It's midnight, and 30,000 anxiety aloft New Mexico, with his aback adverse the cockpit of a clandestine plane, Dave Grohl bliss aback in his costly covering bench and takes a celebratory sip of Crown Royal. The smoke from a Parliament in his larboard duke wafts through the baby cabin, area a Police accumulation pipes through the speakers. Four canicule afterwards the absolution of their bifold anthology In Your Honor, the Foo Fighters - Grohl, bagman Taylor Hawkins, bassist Nate Mendel and guitarist Chris Shiflett - are ambagious down an aggressive promotional tour, and Grohl care to be exhausted. This morning the bandage flew to Roswell, broiled all day at 100-plus degrees in an aeroplane aerodrome - abreast the declared website of a UFO blast that abounding accept happened in 1947 (the band's name refers to Forties Air Force argot for UFOs) - to accomplish for hundreds of admirers and challenge winners accountant in from about the country. To Grohl, beddy-bye is unproductive, and he's benumbed top on tonight's performance, accustomed on conversations about the actuality that he hasn't done drugs in fifteen years, about the abundance of Stewart Copeland, and he action about the bare sum at the basal of his latest Nirvana ability check.
Foo Fighters Reunite, Play New Songs at Secret Show
Like abounding of the Foos' appropriate trips, the adventure from Los Angeles to Roswell is a ancestors affair: Grohl's wife of two years, Jordyn, hangs out in the aback of the twelve-seat Cessna with Hawkins and his fiancée, Alison Williams; Virginia, Grohl's mom, is plopped down in the aback lounge. "My parents formed in actuality harder to accession me," Grohl says. "So if I can acknowledgment any of that favor, I do. A lot of of our parents are retired, so if we go to Reykjavik or Japan or some abode they've never been, bigger to do it with us than some abrupt fucking bout accumulation that gives anybody diarrhea."
This commodity appeared in the July 28, 2005 affair of Rolling Stone. The affair is accessible in the online archive.
Independence Day apparent the tenth commemoration of the Foo Fighters' aboriginal release, recorded in beneath than a anniversary and played in actuality by Grohl except for a Greg Dulli guitar allotment on the song "X-Static." "The aboriginal almanac was such a fluke," he says. "Had I taken it added seriously, I would accept spent added than 5 canicule authoritative it." But Foo Fighters eventually awash added than 1 actor copies, and the Foos' next three albums - The Colour and the Shape and Grammy winners There Is Nothing Left to Lose and One by One - accept bigger on that aboriginal success. "I knew that I'd adulation to play music for the blow of my life," says Grohl, "but I never anticipation that it would accumulate the aforementioned name for ten years, that it would become what it is now. I had a abstruse adumbration the aboriginal time we accent the Reading Festival [in England in 2003], as I was staring at my mother and my sister on the ancillary of the stage: that I wrote a song on the aback of a fucking AM/PM receipt, and now 60,000 humans are singing it. I candidly acquainted like the luckiest guy in the world."
Photos: 1990s Polaroid Portraits
Grohl's parents - both from Ohio - met accomplishing association theater. His mother had a admirable voice, and his father, James, was a classically accomplished flutist. "He was a adolescent prodigy," says Grohl. "In the Fifties he was in actuality into jazz, so he had this beatnik ancillary to him. If you acknowledgment aboriginal applesauce or Kerouac or any of that shit, my dad will alpha cogent you how Ginsberg hit on him." If Dave was built-in in 1969 - three years afterwards his sister Lisa - James Grohl had become a anchorperson for the Scripps Howard News Service, accepting a ringside bench to the Watergate hearings if the ancestors confused to Virginia in the aboriginal Seventies. "Growing up in Springfield, Virginia, you're fifteen account from craven farmers and fifteen account from the White House," says Grohl. "You could go alcohol Robitussin and drag lighter aqueous all anniversary and afresh go into the city-limits and see hardcore bands on the weekends." His ancestors could never allow a boom kit, so pillows acted as drums and almanac sleeves were cymbals while he advised and played forth to Minor Threat's Out of Step, Bad Brains' Rock for Light and Rush's 2112. His heavy-handed boot appearance was built-in because the alone sticks he had were as blubbery as his arms, bigger ill-fitted for a boot band. "When I sat down on somebody's boom kit, I'd breach everything," he says. "I'd exhausted the bits out of it." He corrective houses one summer to acquire money for his aboriginal kit. Admitting he still owns some of the drums, a lot of were destroyed afterwards Kurt Cobain afresh dived into them.
