Violet Grohl grew up surrounded by music. Her drive to school would be soundtracked by Pixies, Soundgarden, Cocteau Twins, The Breeders, PJ Harvey and Björk. She had piano lessons from a young age ("I'm still not very good") before moving on to ukulele and guitar. By the time she was 12, she had set her sights on a career as a musician. "Billie Eilish was coming up around that time, and watching a young female artist doing it their own way was really inspiring. I loved the way that she confidently took charge, even in really hard and isolating moments."

She spent that summer travelling around Europe with her dad's band. He invited her to join them onstage as they closed out a number of festivals, but she kept turning him down. "I was petrified about getting up in front of that many people." Eventually, he convinced her to give it a try, and she quickly fell in love with the communal energy that comes with live music. "It was just this connection that moves between everybody," says Violet. "From that moment on, I knew what I wanted to do."

When she got home, she started writing songs on an acoustic guitar and capturing them on a cassette recorder before messing around with synths and drum machines on music software tool Logic, creating tracks inspired by shoegaze and new wave. It's a surprisingly scrappy, DIY approach to making music, considering her dad has his own recording studio. "You learn how to play an instrument, you write your own music, and you just figure it out. That's how I understood it worked," says Violet. "I wasn't trying to avoid being associated with [my dad], I just felt more comfortable by myself when I was writing."

As well as loving Billie Eilish, Violet is currently obsessed with Zara Larsson. "She is the epitome of what pop is supposed to be and what it needs to become again. Beautiful vocals, great writing, and it's very her - it doesn't feel like she's wearing a costume. It really feels like this is exactly who she's supposed to be. It's really, really exciting, and I love music that's fun to listen to."

Her own debut album is also driven by authenticity and play. "Making it was pretty experimental," grins Violet, who teamed up with Justin Raisen after falling in love with what he'd been able to create with Kim Gordon on her three electro-punk solo records. Backed by a revolving cast of collaborators, all eleven songs started off as studio jams before she'd write lyrics over the top of whatever felt the most exciting. Usually, the track would be completed the same day. It sounds like a ballsy way to make a debut, but Violet didn't even think of it that way. "It felt good, and we were having fun together. If we have this momentum, why stop?"

On their first day together, Violet and Justin created album opener 'THUM', a searing, desert rock ripper delivered with swagger. The next day came the dreamy melancholy of 'Plastic Couch'. It closes out the album because it still feels like the perfect segue into whatever comes next. "There was this crazy polarity between the two songs, but they still felt like they'd fit on the same album. That was really liberating because there was all this room in between these two things to mess around in."

You wouldn't know it from listening now, but there were moments when the expectations of others would creep into those free-spirited studio sessions and threaten to derail them. "I would worry that things were too much," admits Violet, especially early in the process. One of the first things they wrote was 'Bug In The Cake', which features the snotty, repeated refrain of "moving to Grandma's". After recording it, Violet realised that it sounded a bit too much like Nirvana's classic 'Sliver' for comfort. "Oh fuck. I don't know if we can do that," Violet told Justin about the unintentional homage, but he reassured her. The grunge classic was obviously just part of her subconscious, and she'd used it to make something new that was true to her.

"Now, it only motivates me when I hear stuff like [I have something to prove with this album]," says Violet. "It makes me want to push myself more, open up more and show people what I'm capable of doing. It's not discouraging, it's encouraging."

'Be Sweet To Me', which takes its name from an inside joke Violet has with her friends when playful teasing becomes too much, pulls from all over with its lyrics as well. "I was writing about emotional things that were happening, and there were other songs where we were just dicking about. I didn't want anything to be too serious," says Violet. Even the "very personal, deep" songs have a little bit of humour to them.

Take 'Cool Buzz', a furious slab of frantic punk inspired by her own experiences of misogyny, amplified by stories she'd heard from friends. "In certain studio settings, you do get constantly patronised by the male musicians around you, and that can make you feel really small. I don't think they realise they're doing it… But it would fucking suck if they did," says Violet. "Then you've got the hardcore punk guys [in bands] who put on this mask of being super left-leaning and progressive, but then you go to their shows. It doesn't feel [very welcoming] when there's just a bunch of white guys beating each other up in the pit. There are times that I want to run into that, but it's like, 'how are you going to treat me when I'm there," says Violet. "I just wanted to poke fun at all that."

It's perhaps why she's so determined to make her upcoming live shows as welcoming as possible. "I hope that people take away that music is important, it's connective, and it's a beautiful thing. It can help us through so much, and bring us together during really horrible, tough times."

Violet Grohl's album 'Be Sweet To Me' is out now.