Dave Grohl has the reputation of being a two-time playmaker at the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer with everyone from Paul McCartney to Nandi Bushell, the 12-year-old Zulu-British music phenomenon in which he lost a recent online drum battle.
The former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters leader is the most likely to appear in the rock doc of your choice and the man who is known to leave a $ 1,000 tip at a bar after ordering a drink.
He is Dave Grohl, the most handsome guy in rock and roll.
So it must have been a welcome alternative for Grohl to play so much against the press in “Studio 666”. It is the new horror comedy of Foo Fighters in which he portrays a demonic version of himself.
“I have spent my life trying to be as kind to others as I could,” said the 53-year-old musician via video link from his mother’s home in Washington, DC.
“This is something my mother instilled in me from day one. “She is a teacher in a public school.” (He is also the author of “From Cradle to Stage: Stories From Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars.”) “Be kind to others. But listen, you put those fangs in your mouth and these contacts in your eyes and suddenly are you allowed to be a demon? It feels good [expletive] it’s good to let it go. “
Grohl spoke during a press conference about “Studio 666”, the film that turns BJ McDonnell ‘s tongue-in-cheek (directed by “Hatchet III”), which premieres in theaters only on February 25.
The film tells the cartoon bloody story of the band moving to an Encino mansion to record their very important 10th album. Then there are paranormal things that have to do with horrific events that happened 25 years earlier during the unfortunate recording of another band.
Along with Grohl and his teammates Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett and Rami Jaffee, the film includes guest appearances by Jeff Garlin, Will Forte, Lionel Richie and Whitney Cummings.
In the conversation, Grohl is the familiar, collective self, with his answers scattered with benevolent f-bombs. His beard is gray and he wears glasses and a T-shirt with the area code 202 of DC.
Grohl grew up in the District, studying punk rock at the 9:30 Club. He dropped out of high school at 17 to play drums with the hard-core band Scream, which led him to join Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic in Nirvana in 1990.
“It’s funny,” he says, lighting up a parliament. “I’m here in the house where I grew up, and I always like to sit at the dining room table and smoke a cigarette because” – he slips into a conspiratorial voice – “this is what I did when my mom was not around.”
“Studio 666” performs “Story by Dave Grohl”, but the film was not his idea.
In 2019, Grohl rented the house in the 1940s where the film was shot to record a demo of what would become the actual 10th Foo Fighters album, “Medicine at Midnight”. The album, which the band combined with Adele producer Greg Kurstin, was released (after a pandemic delay) in February 2021.
When the band was called upon to make a horror film, Grohl’s first reaction was, “Is this the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard in my life?”
Then he began to think. “Wait a second. We already have the house. “Why not make the record right here, and do a couple of weeks off and then just shoot some like really low budget slasher film and release it to the fans?”
Grohl, who cites “The Shining”, “The Amityville Horror” and “Evil Dead” as inspiration, thought of an elevator pitch: “The rock band has to make a record, the rock band is tired of using recording studios, the “a rock band finds a creepy old house, I do not know that the house is κατε. occupied. They start making a record, the singer goes bananas, kills the whole band, goes solo”.
This particular story did not last long, as screenwriters Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes began working. “It became an avalanche μεγάλ Now, we look at each other and say, ‘My God, we made a movie!'”
Making the film was a challenge. Foos completed “Medicine at Midnight”, their most groove-oriented album, in January 2020. The band then began working on “Studio 666”, but the pandemic closed production.
There was a break of seven months before they could continue shooting. “We were one of the first big productions to return after the first stage of the pandemic. But the hardest thing was to keep this whole thing a secret for two and a half years. And in fact we did it. “
For his inspiration to play the demon Dave Grohl, the singer-guitarist-drummer returned to his previous acting experience.
In 2001, Grohl played the devil in a video for the song “Tribute” by Tenacious D, the comedy-rock duo of Jack Black and Kyle Gass. He reprized the role in the 2006 film “Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny”.
“They said, ‘We want you to be in the movie, but it’s going to be about six hours of extra makeup and you’re going to be Satan.’ I was like, why not? … And I remember the first time I walked the set as Satan, the men looked scared and the women looked on. It was quite cool. “
So far, the Foos have not been able to tour properly behind “Medicine at Midnight”, although the band has occasionally played high-profile shows, such as an appointment required by the Madison Square Garden vaccine last June that was their first return to historic arena, and another at the Los Angeles Forum, where he brought Bushell to play in the 1997 hit “Everlong.”
The band also recently did a virtual reality concert directed by Mark Romanek on Facebook’s Oculus platform. The show first aired after the Super Bowl, though Grohl did not know when the game was.
“I know absolutely nothing about sports,” he says with a laugh. He was “a lacrosse kid” growing up in DC, “but as soon as I discovered the acid and the Led Zeppelins, it all came out the window.”
The band is playing a festival in Arizona next week and is heading to Central America in March before embarking on a US tour.
In the upcoming shows, Foos may well play “March of the Insane”, the death metal song that plays a key role in “Studio 666”. And maybe they will release a Bee Gees song from their 2021 album with Brothers Gibb covers.
But most importantly, says Grohl, all he and his teammates need to know is that they’re going out on the street playing music.
“We spent the last quarter of the century transporting us [selves] “Around every nightclub, arena, stadium that would allow us,” says Grohl. “So when they took it from us, it stung. Back on stage in front of a live audience: This is what we are here to do. We are not here to make horror movies. We are here to become a rock band. When we go out on stage, I say: “My God, I’m so happy that this is my δουλειά daily job”.
