Foo Fighters Star Dave Grohl Recalls The Rude Words That The Rock Star Told Him
The world-famous rock band Foo Fighters guitarist/singer Dave Grohl wrote a new story on his Medium page and recalled the weird conversation he made with the rock star David Bowie while discussing how David Bowie affected his musical life.
“Frozen in my living room chair, my stomach dropped like a lead weight as I stared down at my laptop screen in horror,” he wrote in the story he shared. “Fingers trembling above the cold keyboard, I read and re-read those two sentences over and over again, praying that perhaps it was just some sort of typo, some kind of cruel autocorrect disaster. But… it was no mistake.
“David Bowie had just told me to fuck off.
“Believe me, it wasn’t the first time my battered ears had heard such colorful language, but from the ‘Thin White Duke’ himself? What could I have possibly done to illicit such a soul-crushing reaction? Was it something I said? Or, had I done that thing that I always do when faced with a bonifide legend, nervously displaying all of my most annoying tendencies? (There are many, trust me) I retraced all of our brief encounters together over the years, digging back int…’My Life with David Bowie’ (God, how I wish that were the title of my book…)”
While he talks on David Bowie’s success and affecting his musical style, Dave Grohl called him as a red-blooded rock musician.
“Like most red-blooded rock musicians, David Bowie provided an indelible addition to the soundtrack of my life from an early age. His first live album, ‘David Live’ was on regular rotation in my living room when I was a kid, and his classic track ‘Suffragette City’ was quite a hit at the backyard parties I played with my nerdy high school band in the early 80’s (I sang the ‘Hey Man!’ background vocals with the best pre-pubescent shriek I could possibly squeeze out of my skinny little neck).
“Come to think of it… I can still vividly remember the time I vomited Kung Pao chicken all over my sister’s VW bug after drinking too much cheap beer at a high school party, while the sweet sounds of ‘Space Oddity’ crooned in the background. Ahhhh… the memories. But, the album that really stole my heart, and I know that I’ll be drawn and quartered by hardcore Bowie fans for admitting this, was his 1983 masterpiece ‘Let’s Dance’.
“As much as I want to pretend to be in love with his deeper, darker Krautrock/Berlin phase, I really just want to do the Molly Ringwald dance to ‘Modern Love’ everyday for like, 8 hours a day. (Sorry Pitchfork!) Seriously though, those drums, courtesy of Omar Hakim and Tony Thompson, illuminated many a lightbulb in my feeble little brain, and their influence can be heard in every band I’ve played with since. (Upon meeting the late, great Tony Thompson years ago, I confessed that I had stolen more than a few of his drum riffs in my career, to which he replied, ‘Oh, I know…’)
“Over time, Bowie became a welcome constant in my crooked musical path. Example: when Nirvana was approached by MTV to shoot an episode of their popular ‘Unplugged’ series in 1994, we were faced with a most puzzling challenge: translating our screaming, dissonant, distorted rock songs into something more along the lines of that acoustic ballad by Extreme (you know the one). Practically unfathomable!”
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