It's hard to imagine a famous rock band with a happier image than the Foo Fighters, but
it's by no means the complete thing, as they've had plenty of drama and tragic incidents.
Today, we'll take a look at the tragic real-life story of the Foo Fighters.
In 1994, Nirvana broke up in the wake of Kurt Cobain's death.
Dave Grohl told Louder in 2018 that he was at a loss after the grunge group came to an
end, though it was not for lack of options, saying,
"I was asked to join a couple of other bands as the drummer, but I just couldn't imagine
doing that because it would just remind me of being in Nirvana.
Every time I sat down at a drum set, I would think of that."
After contemplating his options, and even considering quitting music altogether, Grohl
remembered that Stewart Copeland of The Police, a fellow drummer, had developed his own solo
project called Klark Kent.
This allowed him to make music without the expectations that came with being The Police.
Grohl chose a similar approach, and became the Foo Fighters, writing and playing all
the songs for the project's self-titled debut album by himself.
For live show purposes, he recruited bass player Nate Mendell and drummer William Goldsmith,
as well as former Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear.
Grohl initially found the frontman role difficult, but the album came out in 1995 and was a success.
Just like that, the Foo Fighters were an esteemed band.
The Foo Fighters' first drummer, William Goldsmith, was not a happy camper when it came to his
tenure with the band.
According to NME, Goldsmith drummed for the band between 1995 and 1997, but he ended up
leaving in the wake of recording their sophomore album, 1997's "The Colour and the Shape."
According to Goldsmith, his time in the studio with Grohl was tough.
As the drummer told the Miami New Times-
"Dave had me do 96 takes of one song, and I had to do 13 hours' worth of takes on another
one."
After all that, the finished record had replaced all Goldberg's drum tracks with ones played
by Grohl himself.
Ouch.
What's more, Goldsmith described Grohl as a school bully, saying,
"He was a bit like the kid who is popular but is mean and everyone likes them."
Goldsmith's replacement Taylor Hawkins had some words about his predecessor's claims,
saying in an interview with Beats 1,
"The first drummer for the Foo Fighters buckled under the pressure, and still blames Dave
for that...It's like, no, dude, and Dave never fired him, by the way."
According to Grohl, Goldsmith's drum work simply didn't sound like the frontman wanted
it to.
When the band took a Christmas break, Grohl says he started working on some new songs,
and played the drums for them, and when Goldsmith found out about it, there was a breakdown
and he walked out.
Taylor Hawkins has been with the band since he joined in 1997.
Still, even he has admitted that the gig is an incredibly demanding juggling act, and
the studio process has always been difficult, saying,
"It's not an easy gig, I won't lie.
But that's not because [Grohl's] a jerk, because he's not.
It's just hard to impress him."
According to Rolling Stone, Dave Grohl didn't have a great time recording the Foo Fighters'
second album.
Not only did the sessions cost him a drummer, but his personal life was also in trouble,
as his marriage was falling apart.
This reflected heavily on how the record sounded and was structured, and Grohl has even stated
that the album reminds him of a bunch of his journal entries from late 1996.
According to Louder, Grohl's turbulent domestic situation made the famous rock star's living
arrangements resemble those of aspiring young musicians who are yet to taste fame.
Here's how he described the era,
"I was living out of my duffel bag on this cat p----stained mattress in my friend's back
room with 12 people in the house.
It was f---ing awful.
Made for a good record, though."
The irony of the fact that "The Colour and the Shape" has helped other people through
similar hardships hasn't gone unnoticed with Grohl.
"People come up to me, it's usually men, and say: 'Man, that album, it helped me through
my divorce,' I'm like: 'Really?
It caused mine.'"
The Foo Fighters' fourth album, 2002's "One by One," won a Grammy.
So did it's hard-rocking lead single, "All My Life."
However, in a 2018 interview with Louder, Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins were quick to
comment that the creative process for the esteemed record was less than pleasant, with
Grohl summing it up by saying,
"The making of that album was a fiasco."
