When “Saturday Night Live” calls, you always answer.
That’s was the case with Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters during the Global sketch show’s election episode, in fact, they only got days’ notice before they performed.
Grohl detailed what the phone call from Lorne Michaels was like during an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music.
“Usually with ‘Saturday Night Live’, they call you, you get the call months in advance, like weeks and weeks and weeks in advance,” Grohl said. “This time they called us on Tuesday.”
“They were like, ‘Hey, do you want to play Saturday Night Live?’ And we were like, ‘Of course. When?’ They were like ‘Saturday.’ So we’re like, ‘Oh my God.’ It was such a rush just to pack up the gear, get on a plane, go to New York City,” he added. “And then Chappelle is the host. What better show? That’s the best possible show to be on.”
And to top it all off, Michaels wanted them for the show right after the U.S. presidential election… hours after Joe Biden was named the president-elect.
“And then that morning we woke up and there was all the news with the election, so the energy was just like, there was a lot of joy, there was a lot of happiness, people were really in a good mood,” Grohl explained. “And then just to stand there and play, it was actually the first time that I’ve ever felt really relaxed and comfortable and confident doing that show. Usually, we’re just a nervous wreck, but there was something about that day that just felt so f**king good.”
Also during the interview, Grohl told the story of getting high on mushrooms at his mom’s Christmas party when he was 15.
“I grew up in a house that was really small and every Christmas night people just knew to come over to the Grohls’ little house. We would all just sit around and listen to music and drink and stuff like that,” he said.
“So this one year… God I shouldn’t be telling this story. This one year, I think I was like 15 or something like that. My friend gave me mushrooms for Christmas, right? I’d never taken them before,” he continued. “So I thought, Okay, I probably shouldn’t take them at this party because all of my mother’s friends are coming over, right? They’re teachers at the school that I go to, I know these people. I’d known for a long time.
“So my friend gives me all these mushrooms. I think, I’ll take a little bit before the party. I was out of my fucking mind, right? So much so, one of the teachers from the school pulled me into the bathroom at one point and was like, ‘Are you doing cocaine?’ I was like, ‘No, no!’
“So then after everyone left I stayed up and tried to learn that Zeppelin song, ‘Bron-Y-Aur’, that acoustic thing until like six o’clock in the morning. I never figured it out. I thought I figured it out, but I didn’t really figure it out.”
“Saturday Night Live” airs Saturdays at 11:35 p.m. on Global. This week, Kristen Wiig will host the Christmas episode with musical guest Dua Lipa.
