Dave Grohl is currently promoting Foo Fighter’s com Studio 666 movie, and made a stop on First We Feast’s YouTube show Hot Ones. As well as plying host Sean Evans with multiple shots of Dimebag Darrell’s signature Black Tooth Grin cocktail - and acing the hot sauce challenge by knocking back the Last Dab Apollo while revealing that he regularly eats it off a spoon at home - the Foo Fighters frontman also spoke about making and playing music.
Just as we thought we were about to yet again hear about the time Grohl broke his leg after falling off the stage in Sweden in 2015, Grohl was asked about the second most severe injury he sustained while performing.
“I got hit in the face with a half-dollar in Atlanta in like, 1996…I got electrocuted once on stage! We played some fucking corporate gig for Doc Martens in Las Vegas. We were in some hotel and the stage was right by the pool. I thought it would be funny if I invite the whole audience into the pool with me during this jam.
“I’m like ‘C’mon everybody!’ I fucking jump into the pool and the whole audience follows me into the pool. We’re all kind of partying, and then I go back on stage. someone hands me my guitar and I step on my distortion pedal and it’s like [feigns convulsion] actual electrocution! That sucked.”
As the questions continued between rounds of hot sauce-laced chicken wings, Grohl spoke about the band’s connection with David Letterman and his show, his love of bass virtuoso Thundercat and why he still loves the ‘human element’ of music performance and recording.
The conversation turns to Foo Fighters’ history of playing covers, and what can be learned from other musicians where Grohl reveals he once sustained an injury trying to learn Andy Summers' finger-stretching part from The Police’s Message In A Bottle.
“Taylor’s band Chevy Metal has this awesome list of cover songs, one of them being [The Vapors] Turning Japanese. You listen to it on the radio and [it sounds easy] then you try and play it on guitar and you’re like, ‘Oh my god this is so fucking hard!’
"I remember once trying to play Message in a Bottle, and I fucking pulled a muscle in my hand! Playing a Police song! I was like ‘How do The Police do this without hurting themselves?!’
“Some musicians, you sit there and you talk…but then you put on instruments and you start playing, and you actually get to know the person better playing, without words with instruments. Because everyone does it differently, it’s pretty rad.”
Foo Fighters’ Studio 666 is showing in cinemas now, with Dave Grohl promising a full album by his fantasy thrash metal band, Dream Widow in the next couple of weeks.
