Former Beatle and music legend Paul McCartney can do just about
anything — and that includes hooking his homies up with some kick-ass leg surgery.
Don't believe us? Just ask his good friend — and McCartney super fan — Dave Grohl.
Dave Grohl told the epic story of meeting Paul McCartney in his autobiography,
"The Storyteller," and a Medium post titled "Entering Valhalla" It starts not with McCartney,
but with the son of another Beatle. Grohl says that he was chilling backstage after a
concert when a familiar-looking person was escorted in to meet him: Dhani Harrison,
George Harrison's son. It was 2002, he was in the middle of organizing a tribute concert for
his late father, and asked Grohl if he wanted tickets and after-party passes. He wrote:
"I've never been to a party that I couldn't have missed. Except this one."
In the post, he wrote about hanging out, seeing old friends — and then?
"I noticed Paul McCartney out of the corner of my eye, chatting away with friends,
and I couldn't help but stare. There. He. Was. I don't know what it feels like to
see a UFO. I don't know what it feels like to see a ghost. I don't know what it feels
like to see Bigfoot, but I know what it feels like to see Paul McCartney,
and if that's not a supernatural event, then I don't know what is."
Actually meeting McCartney came not long afterward,
and Grohl says that he was so starstruck that he couldn't remember much about what was said,
or even who introduced them. It was, however, the beginning of a long-running friendship,
occasional partnership, and heartwarming story.
For Dave Grohl, meeting Paul McCartney wasn't just a matter of meeting another famous musician,
it meant meeting a hero — and the legend who set
him on his own career path. In his radio show, Dave Grohl: My Beatles,
the multi-instrumentalist has spoke about hearing "Hey Jude" when he was barely school-age, saying:
"I don't think I'd ever listened to a rock and roll record. This was my introduction,
and it's stuck with me ever since."
"I can honestly say that, if it weren't for The Beatles, I would not be a musician."
In 2012, he spoke with Access Hollywood to share a bit about what The Beatles meant to
both him and Kurt Cobain, saying that while Cobain admired them for their ability to take something
complicated to play and make it seem effortless, his obsession went back much farther. All the way,
in fact, to the basics. Grohl said that growing up, The Beatles served as his music teacher,
as he studied songbooks and dissected tunes to learn how everything came together.
It's understandable, then, that he chalked the meeting up to being one
of the moments he would relive in his last moments on earth,
and credited McCartney with being the one who really kick-started his interest in
music. And afterwards? He called his mother to tell her, who, quote, "cried tears of joy,
knowing that all my years of struggle and faith had led to this profound,
life changing night." She, after all, had been the one to buy him his first Beatles songbook, age 11.
Just because someone's a massive star, that doesn't mean they're
immune to finding themselves in embarrassing situations — and that's exactly what Dave
Grohl says happened to him at one of Paul McCartney's parties. Fortunately for him,
someone was there to come to his rescue, and that was Taylor Swift.
Swift and McCartney sat down to talk to Rolling Stone in 2020, and among other things,
Swift mentioned being at the party and hopping on the piano to play Foo Fighters' "Best of You."
She said that Grohl didn't recognize the song until about halfway through.
"I was just like, 'What's this f—ing song? I feel like I know this song.'"
Grohl, on the other hand, remembered it very differently and told his version of the story
at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. According to him, the real reason that he
hadn't recognized the song wasn't because it was on the piano, but because he'd, quote,
"maybe smoked a little pot." He also added a little back story: McCartney had just wow'd
them with a new song, asked Grohl to step up and play something, and he realized the only
instruments around were the piano — which he couldn't play — and left-handed guitars … which
he also couldn't play. Thankfully, he said he was spared embarrassment when Swift stepped in and
offered to play instead, which he described as being "like Batman when you need him."
"Right at that moment, Taylor Swift stands up. She goes,
'I'l do a song!' And I'm like, 'Oh my god.' And, so, she saved my ass."
Real friends aren't just around for the good times, they're around when you need them the most,
too. Dave Grohl found out the hard way in 2015, when he broke his leg while he was
on stage in Sweden. He told Entertainment Weekly that it had been a bizarre accident:
"I looked at [my foot] and it was just hanging there,
because it was dislocated and my leg was broken. But it didn't hurt. One by one,
the guys in the band stopped playing and peered over the edge of the stage. I was just laughing."
It was during the second of 26 planned songs, and he famously not only finished the show but
continued on with playing more shows while still in a cast. In between, there was Paul McCartney.
Grohl told the Herald Sun that he'd needed to have surgery to fix the damage done to his leg,
and he actually hadn't needed to do too much to get it done. He explained that Paul McCartney had,
quote, "set up [his] entire surgery in London," following his unfortunate accident.
He said that while he credited McCartney and the Beatles for sparking his interest in music
and leading him down a career path where he's able to play for a living, he added:
"But I also would not be walking right now if it
was not for Paul McCartney. He knows some good f—ing doctors."
"Rock fans today are mourning the shocking death of Foo Fighters
drummer Taylor Hawkins. He was only 50 years old."
Dave Grohl has been through a lot of loss during his time as a musician, and that
includes the March 2022 death of Foo Fighters' drummer Taylor Hawkins. Grohl was understandably
devastated, once describing their friendship as something beyond friends, according to NPR.
Understandably Grohl and the rest of the Foo Fighters took some time off from performing
following Hawkins' death. But all it took was a special request from Paul McCartney to get
Grohl on stage again. In June 2022, McCartney welcomed him onto the stage at Glastonbury:
"This guy flew in specially to do this. We love you."
Grohl joined him in a version of "I Saw Her Standing There," his first public
appearance since Hawkins had passed away. Also noteworthy? The set featured McCartney
performing "Something" on a ukulele — a song that had special meaning to Grohl. McCartney
had also played that — on a ukulele — on the night the two met at the George
Harrison tribute concert. Grohl wrote about it in his memoir "The Storyteller," saying:
"I closed my eyes and drowned in the vivid memory of learning that song as a child,
sitting on my bedroom floor ... To me, it seemed that the circle was finally complete."
The Foo Fighters did return to the stage again as a group in September 2022 at a tribute concert
for Hawkins at Wembley Stadium. The concert featured a slew of musicians, including McCartney.