The band had added guitarist Chris Shiflett in the fold, and Grohl wanted to hone the
album's sound to perfection.
Unfortunately, this ended up killing everything that the band was supposed to sound like.
"Maybe instead of a...could you click in with a feedback like..."
Grohl described the struggle as:
"I'd listen back to rough mixes, and think this sounds like another band playing our
songs."
Faced with the fact that he was about to embark on a promotional tour for an album he could
not proudly stand behind, Grohl realized that his only viable option was to discard the
entire thing, along with nearly $1 million they had spent recording it.
The Foo Fighters ended up having a three-month timeout, and Grohl focused on his side gig
as a drummer for the Queens of the Stone Age.
When Grohl and Hawkins eventually started demoing new songs again, the magic was back,
and the band ended up recording "One by One" in about two weeks.
Smear's departure almost ended them
Pat Smear is one of the most iconic members of the Foo Fighters, but the former Nirvana
touring guitarist and member of the legendary punk outfit Germs hasn't always felt that
life as a Foo Fighter is for him.
Rolling Stone reported that Smear had a history of disliking flying and interviews, and as
such, he has a reported tendency to quit bands rather quickly.
Dave Grohl got a taste of this in 1997, when Smear told the Foos that he wanted to leave
the band behind before their second album was even released.
As Louder reported, this came at an extremely inopportune moment as the band was also trying
to replace their drummer with Taylor Hawkins, who had just stepped in a couple of weeks
before Smear dropped the bomb.
This left the band in total shock and disarray.
Looking back, Hawkins summed up the situation:
"That was a splintered f---ing band at that point."
Fortunately for the Foo Fighters, Smear agreed to stay with the group until they could secure
a suitable replacement.
In September 1997, Smear handed his guitar duties over to Franz Stahl midway through
the band's set at the MTV Video Music Awards.
After all that Smear ended up returning to the band in 2005.
Smear's replacement Franz Stahl was an old bandmate of Dave Grohl from their days in
the hardcore band Scream...that didn't secure his place in the band.
In 1999, Stahl was fired in a conference call, and while he's quick to note that his two
years with the band were the best ones in his life, he's still pretty sore about the
unceremonious way his life as a Foo Fighter ended, saying in 2015,
"There's never been any sort of closure on any of it, and we're going on 20 years now."
Stahl may have to wait for his closure, at least when it comes to public statements.
The Foo frontman's only comment about the guitarist's departure was:
"It didn't work out with Franz."
However, it must be noted that there doesn't appear to be too much bad blood between the
two.
2018 saw the release of "NMC17," a remixed reissue of Scream's "No More Censorship" album
that was honed at Grohl's 606 Studio.
In an interview with Matt Wilkinson of Beats 1, the Foo Fighters' drummer Taylor Hawkins
described how he overdosed on heroin during a trip to London in 2001, sending him into
a two week coma.
He described his state of mind at the time, saying,
"I wasn't like a junkie per se, but I was partying.
There was a year where the partying just got a little too heavy."
In hindsight, Hawkins is grateful that he had this terrifying experience, because it
turned him right off the hard-partying lifestyle.
It probably didn't hurt that the overdose came during a time when he genuinely feared
that the Foo Fighters would break up, either because of him, Dave Grohl's involvement with
the Queens of the Stone Age, or because of the band's bad experiences recording the "One
by One" album.
Fortunately, his fears were unfounded, and he's since reportedly switched his drug habit
for mountain biking.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please call the Substance
Abuse Mental Health Administration's 24/7 helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
That's 1-800-662-4357.
It's not uncommon for bands to lend their name to charitable causes, but according to
Spin, the Foo Fighters once supported a pretty shady one.
In 2000, the band played a benefit show for a fringe organization called Alive and Well,
which claimed that there's no connection between HIV and AIDS.
They also put a link to the Alive and Well website on the band's home page, and even
included the statement,
"The current thinking on AIDS is in serious need of reconsideration."
