10 Things We Learned Hanging With Dave Grohl
8. The hardest thing about being in Foo Fighters:
Bassist Nate Mendel: “It’s a joke in the crew. The hardest thing about the job is getting fired.”
Hawkins: “Dave’s not the buddy-buddy guy, We don’t talk on the phone all the time. He’s always like, ‘I gotta go!’ But he wants to be surrounded by people he knows. I hear about bands where they fired their entire crew. They’re always getting rid of somebody in the band. They’ve changed management three times. It would be awful to have to reassimilate so many times. It can get fucking personal here. But it’s okay. Because it’s family.”
Guitarist Chris Shiflett: “I don’t assume this is going to go on forever. To this day, I look at every big check I get as possibly my last. It puts me in that frame of mind every time. But there’s been moments over the years: ‘Fuck, this could go on for awhile.’ Like when we built this place [Studio 606]. ‘We’re committed to something here.'”
The studio was a band investment?
Shiflett: “Yeah. We just bought the building next door. When we do shit like that, obviously we all intend not to go anywhere anytime soon.”
9. Grohl gets stage fright – but doesn’t show it.
Vig: “He used to get stage fright, really uptight, before a show. But you never see that. He doesn’t pace around backstage, worrying. I was at some of these gigantic shows they did in London. I’d be backstage with him, and he’d be like, ‘Man, let’s have a shot of Jagermeister.’ Or talking: ‘Hey, I’ve got this idea.’ Somebody would go, ‘Dave, time to play.’ He’d get up, throw his guitar on and twenty second later, Foo Fighters were playing a song. He didn’t need to be isolated, do a warm-up ritual. He just goes, ‘I gotta go play a show now.’ You get the sense that he’s so at ease with that. You would never suspect that he has his own inner terrors or anxieties.”
10. The day Grohl jammed with Prince:
“Foo Fighters recorded this version of [Prince’s] “Darling Nikki’ in Taylor’s basement. KROQ [in Los Angeles] got their hands on it. They started playing it all the time. We thought we should put it out as a special feature on a DVD. We ask Prince. Prince says no. Then the year Prince plays the Super Bowl., we get the call: ‘He’s doing one of your songs.’ In the middle of this medley, he does ‘Best of You’ [on 2005’s In Your Honor]. He turns it into this gospel-rock experience that blows our version out of the water.
“Then three years ago, Prince books 21 nights at the Forum [in L.A.]. I can’t fucking wait. I go to the first show, in a party bus with all my friends, boozing it up. I walk into the Forum Club and bump into somebody from a road crew I’d work with before. He says, ‘Prince knows you’re here. He wants to jam.’ The end of the night, I’m standing next to this black curtain. I pull it back – there’s Prince with Sheila E. I go, ‘Hey, man, great show.’ He says, ‘When do you want to jam? How about Friday?’ All right, cool!
“For a week, I held that cellphone, on vibrate, waiting for it to ring. Friday comes around and I just go down there for soundcheck. The person who works with Prince says, ‘He’s a little under the weather. He’s not going to soundcheck today.’ So I go to catering. I’m talking to my tech; I have no idea what’s going on. And Prince just appears: ‘Hey, man, what are you doing here?’ I thought we were going to jam. ‘Alright. Do you want to play drums?’
“We start playing. He’s got the whole band up there, throwing chord changes with his fingers, conducting the band as we’re jamming. I can’t believe this is happening. And it’s happening in a completely empty Forum. Then he puts on a guitar and starts playing [Led Zeppelin’s] ‘Whole Lotta Love’. It’s fuckin’ bad-ass. We do that for ten minutes. It slays. He says, ‘We should do that, man. What are you doing next Friday?’
“I go back to catering. I’m confused. I don’t know if I should stay. One of his guys says, ‘He knows you’re here. He might call you up.’ And his shows are long. I lasted two hours, tried not to drink. But I had to go. And the next Friday I had a fundraiser at my kid’s nursery school.
“I never heard from Prince again. But I swear it happened. I swear. And nobody saw it.”
10 Things We Learned Hanging With Dave Grohl, Page 3 of 3