Dave Grohl Remains Upbeat Despite Personnel Change
No one seemed to be having more fun than Dave Grohl at the recent MTV Video Music Awards after-party. The leader of the Foo Fighters was racing around toting a daisy-covered lamb he snitched off the buffet table, introducing the Styrofoam sheep to roving camera crews as his “date.”
“It was so cool-looking, and I just wanted to take it home,” he says by phone a few days later. “At the next party, I just wanted to cut off its head and give it to Marilyn Manson.”
That night, Grohl lost his sheep, not to mention his lead guitarist: On the heels of the departure of original Foo drummer William Goldsmith, guitarist and House of Style host Pat Smear decided to make his own exit announcement - onstage, in the middle of the Foo Fighters’ pre-awards show live performance.
“That had been in the works for a really, really long time,” says Grohl. “He (Smear) broke it to us that he wanted to leave the band before we went on tour for this record and we said, ‘If you could just hang out long enough that we could find another guitar player, that will be OK.’ Then we found out we were doing the MTV awards, and we thought it would be perfect - there would be no question it’s true that Pat quit the band.”
You would think Grohl would be a little more depressed about losing two bandmates in less than two years, but he waxes enthusiastically about his new guitarist, Franz Stahl, who played with Grohl in the ‘80s hard-core band Scream. He’s equally thrilled about replacement drummer Taylor Hawkins, who formerly played with Alanis Morissette, calling him “an amazing drummer - the best.”
Having faced quite a bit of internal politics in his new band, as well as during his stint with Nirvana, it’s surprising that Grohl is so upbeat about the future. Grohl has his television on during the interview and, coincidentally, a recap of the MTV pre-awards show comes on. “This is the part where Pat quits,” he says, then, softly adds, “That’s our band.”
Perhaps he’s better at baring his soul through the songwriting process. While the Foo Fighters’ first record featured lyrics about nothing in particular, “The Colour and the Shape” is much more personal.