Dave Grohl says Marilyn Manson helped kill the grunge scene.

Dave Grohl

Dave Grohl

The former Nirvana drummer was a driving force behind the genre's popularity in the late 1990s, but he has suggested the rise of shock-rock and goth glamour shifted things away from the DIY punk ethos.

He told Alt 98.7: "Marilyn Manson gets big, and you're like oh cool, now you've got something that is really fantastic to look at, it's really moving, and really powerful.

"The imagery and the music too, you are like, wow that's cool man! Then the hip hop scene sort of took over all of the glamour that the rock and roll thing sort of had in the 80s.

"It's kind of cyclical in this weird way, eventually you'll get to a place where you'll have a hip hop artist who doesn't go that route, or a rock band that does go the glam route."

Meanwhile, the Foo Fighters frontman explained that in a similar way, it was grunge that stepped up as an alternative to the era of extravagant acts like Motley Crue.

he said: "In the 80s you had all these rock bands that got huge. There was so much glamour, all the dudes had crazy hair, limos, they were shooting their videos at Crazy Girls, riding Harleys...it kind of went its course or whatever.

"Then there were a lot of bands that loved playing rock music, but didn't have anything to do with that. It was more about we're just dirty kids who play in garages and write these songs.

"That was sort of born out of the punk rock thing. Then all of a sudden that becomes huge, and that becomes huge for a while, and after that you are sort of like damn man, I sort of want a rock star."