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! Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite
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