Jack Black on the greatest second act in rock history: “That’s got some magic to it”
It’s not fair to ask someone to become one of the biggest acts in the world twice over. The entire basis behind someone ruling the airwaves comes from having the greatest luck in the world, and if they have to start from scratch and do it again, chances are they would opt to get as far away from music as possible instead. The inspiration never left Dave Grohl, though, and when he debuted with Foo Fighters, Jack Black knew that he was dealing with the same whirlwind that he felt with Nirvana all over again.
At the same time, no band would replace what Kurt Cobain did. Because, really, how could anyone take their spot? Cobain was the kind of artist who came along and shook everyone out of their comfort zone, so now that he was gone, we were all just left to pick up the pieces.
Other genres, like Britpop, may have started bubbling up in the meantime, but Grohl was convinced that he needed to keep playing music to get himself out of this mess. While he never envisioned Foo Fighters as being the kind of band that tours the world, it got a bit more complicated when he let the cat out of the bag that it was him playing all the instruments.
Then again, seeing the former drummer for Nirvana out front would not sit well with many original grunge fans. As much as Grohl was doing it purely for his own amusement, there were still a lot of listeners giving him shit for daring to make music that sounded even remotely like Nirvana. That’s understandable, but there’s no doubt that Grohl attempting to reimagine himself as a rap star or bluegrass musician would have worked far less well than what we got here.
But Black was onboard from the get-go. He had already seen Nirvana before they had even exploded on Nevermind, but even without Cobain in the world, he knew that Foo Fighters was something completely different from anything that had come before. This wasn’t just Grohl playing to amuse himself; this was a complete career rebuild going on.
As the Tenacious D frontman recalled years later, he thought that Grohl was on the verge of something big again, telling Consequence, “I saw them in 1991, and then Nirvana was over. I remember thinking ‘That’s supposed to be the end’, because that’s normally what happens. When I first heard Foo Fighters, I thought, ‘Wait, that’s got some fucking magic to it. He came up with that melody?’ Then he created one of the most incredible second acts in rock history.”
However, Foo Fighters are also one of the few bands that had to grow up way too fast, including firing different band members throughout the late 1990s until finally finding themselves on firm ground after nearly breaking up on One By One. That kind of drama should have normally killed any other group, but all the while, Grohl would always be there with his guitar across his chest, trying to right the next great tune.
And even when he played on different albums, like his guest spot with Tenacious D, it wasn’t like you couldn’t see that magic still out in full force. The faint wisps of Nirvana were still there underneath the surface, but once Grohl got behind the microphone, it was like he was hitting the reset button on his career.
