Foo Fighters: Back and Forth Page #5

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you know?

There's just no nice way of saying,

"You're out of the band. "

I'm not exactly sure what happened.

You know, I was in the band...

and, for whatever reason,

I was out of the band.

But, I mean, it was the best two years

of my life, you know?

Most bands go through the same sh*t

that we had been through

up until that point.

Before anybody's ever heard of them.

Unfortunately, we went through all of

those embarrassing growing pains in public.

By 1998, I would sit down

to do an interview, and people'd say,

"OK, so f***in'...

Who's in the band right now?

"Has anybody else left

in the last month and a half?"

But there was always Nate.

I was staying at my mother's house,

and I got a call from Nate.

I said, "What's up, man?"

He goes, "I gotta leave the band. "

And I just thought,

"Oh, Jesus f***ing Christ. "

I said, "OK."

At this point...

my response to a member leaving

was like, "All right, why?"

Sunny Day Real Estate

had gotten back together.

I had a lot of really formative

experiences with them,

so I had this like...

high-school crush, kind of irrational...

attraction to that project.

And I was tortured, and I called up Dave.

And I was f***in' pissed.

I think I told him, "OK, you know what?

Call everyone and tell 'em you quit.

"I'm gonna go f***in' get drunk. "

As soon as I got off the phone,

I knew it was the wrong thing to do,

that I was gonna be happier in Foo Fighters.

It was a better thing for me to do.

I called a couple friends...

"I quit the band and I feel weird about it. "

"Yeah, 'cause that was a dumb idea. "

Me and my buddy Jimmy

took my rental car out to Ribsters,

we got f***in' shitfaced,

rallied my rental car,

f***in' threw rocks at it all night,

busted out windows,

drove over people's lawns,

and I wound up stumbling home

and woke up at seven in the morning

in the bedroom that I grew up in as a kid,

with my mom saying,

"David, Nate's on the phone!"

I called him the next morning at 6 am.

I was wigged out

and I think it caught him off guard.

"I don't really wanna quit the band.

I don't know what I was thinking. "

He's like, "Good. "

I was like, "Yeah.

This is better. Sorry about that. "

I was still wasted, too.

I was just lying in bed, like,

"I love you, man.

I'm glad you don't wanna quit. "

So we decided that we're gonna make

this next record as a three-piece.

We had just made

this super hyper-produced record,

which we slaved over

and lost two band members.

I thought, "I'm gonna buy a house in Virginia,

build a studio in the basement,

"and we're gonna make this record

without any f***in' record company

"and no pressure,

and no one telling us what to do. "

It was different,

just having the three of us there,

we were starting to form

a good identity for the band.

That's when Dave was first starting to become

more comfortable as a lyric writer.

A song like Ain't It The Life,

without realizing what I was doing,

I was kind of making this wish list

of all the things in life I wish I had.

We weren't really on a major deadline,

our friend Adam Kasper was down there

engineering and co-producing.

I did all of those vocals sitting on a couch.

It was just a laid-back record, and you hear it.

And the Grammy goes to...

And the Grammy

goes to...

Learn To Fly, Foo Fighters.

There Is Nothing Left To Lose,

Foo Fighters.

We won three Grammys for that record.

I remember standing there

at the podium making the speech,

looking out at all those people

in tuxedos and diamonds and sh*t,

thinking, "I bet you this is

the only record made in a basement

"that's gonna win a Grammy this year. "

And I was so f***in' proud.

Take care,

thank you very much, everybody.

Roll camera. OK, and roll sound.

Roll playback!

We take our music really seriously,

but music videos?

They're commercials.

They're candy commercials.

So why not make fun of the process?

But once we got into it,

I started having fun with it.

And it became a trademark for this band.

We try not to take ourselves too seriously.

In videos a lot of times,

you could easily get caught up in that,

"We're playing on a mountaintop. "

The wind's blowing in your hair,

and then an eagle flies down

and lands on your shoulder.

Or some, you know, like...

I just think that's sort of

an outlet of our humor.

I mean, I've seen Dave do stuff on videos,

where he's bein' such a f***in' goofball.

I'm not as good at it.

You know, I did try to make us a trio.

Dude, Police! They're a trio!

Musically, we needed more.

More guitar.

Part of the sound of the Foo Fighters

is a lot of guitars. It's just part of the sound.

We argue about it

every time we mix a record,

'cause I always want the drums louder,

and Dave's like,

"It's the Foo Fighters.

The guitars are really loud. "

None of us had the right guy that was a friend,

or a friend of a friend...

It wasn't handy.

So we had to have open auditions

for a guitar player.

Pin a note at the Guitar Center, like,

"Guitar player wanted for Foo Fighters. "

We wound up in this rehearsal space,

and I just remember

this line of guitar players.

And I was terrified.

It sounded great. I mean, I dig it.

Nice meeting you for the first time.

Hopefully see you again soon.

There's the guy that came in

and hugged everybody.

It was like, "Hi. Hi. "

It was like...

There was one kid that came in,

he was so nervous.

He came in, and was like, "What's up?

Will you sign something for me?"

He just immediately wanted us

to sign some sh*t.

We were like, "Yeah, dude, cool it.

It's cool, you know? Just relax.

"Let's hang, you know? Let's talk. "

And we hung out and talked a little bit.

And then he went to open up his guitar case,

and it was locked.

He had a brand new guitar,

a brand new case,

and he f***ing locked his guitar in it.

And didn't have a key.

We literally did, like,

a week or two of tryouts.

There was one point where it was getting

a little dire, we were like, "F***!"

A good friend of mine called me and said,

"Hey, I heard Guns N' Roses

are auditioning guitar players,

"and I think I could get you an audition. "

And I was like, "Well, I don't wanna audition

for Guns N' Roses. "

But I said, "But I heard the Foo Fighters

guitar player quit.

"Try to get me an audition with Foo Fighters. "

Everyone, shake hands with Chris.

Chris!

When Chris came in to audition,

we somehow came to the realization

that we met when we were kids

at a punk rock show in Santa Barbara.

Years and years before any of this,

when Dave had been the drummer in Scream,

and I was playing bass

in a band called Rat Pack.

We actually opened up for them.

The fact that he was a part of

that underground punk rock thing

was really important to me.

So we bonded pretty instantly,

because I thought,

"He's gonna get it. He's gonna understand,

and he won't take this sh*t for granted. "

Very good, that's very good, man.

He could sing, and he was a shredder,

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