00:09Hi, I'm Paul Stokes with Backstage here at the Shockwave NME Awards and I'm being joined by this year's Godlike
00:14Genius, Dave Grohl.
00:16Good evening, Your Worship.
00:16Hi. Shut up.
00:19How does it feel to be Godlike Genius this year?
00:21Man, I tell you, my band has given me more shit about this award. They're like my brothers, you know?
00:27And so I can't say anything without the band to like, whatever you Godlike Genius.
00:32I mean, honestly, it's really flattering. I'm really honored to be given the award.
00:38But you know, I just, I don't consider myself to be Godlike or a genius.
00:42So it's kind of funny. I take it with a grain of salt.
00:45Are you looking forward to playing this evening?
00:46Yeah, man. You know, they told us that we were supposed to play like five songs.
00:51We're gonna play for two hours. I'm not kidding either.
00:54We're gonna try. We're gonna play until they kick us off.
00:57So just wait until the police turn out, basically?
00:59Well, we've been asking. I mean, honestly, I said, how many songs are we supposed to play?
01:02They said five. And I like playing. And we haven't played in like a week.
01:07And so I really try to do it as much as I can.
01:10And yeah, I just want to go out and play the entire new record and then maybe another hour and
01:15a half of old songs.
01:16And that's what I want to do.
01:18Sounds good. Now, obviously, an occasion like this, there is an element of looking back on a career so far.
01:24How do you feel when you lied about your age, day 17, to join Scream?
01:27What were your expectations? Where did you think you would be by now?
01:30Doing the same thing, really.
01:32I mean, when I was a kid, I dropped out of high school when I was about 17. Staying in
01:38school, kids.
01:39And I started touring and stuff. And I had a job that I'd have at home.
01:44Like I worked at a furniture warehouse or I did masonry and built people's patios and shit.
01:50And then I'd go on the road with Scream in a van. And then I'd come back and beg to
01:55get my job back.
01:56And growing up in Virginia, like I just sort of thought I'd spend the rest of my life there, you
02:00know.
02:02And then I joined Nirvana and I didn't really, nobody had any real massive aspiration or expectations.
02:10We just, you know, we wanted to sound good and people liked us.
02:13And we thought, you know, if we could, if we could be a band that could like sell out Brixton
02:18Academy, then it'd be great because we could eat and pay the rent and, you know, it'd be really fun.
02:24And so none, I never expected anything like this to happen because you have to understand back then, too, there
02:32wasn't really any, we weren't playing like popular music.
02:36It wasn't really commercial music, you know. And then the fact that it sort of became popular music surprised everybody,
02:45us mostly, because we felt like we were the same.
02:48And then the whole world just sort of changed around us. Like, what? We're number one and Michael Jackson isn't?
02:54What the fuck is going on? It doesn't make any sense.
02:57So it's been a long, weird 22 years or something.
03:02Absolutely. What was it like? I mean, it's easy to say like the eye of the storm, but I guess
03:06it wasn't. What was it really like being in that band at that time?
03:08It's weird. I mean, little weird things happen, like we're going to be on a TV show. Whoa. And then
03:13you go to a TV studio and it's like, wow, this is what a TV, this is a lot smaller
03:17than I thought it would be.
03:18And then, you know, we got, we're going to go on Saturday Night Live or just little things were strange,
03:25you know, where you'd see, we'd pull up to the venue and there, there would be 500 people who couldn't
03:32get in.
03:32And, but it was weird too, because like by the time we had a gold record, we were still in
03:37the van. So it took us a while to assimilate to what had happened around us. You know, it's, it's
03:44kind of weird.
03:44And then especially if you're a kid, I was 21 or 22 that it's kind of, it's weird. Whenever I'd
03:51get freaked out, I'd just go back to Virginia where I grew up and get drunk with my buddies.
03:56Can you believe that Nevermind is 20 years old this year?
03:59No, no. Cause that means I'm old.
04:03I don't want to believe that.
04:05He'd be getting his first car, everything.
04:07Yeah. It's kind of weird. It's bizarre. It's hard to imagine.
04:10Yeah. And you know, we did the new record with Butch. And so Butch and I would look at each
04:14other like, do you have gray pubic hair too?
04:17Cause I have it around my, yeah.
04:20Now around the sort of same time you were doing that, you obviously pocket watch your first sort of solo
04:23record.
04:23What was it that sort of first spurred you into, into doing that, which came out on concert?
04:27Well, all of that was like private. I didn't, I mean, those things that I recorded, I would just do
04:33for myself, just for fun.
04:35And then this girl, Jenny Toomey, who had a label called Simple Machines, who is a friend of mine from
04:41the DC punk rock scene.
04:42She's like, she heard, she was at the studio one day when I was recording.
04:45She's like, I like that. Can I have a copy? I said, sure.
04:47So I gave her a cassette and then she said, can I release it on a cassette only release?
04:53And to be honest, I was kind of embarrassed. I didn't like the sound of my voice and I didn't
04:58think I was a great songwriter.
04:59They were just sort of fun little studio experiments and she put it out and you know, it didn't really,
05:06it just, it was just a little cassette thing.
05:09So, but it was, I never, even when I went to record the first Foo Fighters record, I wasn't doing
05:15it to make a record really.
05:17I was just kind of recording and I did it by myself and made these cassettes and gave them to
05:22friends.
05:22And then after that, people wanted to put it out as a record and then I thought, well, maybe I
05:28should start a band. I don't know.
05:30I never thought I'd be, I'm a drummer. You know, I didn't think I'd be the guy up front, like,
05:34sing it everybody, Rambly Stadium.
05:37I wasn't ever thinking that that would be possible.
05:40And how long did it sort of get used to, how long did it take to get used to that
05:43moment of like being the guy up front?
05:45And not only that, but hearing your own lyrics sung back at you by thousands.
05:47I'm still not really used to it at all. It's pretty funny to do it because, you know, I don't
05:55know.
05:55It's weird when there's that many people there and you have to entertain them.
06:00I try my hardest to not feel like I have to be somebody else.
06:07I just feel like, hmm, what would I do in this situation? Then I drink six beers and it's great.
06:17I can paint it as cold and little Nurburius.
06:18You know where I live in different culture, your family and, you know, neol ve wind.
06:18And what are the things you do in this situation?
06:19Yeah.
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