Foo Fighters have spent the last 25 years becoming America’s most reliable rock band.
It was more just a creative outlet for me.
I said, “Wow, you should bring those songs to the band.”
“When I was recording those things I never imagined that it would turn into a band, much less one that would last 25 f—ing years,” says Grohl.Tony Woolliscroft
GROHL: I gave Pat a cassette because I loved and trusted him.
I wouldn’t give it to my mother, I wouldn’t give it to my sister.
And the fact that he considered it poppy really blew me away.
Shiflett and Hawkins backstage, 2000.Tony Woolliscroft
I just thought it was melodic.
I just thought it was a fun project outside of being in Nirvana.
I said “Yeah!”
Pat Smear, playing with Foo Fighters in 2018.Tony Woolliscroft
I bought an amp pad there and carried it on the plane and then showed up at rehearsal.
GROHL:When Pat joined Nirvana, he brought in this breath of fresh air to the band.
MENDEL: We played a friend’s warehouse space in Seattle just to some friends.
“When someone asks me, ‘What’s your favorite show you’ve every played?’ I’ll say, ‘The one where I broke my f—ing leg,’ says Grohl of a 2015 gig in Sweden. He finished the rest of the tour in a cast.Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
Then Satyricon down in Portland.
They were Seattle’s darling, a three-piece and they were amazing super fun, lighthearted, singalong.
They opened for us and blew us away.
Maybe he’s amazed: Grohl and Paul McCartney on stage in Los Angeles, 2012.Jason Merritt/Getty Images
They just wiped the f—ing stage with us.
I remember walking on like, “F—, we have to follow that?”
I thought, this is going to be a hard road, man.
The air up there: Dave Grohl tests his vertical in 2003.Tony Woolliscroft
[Laughs]Sold ‘em all.
TAYLOR HAWKINS (drummer, 1997-now): Here’s what happened.
And I loved that record.
Shiflett, Grohl, and Smear accepting the Grammy award for Best Rock Album, 2008.Kevin Winter/Getty Images
I still love it!
Probably because I was still just a fan, you know what I mean?
I’m not part of the machine.
Tony Woolliscroft
So I didn’t really ever think there was going to be an opening.
Nor did I necessarily think I was the right drummer.
But I did love the music so much.
Tony Woolliscroft
Because if you saw us, it was Alanis singing with like, Jane’s Addiction playing her songs.
Which really worked great; we were great!
And Dave said, “Yeah.
Do you have any good recommendations?”
And I was like, “Well how about me you asshole?
“[Laughs]
GROHL: I thought he would never leave Alanis’s band.
At the time, they were packing stadiums around the world.
But within the community of musicians, especially in Los Angeles, there’s a Rolodex that goes around.
Drummers know drummers, and drummers are always looking for a gig.
Drummers are like landscapers you need your f—ing yard cut, they will come over.
And drummers are also like sharks.
If they stop moving, they’ll f—ing die.
It took me a while before I could find my own zone, so to speak.
GROHL: I sent Taylor a tape of one of the new songs.
I think it was “Monkey Wrench.”
I swear to God.
I was like, “That’s all I need to f—ing hear.
I love you as a person.
You’ve just given me hearing damage for the rest of my life in three seconds.
You have to be in the band.”
HAWKINS: To be honest, it’s a lot more strenuous than Alanis.
[Laughs]
At separate points, both Mendel and Smear left the band.
But right away I got this gnawing feeling in my stomach.
GROHL: Oh, I was f—ing pissed.
Like, “Dude, we made a pact!”
I remember getting so drunk that we drove home and turfed every front lawn in the neighborhood.
Kids, stay in school, don’t do drugs!
I changed my mind.”
We told each other we loved each other.
I cried and hung up and went back to sleep and threw up, I think.
I was still pretty traumatized by the whole ordeal.
With the addition of two more members, the lineup was set.
This was summer of ‘99, so they sent out cassette tapes to everybody who was auditioning.
They’re in there just vibing with whoever’s in there that totally just killed it.
That guy’s for sure getting it.”
That guy wouldn’t leave.”
Me and Jakob [Dylan, the Wallflowers’ frontman], we weren’t seeing eye to eye.
He inquired about the Wallflowers’ schedule, if there was time.
And there I was with Foo Fighters, doing an acoustic tour all over the world.
So I played on a couple songs and those became singles.
And he’s like, “You know what?
If you’re in the Foo Fighters, it’s not because of the way you play your instrument.
It’s because of who you are.
We have more emotional prerequisites than we do musical prerequisites.
Taylor fits into it because of his love of Queen and Genesis and Yes and Rush.
Nate and I come from the same musical background.
We jumped in vans as teenagers, slept on floors, played squats.
Holy f—ing s–t!
That’s amazing.”
Chris is, without a doubt, the most accomplished musician in the band.