Rock-A-Likes Photos: Dave Grohl, Anthony Kiedis and Added Rockers Strike Familiar Poses
A few canicule afterwards the Roswell show, sitting in the band's advanced flat and alarm amplitude in Northridge, California, Grohl opens up about his three-and-a-half-year assignment in Nirvana. If he speaks about Cobain, his words apathetic down and his articulation grows somber. Sitting in the abode that the Foo Fighters built, Grohl is acutely added adequate talking about his band, not Cobain's band. And there's acceptable news: In Your Honor - the half-rock, half-acoustic bifold anthology that appearance bedfellow spots from Norah Jones and Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones - has awash added than 310,000 annal in its aperture week, the Foos' best admission ever. "At this point in our lives, afterwards ten years, I couldn't accept absurd authoritative addition record, addition twelve songs to added the cycle," Grohl says. "And rather than accomplish what I absurd as accepting our last, which is the way I consistently looked at it, let's accomplish a almanac that opens up addition ten years of albums. Why not accomplish annal forever? Because now I feel like we can do anything."
Who do you accusation for your faculty of humor? My father. He's a abundant storyteller. His e-mails are fucking epic, man. Afterwards accomplishing the anchorperson thing, he became one of the arch speechwriters for the Republican National Convention. He's got a way with words. Whether it was accepting lectured or just accepting a adventure about Niles, Ohio, in the Sixties, it would become like a State of the Union address. It was unbelievable.
As anyone who toured with John Kerry endure year, you must've butted active with your dad. We never in actuality discussed politics. I was alert to [the hardcore band] MDC if he was autograph for the RNC. But if I went out on the Kerry campaign, I wondered what my ancestor would anticipate of it if he eventually begin out.
How did Kerry affect the anthology title, "In Your Honor"? Well, for the bedrock record, I capital there to be anthemic, fist-pumping singalongs. Not some "Pour Some Sugar on Me" bullshit. I spent endure summer traveling to political rallies, arena acoustic music for people. We went through the Midwest in a celebration of buses. We'd cull into these tiny little towns, and bags and bags of humans would appear out to be rescued by this man - you could see it in their faces. The foreground row was Apple War II vets, wheelchairs and academy teachers, not Foo Fighters fans. I was arena "My Hero" for humans that were over eighty. But it was such a able emotion, activity this aggregate energy. It's like watching the backbone of animal will, seeing that sometimes humans do things for the appropriate reasons. Or atonement reasons. It fabricated me wanna fuckin' cry. I came aback from that and started autograph songs.
For anyone with Zeppelin tattoos all over your body, it accept to accept been nice to eventually see John Paul Jones in your studio. We tracked him down, and I got on the buzz with him. There's a song on the acoustic almanac that bare Mellotron, and he's the king. So I explained that to him - I approved not to burst and assume like a bargain whore. We talked for about blaster minutes, and I afraid up the buzz and thought, "Holy shit. I can't accept it!" I grew up admiration Zeppelin like they were church. A brace of weeks later, he strolled in. He brought his mandolin. I approved not to jump beeline up his ass with Zeppelin questions, but Taylor didn't assume to accept a botheration with that. He played on "Miracle," but if he sat down abaft the Mellotron he started arena "The Rain Song." Taylor, Chris and I were fucking drooling. Afresh he starts arena "Kashmir." So I get abaft the drums and we alpha arena together, and [farting noises] I accept a abounding diaper. I slipped in a brace of [John] Bonham fills at the end, and he says, "Well, adorned able you accept traveling there."
When you were eighteen, you toured with the D.C. jailbait bandage Scream. That accept to accept been a acquirements experience. I'd never been accomplished Chicago, and it was a acceptable two-month tour. Everywhere from Fender's Ballroom in L.A. to the Botanical Center in Des Moines. It was seven dollars a day per-diem. Whether it was acquirements how to accomplish live, how to reside aural the fucking borders of a Dodge Ram or acquirements how to fucking account chicks, I abstruse everything. I'd alone out of top school, but I consistently knew I'd be OK. You don't charge abundant to get by. It seemed so simple. I abstruse how to play the drums afterwards a boom set. I didn't accept a car until I was in Nirvana. Cigarettes were cheap, and Taco Bell was everywhere.
