My Summer With the Foo Fighters

Image credit: Shirley Halperin

August 17, 2007
Brighton, England

The Foo Fighters board two luxury buses bound for festival land. On the agenda: top-of-the-bill slots at the U.K.'s traveling multi-band trek, V Festival; headlining gigs in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Dublin; and one last, hush-hush performance at Reading. Along for the ride: old friend and Nirvana compatriot Pat Smear, keyboardist Rami Jaffee, and string player Jessy Green (all there to help out with new tunes and a cover of Arcade Fire's ''Keep the Car Running,'' which Grohl — and Violet — have taken a liking to). Also on board: Grohl's mom, Virginia.

''Tell them about the psychedelic dream you had when you were pregnant with me,'' Grohl asks her. ''The one where you were sitting in bed, tripping.''

Virginia, a softspoken former school teacher, obliges: ''I was about to deliver, and they gave me some cough medicine. I was seeing everything as if it was frames on a proof-sheet of photos. I couldn't focus on anything. I was terrified.''

''Sounds like fun to me,'' cracks Grohl, fixing a PB&J.

''Sounds like my senior-year all-night party!'' laughs Hawkins.

Grohl, a consummate joker, provides as many laughs offstage as he does when trying to rile up 30,000 rain-weary rock fans, with Hawkins, whom Grohl describes as his brother, always there to egg him on.

Hawkins: ''I'll tell you, I've seen the most unhealthiest motherf----ers in Whole Foods... Pale, bad-skin people.''

Grohl: ''That's because they're trying to get healthy.''

But there's a more serious matter to deal with today: their forthcoming performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, which is causing the band some unforeseen stress.

Grohl: ''At first, [MTV] was like, 'We really want you to play.' Yay! Awesome, we'll play. Then a month later, [they say], we also need for you to jam with someone who's young because, well, you're old... So these are the people they'd want us to play with: Alicia Keys, Kelly Clarkson, T.I...''

Hawkins: ''If we're in the rock room, why can't we stay rock?''

Jaffee: ''Kelly Clarkson is rock. She could sing a little 'Pretender.'''

Hawkins: ''Wow, you're actually hurting me. No. There's no reason to even say why, just 'no.'''

Grohl: ''I thought it would be cool to do 'Gone Daddy Gone' with Gnarls Barkley. [Cee-Lo's] hip and a fan. Remember when I met Cee-Lo at that KROQ thing, he comes up to me singing 'My Hero'?''

Later the band arrives in at the V Festival venue in Chelmsford, where Pink and Juliette Lewis — one of the many artists Grohl has played drums with over the last 10 years — are among the fans gathered at the rainy-day gig. Grohl and Lewis forged a tight bond while working on her latest album, Four on the Floor. ''It was like sitting next to Miles Davis playing the trumpet,'' she says of the experience. ''We were all pretty riveted.''

After the Foos' nighttime set some five hours later, the girls reconvene in the band's dressing room for a post-show rager. As Grohl mans the stereo system, dancing to old Stones tunes, Pink pours drinks, Lewis is up on the table, and Mendel gives all curious stares. (Don't worry, he's having fun too, evidenced by his brief respite from non-smoker status.) Sadly the festivities are cut short: The bus (and an eight-hour drive) beckons.