In 2020, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl reminisced on the time that David Bowie told him to “f*ck off.” “Believe me,” Grohl shared with Billboard, “it wasn’t the first time my battered ears had heard such colorful language, but from the ‘Thin White Duke’ himself? What could I have possibly done to illicit such a soul-crushing reaction? Was it something I said?”
However, just recently the former Nirvana member spoke on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation 7.30 program and reflected on better times he had with Bowie, who he considered to be one of his heroes. He described seeing Bowie at a festival in London that he was playing as well: “I stood in the photo pit and looked at him and it was like seeing an alien. You know, it was like seeing a UFO for the first time, like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s real.’ That’s something I’ve never seen before.”
“And then getting to meet him,” he continued, “all of that feeling coming down to Earth, realizing, ‘Oh, my God, what a gentleman! What a brilliant, sweet, kind, outrageously funny person.’ And then I recorded a song with him. This [was] years ago, and watching him step in front of a microphone and begin to sing and you realize, ‘Wow, that voice – that’s real, that just comes out of his mouth, that iconic voice.’
“The great thing about it is that it really humanizes everything. We’re like, ‘Wow, that’s a real person.’ It’s reassuring, but at the same time, you’re like, ‘That’s a hero.’ That’s not just another person. That’s David Bowie.”
Listen to the full episode above.