Do you bethink the aboriginal time Kurt dived into your boom kit? It was on the aboriginal bout I did with him in England. Afore I abutting the band, I'd alone apparent Nirvana play once, and I didn't even watch them. I saw the aboriginal few songs and anguish up alfresco talking to an old friend. Danny Peters from Mudhoney was arena drums - this is the day afterwards I flew up to accompany the bandage - and I was told not to acquaint anyone why I was there, because they didn't wish to aberration out Danny. He's amazing, but I anticipate they capital a altered affectionate of drummer. So the aboriginal time I in actuality watched Nirvana was if I was auditioning for the bandage in a gnarly alarm amplitude we aggregate with Tad - I didn't apperceive Kurt had a addiction of diving into drummers. So in England, he jumped into my boom kit like some array of Evel Knievel shit. It looked so painful. I mean, it's like diving into a accumulation of area metal. Kurt said already that he aspired to be a stuntman, so whether it was putting firecrackes beneath his shirt to attending like he was accepting attempt or jumping off the roof of his abode with a cape, he had no abhorrence and a top altruism for pain. Launching yourself into a set of drums fucking leaves marks. It's crazy.
How generally did he do that? Appropriate occasions. I anticipate he did that just to get the affliction anesthetic [laughs]. I'd consistently heard that he would dive into Chad Channing's boom set because he was agitated with Chad. So sometimes I anticipation it was cool, sometimes I thought, "Uh-oh," like I was accepting reprimanded for something I'd done wrong. "Is that a acceptable thing?" I didn't know.
What attending did he accept on his face afore he took the leap? At that point I was fucking high-tailing it out of there.
In his 1994 Rolling Stone interview, Kurt talked about your charge for reassurance. You were accepted in top school, played in all sorts of bands.... What was it about Nirvana, or Kurt, that fabricated you so insecure? If I abutting Nirvana I was the fifth or sixth bagman - I don't apperceive if they'd anytime had a bagman they were in actuality blessed with. And they were strangers. There was never abundant of a added affiliation out ancillary of the music.
Krist [Novoselic] and Kurt had a allegorical lifetime connection. Those guys were soulmates. They'd been through so abundant together, from Aberdeen to the success of Nevermind. They fuckin' aggregate everything, and they were the affectionate of accompany that didn't accept to allocution to anniversary added - they just knew. I never in actuality aggregate that moment with them because I came from such a altered place, and aural eight months to a year of accepting in Nirvana, the bandage blew up into something that no one had expected. It was harder to affix with anybody if that happened.
I don't anticipate I've anytime told anyone this, but there were times if Kurt was in actuality atramentous with the way I played drums. I could apprehend him talking about how abundant he anticipation I sucked. But he'd never say it to me. If I'd accost him about it - "Is there a problem? If you wish me to leave, just ask" - he'd say, "No, no, no." A lot of of that happened later, about In Utero. That's if I anticipate Kurt became atramentous with what was blow with the band.
Kurt was so abounding altered things. He was funny or shy or this outgoing, larger-than-life persona. He could be candied or he could be fucking wicked. He could be intimidating. I anticipation I was a appropriate drummer, but I didn't apperceive if I was acceptable abundant to be accomplishing this thing, this big deal. I didn't brainstorm myself a world-class drummer. I was the aforementioned fucking bagman that was in Scream, or arena on my bed. All the pressure....
I can't anticipate of one appearance that I anytime played with that bandage area we absolved offstage and said, "That was great." Never one. Alone two times did I get any advance from Kurt. Already if I abutting the band, in 1990, we were bashed at some disco in England, and Kurt came up and said, "I'm so animated you're in this band. I'm so animated you're down-to-earth." I was like, "Wow!" The next time was in backward '93 or aboriginal '94 if I came home and angry on my bulletin apparatus and had a bulletin from Kurt that said, "Y'know, I was just sitting actuality alert to In Utero, and your boot is so awesome. You did such a abundant job!" I was like, "Wow!" Those two things were advance out by about four years [laughs].
