leave your phone number with the times that would be appropriate to call.
Sometimes I forget how lucky we are as music fans nowadays.
