Dave Grohl has detailed his failed attempts to record music with both Prince and David Bowie, revealing that the former snubbed him and the latter claimed to be too busy.
“[Bowie and I] were, uh, maybe gonna do a thing together and it didn’t really pan out,” Grohl told radio host Howard Stern. “I had an opportunity to do a song thing for this movie, and I thought ... it would be really fun to get someone else to sing on it.” After contacting Bowie through producer Tony Visconti, Grohl tried to schedule a recording session. It never happened. “[It was just] logistics,” Grohl said. “Sometimes you want to do something and there’s no time.” The Foos leader claims they now sometimes email.
With Prince, Grohl’s plans were rejected with even less fanfare. They met backstage in 2011, after the Purple One performed at the Los Angeles forum. Prince apparently suggested that they could “jam” together at a show the following Friday. “I waited for [Prince] to call all week, [and] he never called,” Grohl said. The Foo Fighter showed up anyway, and they ended up playing together at soundcheck - Grohl on drums, Prince on bass. “[He’s] shred[ding] the bass like I’ve never seen anyone play it ... Then we start playing [Led Zeppelin’s] Whole Lotta Love.” To Grohl, the jam seemed “amazing”. But Prince “didn’t want to do it” as part of that night’s show. “He goes, ‘What are you doing next week?’ And then I never saw him again.” This was apparently Prince’s way “of blowing me off”.
Despite his poor luck with Prince and Bowie, Grohl has performed with almost every other rocker under the sun, from Paul McCartney to Jack White. And as part of his new documentary series, Sonic Highways, Grohl even sat down with the president: Barack Obama appears on the series’ final episode, airing this week. “He walked in the room, he loosened his tie and we talked about Dylan and the Stones,” Grohl said.
Sonic Highways has been broadcast in conjunction with the release of the Foo Fighters’ album of the same title. Recorded in eight different cities across the United States, it is their eighth studio LP.