What was that endure year like? You just never knew. There were times if the allowance was lit up with activity and happiness, and there were times if the vibe was like the fucking plague. The endure year, accepting in that bandage was rough. There was a accomplished lot of aphotic bits traveling on. At that point I was active this wonderful, advantageous activity alfresco the band, but if I'd access a bandage environment, that all changed. It wasn't a lot of fun. But if Pat Smear abutting the band, it afflicted everything. We went from accepting fucking bad-tempered dirtbags to kids again. It afflicted our world. He's the sweetest getting in the world. He became in actuality abutting with Kurt. There was laughter.
That leads up to the "MTV Unplugged" performance, in which you in actuality killed. How did you adapt for that? We'd apparent the added Unpluggeds and didn't like abounding of them, because a lot of bands would amusement them like bedrock shows - play their hits like it was Madison Square Garden, except with acoustic guitars. We capital to do something different. Like, let's alarm the Meat Puppets, and let's see if we can apprentice this Bowie cover. Like the Lead Abdomen song ["Where Did You Beddy-bye Endure Night?" - aswell recorded by Mark Lanegan]. Kurt looked up to Lanegan, and his aboriginal abandoned record, The Ambagious Sheet, is one of the best albums of all time. That was the soundtrack to my aboriginal six months in Olympia [Washington]. I listened to it every day - if the sun wouldn't appear up, if it went down too aboriginal and if it was algid and raining. I was lonely. I'd accept to that almanac for reasons. It was a huge access on our Unplugged thing.
It's awe-inspiring to anticipate that, even accustomed the appulse of Nevermind, "Unplugged" ability be the best Nirvana almanac of all. A lot of humans feel that way.
But not you. No, I don't. The bandage had a activity of its own afore I abutting them. The forty-two months or so I was in the bandage seems like a fucking tornado. The memories are broadcast and bleared and out of sync, and I'm abiding some are suppressed. If I anticipate of Nirvana, I anticipate of Bleach. I anticipate of how abundant I listened to the almanac afore I was asked to accompany the band. The anniversary arch up to my audition, I listened to it religiously. It got me off. Already I abutting the band, I broke that activity for myself. I anticipation they were abundant afore I abutting them. Accepting in the bandage broke it.
I'm not abiding if you've anytime announced about this, but area were you if you abstruse that Kurt had attempt himself? I don't anytime get specific. The affair was - I don't apperceive if I've anytime told anyone this - somebody had in actuality told me that Kurt had died afore he died. They told me he had died in Rome, so I started afflicted if he had his OD in Rome. They alleged at 5 or six in the morning. He'd OD'd abounding times afore that that I apparently don't apperceive about.
He'd OD and no one would know, right? Anyone would eventually acquaint me. So they alleged and said he'd anesthetized in Rome, and I fucking air-conditioned out. I just absent my apperception and started wailing. As broken as our accord had become, you just can't brainstorm absolute tragedy in your life. Twenty account afterwards anyone alleged me and said, "Actually, no, he's not dead, he's awake." How weird. That could accept been the happiest moment of my life. If he came home, I talked to him on the phone. We approved to abstain the accountable - we were talking about affairs minibikes or something, and I told him, "Look, man, I was in actuality scared." He said, "I know. I'm in actuality sorry. It was just an accident." I was aggravating to ability out to him and acquaint him that I in actuality cared about him, but it wasn't enough. The time arch up to his afterlife was in actuality strange. He disappeared. He just seemed like he capital to get away. He bailed. I candidly did not anticipate he was traveling to annihilate himself. I just anticipation he was on someone's attic in Olympia, alert to albums. Or something.
Before you'd developed the abstraction for "In Your Honor," you had thoughts of recording a abandoned album. There's aswell the actuality that you took off the summer of 2002 to bout and almanac with Queens of the Stone Age. How did that affect the dynamics aural the Foo Fighters? Everybody feels agnate in that it's nice to get alfresco and acquaintance music with added people. But what I allotment with these three guys in my bandage is so altered from my added experiences. Arena with Nine Inch Nails is an honor, to get in the flat with anyone as accomplished as Trent [Reznor] and to accord to something as abundant as their endure almanac is amazing. Arena drums in Queens was like ESP - we almost talked about music, we just fabricated it. It was like the absolute fuck - like fucking the hottest fucking porn brilliant - something that memories and legends are fabricated of. That absolute agreeable affiliation is something you seek for your accomplished life, and I got it. But afresh there's humans you affix with with your heart, like Taylor, Nate and Chris.
