July 30, 2007
Santa Monica, Calif.
The pre-promotion for the Echoes album is at full gallop. After performing at Live Earth London for a viewing audience of an estimated 2 billion people, and intimate listening sessions in Europe, Japan, Singapore, and Australia, the Foos are back in L.A., stuck in a hotter-than-hell airplane hangar shooting the video for ''The Pretender.'' The concept is simple: It's a performance clip in which the band simply plays the song while cops in full riot gear...attack them.
They've been at it since early morning, but Grohl has yet to see his energy fade. Whenever he's not needed for a shot, the singer whips out his laptop and fires up the iChat. ''Hi, boo boo,'' Grohl greets Violet via video. ''Dada loves you... What does a cat say? What does a bear say?'' Then he turns the laptop around so the toddler can witness the cavalry of baton-bearing ass-kickers at work. ''See? They're all running and screaming at me!''
It's enough to give any child nightmares, but not Grohl's kid. ''Violet was immediately surrounded by so many people'' — the Foos' entourage of band members, managers, crew, etc. — ''that she's not afraid. I think it's important for kids to be social and to expose them to stuff as soon as possible.''
With Hawkins' wife entering her eighth month of pregnancy, the drummer says he's not sure how he'll explain the darker things in life to his little one. On a recent trip out to the studio, he observed ''a bunch of kids hanging out in front of the liquor store.'' Having battled his own addiction to alcohol and pills a few years back, Hawkins confesses that this was the picture of his own youth — and hopes ''my son doesn't end up like that.'' Grohl nods his head. He and Jordyn recently learned that Violet is in the 90th percentile in height, meaning ''she'll probably grow up to be 5'7''... So her mom's beautiful, her dad's a big rock star — you see where I'm going here?''
