“They’re all nice guys”: the band Dave Grohl said everyone would want to work with
It takes a whole extra stratum of fame to be officially afforded one’s very own honorific title. Elvis Presley’s ‘The King’, Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Boss’, Ozzy Osbourne’s ‘Prince of Darkness’, all secondary mantles stuck on their respective legacies for good—whether Elvis was indeed ‘The King’ is up for debate. While less lionising, ‘The Nicest Guy in Rock’ is unanimously understood to be Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl.
His nickname’s not unfounded. Grohl boasts a litany of good deeds and charitable ventures around his stadium rock behemoth. From inviting ten-year-old Nandi Bushell to play drums on stage to cooking barbeques for wildfire-battling firefighters, stopping shows to intervene in crowd fights, and offering his storytelling skills to CBeebies Bedtime Stories in 2021, Grohl’s good nature has become the stuff of legend.
While his string of cheated partners might think otherwise, ‘The Nicest Guy in Rock’ indeed boasts an impressive reputation of sincere magnanimity and all-around cool dude. But who’s the nicest band in rock? Phish seems pleasant enough, you can bet Three Doors Down’s southern genteel hospitality goes down well at their various benefit gigs, and The Flaming Lips’ live psych-pop extravaganza is all imbued with an infectious, inviting glow toward their fans amid the confetti-bombed theatre. The nicest band in music may well be one of the planet’s biggest names, however, according to Grohl.
Speaking to BBC Radio 1 in 2002, Foo Fighters’ recent performance on Later… with Jools Holland with Coldplay prompted DJ and host Jo Whiley to probe his thoughts on the world’s biggest indie pop group: “They’re a great band, amazing musicians, they have beautiful songs and they’re all nice guys. They’re the kind of people that anybody would wanna work with.”
While Foo Fighters took an album or two across the 1990s to reach hard rock royalty, Coldplay struck instant success virtually overnight and have never seen sales or stature dip since. Formed during the post-Britpop swirl of groups like Travis or Starsailor, Coldplay shot to the top of the UK Albums chart with 2000’s Parachutes off the back of mega-singles ‘Yellow’ and ‘Trouble’, establishing themselves as one of Britain’s most commercial musical exports across the 21st century.
Conquering the world and headlining Glastonbury Festival a record five times, Coldplay have managed the curious trick of unwavering commercial success and near-unanimous loathing. Derided for a suffocating corporate sound bereft of edge or human foil, Coldplay’s legacy of paving the way for the likes of Ed Sheeran‘s baffling rise is a stain they’ll never be able to wash off.
Still, unwavering support for the Palestinian struggle, philanthropic efforts in aid of Fair Trade plus numerous other charities, and rigorous measures to ensure environmental touring impacts are ameliorated are enough to forgive their beige indie piddle. Grohl’s easier lapse into by-numbers hard rock for virtually all Foo Fighters’ existence, too, shares a tandem trajectory of head-scratching phenomenal successes at odds with the formulaic offerings. Both rock and pop monsters that look set to sell out stadiums for a long while yet, the ‘nice guy’ model’s clearly working for them.