Do you acquisition yourself abating them, in the means that you weren't reassured during your assignment in Nirvana? Affectionate of. This bandage is as advantageous as it is as a aftereffect of all the dysfunction that we've accomplished in every added bandage we've been in. But if you're in a bandage with your best friend, like I am with Taylor.... I mean, I sat over that guy in the hospital for twelve canicule [after Hawkins' painkiller antithesis in 2001] praying for him to appear out of it. Not because I capital to play music with him but because I adulation the guy.
There has to be some astriction in the band, though. It depends. You wish your plan to be great. And at assorted credibility through the process, things get heated. There's consistently a meltdown, because it's such a aerial balance. If we didn't adulation anniversary added as a band, afresh it would abatement apart. But the abstraction that the accomplished Some Affectionate of Monster astriction and battle produces after-effects is a amount of crap. You apperceive what that produces? Fuckin' attorneys and bitching about publishing. It's a basin of shit. Like, I don't anticipate the Oasis brothers abhorrence anniversary other. They alone accomplish acceptable music because they adulation anniversary other.
You spent so abundant time in your barn autograph "In Your Honor," and this was just afterwards you affiliated Jordyn. Was that harder for her? She doesn't accept abundant to accuse about [laughs]. I don't smoke in the house, so my barn is my garage. There's a boom stool with a boombox on top, a cobweb bassinet with apart CDs, a accumulation of cigarette butts about three inches high. It smells like backyard analysis and Parliaments, and I just sit there and accept to CDs and smoke. It's so ghetto, like a little abandoned corner. But that's area I apparent the Futureheads and Top on Fire and the new Kings of Leon record. I'll sit there at 3 A.M. alert to my admired new annal and go to beddy-bye at night with those in my head. It's cool.
When you accept time off, what do you and the wife like to do? Tomorrow's Friday, and that's basin day. We've fabricated a date. We're big on dates. I'm big on demography the adult out to dinner. We accept some candlelight affair every now and then. And our accomplished ancestors is aural a six-mile radius. It's disgustingly domestic. I'm big on Costco.
I've apparent you alcohol Crown Royal and Jagermeister. Do they do altered things to you? Yes. Crown gives you the shits [laughs]. Jager ain't for sippin', it's a affair drink, so you ability as able-bodied go for it. You become anyone abroad - a bigger adaptation of you. It knocks me beeline into fucking party-land. And we accept a bandage adoration every night, which is a attempt of Crown. We don't in actuality say a adoration or do any "hoorah, team" shit. Bandage adoration is a little nip of Crown. Warms up the belly. Accept you anytime approved Brennivin?
Not yet. It's like a bright schnapps from Iceland - like a vodka that's been sowed with car abroad seeds. It gives you this beatific feeling, like you've done acerbic and you can't stop laughing. Like you can't feel your feet. I wish to be America's benefactor of Brennivin.
What would your ad be? A hand-held video of some metal dude - high-tops, bound atramentous jeans, covering anorak and continued hair - walking down a city-limits street, acrimonious up a debris can and throwing it through a window. Afresh it would say [in a TV anchorperson voice], "Brennivin! Absolution the Inner Viking!"
Nice! "In Your Honor" debuted at Number Two, belted out by Coldplay. What do you wish to say to Chris Martin? [Laughs] I'll let him accept it this time. Been there, done that. I don't charge any added Number One annal - I've had a few of those.
You've never awash so abounding albums in one week, though.
There are some moments area you just feel so proud. Like accepting nominated for a Grammy for an anthology you fabricated in your basement in Virginia with some accompany over a keg. Traveling to the commemoration and seeing precious stones and money and limos and fucking icons of the industry, and walking abroad with Best Bedrock Anthology that you fabricated for chargeless in your basement. How abundant acknowledgment does it get? I never anticipation that this bandage could be the better bandage in the world, but to see progression and growth, I feel like a appreciative parent. To fucking see your adolescent abound up right, rather than acceptable a able whore, it's appealing great.
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