It’s like, sarongs and headwraps.
And he became part of it too.
VIDEO THRILLED THE RADIO STAR
The band’s irreverent music videos quickly became MTV staples.
HAWKINS:“Learn To Fly” was just me and Dave spitballing ideas.
Some of them came from true-life psychedelic experiences, and some just out of wanting to be funny.
[Laughs] I confused a lot of men.
And I think we kind of nailed that look.
SMEAR: I really liked making “Big Me,” which was our Mentos video.
But in general they’re not the most fun to make.
I mean c’mon, “Run”?
Amazing outcome, love it so much!
I’ll never forget, I walked up to mine and it said “Shizlett.”
Yeah, that’s the new guy’s chair right there.
I want to be funny already!"
And then the first one is the “Run” video where we have to look like old men.
I’m like, “Godammit.
I have to start with this one?”
But the special effects were pretty awesome.
GROHL: Still to this day, I love the process, I love being involved.
It’s just weird and rad.
YOU’VE GOT THE LOOK
Rock stardom wrought certain wardrobe challenges, and regrets.
It’s just so f—ing embarrassing.
I think this really works for me.
“[Laughs]Eventually I just gave up the fight.
The dude from the Cure is there and Billy Corgan and Sonic Youth, just mindblowing.
I look like a bowl of porridge.
I recovered though, I figured out how to get a haircut!
But not in time for that photo.
HAWKINS: I used to dye my hair white and my eyebrows and goatee black.
I have no idea why, but I guess it was a good idea in the ’90s.
That just made your hair a helmet.
Whenever I see pictures of me and Dave, especially back then, I can smell the Bed Head.
JAFFEE: No matter how hard you try, a wardrobe fail is inevitable.
I am not going through that whole “I just got this really cool shirt at Fred Segal!”
or “The hot tattooed wardrobe girl told me to wear this tie” again.
My uniform is basically what I wore for 10,000 hours since fifth grade.
You just have to live and die by it at this point, regret it or not.
I’ll say, “The one where I broke my f—ing leg.”
HAWKINS: Oh yeah, Sweden.
I had no idea what happened.
I just noticed that the sound got a little thinner.
And then Nate came up and he goes, “Dude, Dave fell off the stage.
JAFFEE: He just…
I saw him fly down.
It looked like he would land on his head, the way he was already tilting.
It was such a long way down, maybe that actually saved his life.
Maybe he’s like a cat.
But I was like, “Oh my God.
That’s our guy, flying.”
SHIFLETT: It was really kind of an abnormally tall stage.
He was just laying there doing the motion of a hand across his throat like, cut.
GROHL: I put weight on my right ankle, and it’s just not there.
It was dislocated, I’d torn all the tendons.
I snapped the bone in my leg.
Immediately I thought, there’s no way we’re not finishing this show.
Like, there’s no way.
Just keep playing.”
GROHL: This guy looks at me and he goes, “Your ankle’s dislocated.
We have to put it back in right now.”
SMEAR: My heart was breaking for him, I just wanted someone to take care of him.
But f—, the show must go on.
And he’s totally that guy.
That to me was the best thing that had ever happened to the band.
GROHL: My favorite moment?
It changes every year, honestly.
HAWKINS:Playing Wembley with Led Zeppelinwas pretty nuts.
Paul McCartney coming into the studio and playing drums on a song that I got to sing.
It’s just all so surreal.
Being Mick Jagger’s backing band onSaturday Night Live, too.
So we were there rehearsing with him and it was the greatest thing.
But he would come in and go, “Oh, my voice is a little rough today.
I’m just going to kind of take it easy.”
He couldn’tnotbe Mick Jagger.
MENDEL: Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, those are more like cartoon characters for me than idols.
I mean that with respect, in that it’s more like a surreal thing, meeting them.
His harmonica player was like, “I don’t have a harmonica on me.”
So we send a runner, and he comes back with a toy harmonica.
He’s like, “Uh, music stores were closed, toy shop was open.”
Those kind of things, you just can’t make it up.
It’s too good.
SMEAR: Some of them were my real heroes, like the guys from Queen and Alice Cooper.
Even now it’s making me nervous just talking and thinking about it.
I was like some dumb teenager with a girl he’s in love with.
I stuttered and said everything wrong and just embarrassed myself the whole time.
Thanks for letting me know that it showed!
Then Dave’s like, “You know what?
David Lee Roth is coming.
Let’s do a couple of Van Halen songs.
But the greatest moment in that whole thing was when we soundchecked with him at the Forum.
It’s this cavernous empty room.
“Alright, Los Angeles!
Let me hear youscreeeam!”
And there’s no one there.
I was like, that mother—er is a pro.
First of all, the band, we’re on our own label, Roswell Records.
We record the records with friends by ourselves.