Aligning the band with Alive and Well appears to have been bass player Nate Mendel's idea.
After reading founder Christine Maggiore's books and being in touch with her, he started
questioning the HIV-AIDS link, saying,
"The rest of the band also looked into it, and as a group we are sure we are doing the
right thing by speaking out about this."
Unfortunately for him, the band's fans wholeheartedly disagreed, as did several experts, including
Sandra Thurman, director of the office on national AIDS policy for the White House.
Fortunately, this seems to have been a fairly short phase: today Alive and Well is nowhere
to be seen on the Foo Fighters' supported charities.
Meanwhile, the site notes that Dave Grohl very much supports the actually noteworthy
Elton John AIDS Foundation.
"What are some of the more memorable moments that you've had in Australia?"
"I got thrown in jail here once for being drunk on a scooter.
That was memorable."
According to Alternative Nation, the Foo Fighters were touring Australia at the time, and one
night Grohl had too much to drink and was arrested for driving while intoxicated...on
a scooter.
As MTV News reported, the Foo frontman was rocking a rental scooter before getting stopped
by the local law enforcement.
When it turned out that his blood alcohol level was .095, Grohl was promptly taken in.
He ultimately received a fine and was forbidden from driving in Australia for three months.
While Grohl said that he regretted his DUI conviction, he also tried to downplay the
severity of his crimes.
Meanwhile, the local Mothers Against Drunk Driving spokesperson didn't let him off the
hook, saying,
"I hope this incident is a learning experience for Dave and his fans and that they remember
not to drink and drive."
According to Consequence of Sound, the Foo Fighters tour in 2015 hit a serious snag when
Dave Grohl fell off the stage during a concert in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Grohl broke his leg, but managed to return to the stage, and finished the concert in
a sitting position.
However, this put the rest of the tour in jeopardy.
How could a frontman with a broken leg sing and play guitar, night after night?
Fortunately, Grohl was able to find a solution to the dilemma.
According to Louder, the band leader decided he'd play the upcoming Washington, D.C. concert
regardless of what happened.
He took some Oxycontin and morphine, and in the ensuing fever dream he came up with a
magnificent guitar-themed throne, which enabled him to rock out in a sitting position.
The rest of the band thought the idea was crazy, but it ended up working extremely well,
and not just for Grohl, either.
The Foo Fighters frontman let Axl Rose borrow the throne for the Guns N' Roses reunion shows
in 2016, after Rose had broken his foot.
Synergy!
As both ABC News and Rolling Stone reported, after Kurt Cobain died in 1994, Courtney Love
and the surviving Nirvana members were at constant odds.
In 2001, Love sued over the limited liability company that controlled Nirvana's assets,
arguing that Nirvana was Cobain and, as such, his widow and daughter were the rightful heirs.
Grohl and company promptly counter-sued in order to kick her out from the LLC altogether.
The cases were eventually settled, but bad blood persisted as Love and Grohl pelted each
other with nasty remarks.
According to the A.V.
Club, the Foo Fighters song "I'll Stick Around" is about Love and contains the barbed line:
"How could it be I'm the only one who sees your rehearsed insanity?"
Though Grohl hasn't admitted it, there are allegations that other Foo songs, like "Stacked
Actors," also reference her.
Meanwhile in 2012, Love insinuated that Grohl was sexually interested in her and Cobain's
then 19-year-old daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.
Eventually, the young Cobain had to step in and tell her mother off, in a statement released
through the Foo Fighters' publicity company, no less.
Fortunately, this long story of animosity comes with a happy end.
In 2014, Grohl and Love seemingly buried the hatchet:
"And we just, you know, picked up where we left off after 20 years of suing each other."
"That's a hell of a thing to bring you together."
"Isn't that cool?
Like…"
"And so now you're socially -"
"Me and Grohl, we're totally tight."
...and they even hugged it out at Nirvana's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
Hey, maybe world peace is possible!
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