We book the tours ourselves.
We make the videos ourselves.
We basically do all of this within our own little perfect bubble.
Not in our continent, it’s not.”
But you’re right, it’s a small group.
We were the only hard rock band there.
Does anybody have a rock band?
Oh, Foo Fighters?
Yeah, just put Foo Fighters on there.”
That was what I imagined was happening.
MENDEL: That’s a thing that people sometimes misunderstand about Foo Fighters.
We’ve never had a hit record.
Even “Everlong” was not one of those songs.
That took a few more years.
It’s been a slow burn the whole time.
SMEAR:I do think the slow climb saved us.
I mean, how do you come back fromNevermind?
It’s brutal, you know?
Now you have dudes with mustaches with theirkidswho have mustaches.
We were always on the f—ing road.
HAWKINS: We are the Grateful Dead of post-grunge.
[Laughs]
GROHL:There was a moment where people started focusing on perfection.
It was like a spectacle.
It was a show.
And it’s raw, it’s imperfect.
We stop songs when we f— them up.
It doesn’t sound exactly like the record.
I think over time that became the allure.
That song might go faster and slower, that vocal sounds a little flat.
But f—, dude, we’re giving it everything we have.
So I think over time, we became that band too.
But it’s real, you know.
At first, I was definitely afraid of engaging the audience, because what would I say?
I can’t be Freddie Mercury at Live Aid.
I can barely f—ing eke out a vocal in a song.
Because people aren’t there by accident.
They come out because they want to hear the songs and sing along.
There’s a lot of us on stage, and it’s loud as f—.
You really have to mess it up bad to drag the ship down.
And maybe on some level we are a heritage act now.
I’m okay with that.
You only get to be the young punks [for a little while].
Once you actually are flying around in private planes and stuff, you’re not really young punks anymore.
You’re well-fed punks.
So I don’t really feel like it’s our duty necessarily to keep rock & roll alive.
I think that duty doodie!
So I think that people might be terrified that we’ve made some slap-bass funk record.
It’s not that.
I compare it toVan Halen.
Not that we sound anything like Van Halen!
MENDEL:It’s light.
It’s not leaden in any way or super dense or aggressive.
And that was on purpose.
SHIFLETT: It’s definitely not a heavy record.
To me, it’s not a radical departure.
But it’s definitely got a little more swagger to it, and that was really fun to make.
It’s nice to not have every song from start to finish just be like 8,000 guitars.
Is he referring to the vaccine?"
But no, part of making an album is the experience and the atmosphere of the moment.
Taylor calls it our old-new record, or our new-old record.
BACK TO THE FOO-TURE
A quarter-century in, the band is philosophical about their future plans.
GROHL:First of all, never say you’re breaking up.
“This is the last tour.”
“No, this is the last tour.”
“Thisis the last tour.”
F— that shit.
Just shut your mouth and put on your instrument when you feel like playing.
They’re like, “Dude, I thought you quit?”
You’re like, “Wellllll….” you’ve got the option to’t do that.
HAWKINS:Hopefully, this will continue for the rest of my life.
But then again, if I die on stage, that’ll be fine too.
Like dying of a heart attack on drums.
It would be kind of poetic I suppose.
SHIFLETT:Well, that’d be a good one.
They’re still crushing it.
We got some good years left."
I’m a planner.
I’d want to plan it.
I’d want to know when it’s happening and celebrate it properly.
What that would look like?
I don’t know.
I’m not there yet.
SMEAR: Why do we have to go out at all?
[Laughs] There doesn’t seem to be a retirement age for rock bands anymore.
And seriously, what else can any of us do?
I’m not kidding, I’m not even qualified to work at Taco Bell.
JAFFEE: There really is no idea of fading away or stopping.
Everyone’s doing shots of whiskey and everyone’s laughing hysterically.
Everyone’s doubled over in laughter until our tour manager says, “You guys, come one.
Let’s go.”
And we walk on stage still laughing.
SMEAR: We’re best friends.
It didn’t even occur to us that people don’t.
I remember we played a gig with the Eagles once, which was really bizarre.
And they met onstage.
Then I remember, “Oh, I’vebeenin bands like that!”
And then I do understand.
We become a little bit telepathic on stage.
Dave’s running the show, he’s busy making sure that the audience is happy.
He’s the guy who goes out at the baseball game and sells the food in the stands.
I’m the guy that’s working on the hot dogs.
Of course, you don’t realize what you’ve got until it’s gone.
It’s like, how am I supposed to give that up?
SHIFLETT: I’ll tell you what I miss.
I miss the immediacy of playing a new song in front of a crowd.
I don’t know where, I don’t know how.
But the one thing I do know is it’s going to be f—ing electric.
It will be amazing.
And then launching into a song and f—ing bouncing around for three hours again.
