“It’s like being stoned”: the 1996 Foo Fighters song fans forced into retirement
Dave Grohl could never have predicted that an early Foo Fighters single with a light-hearted video would end up becoming an occupational hazard.
But in many ways, that feeling of untold consequences was something that the band, at least in its infancy, was tragically very familiar with – Grohl had just lost Kurt Cobain in Nirvana, and the whole Foo Fighters genesis had come from his helplessness of being adrift. The outfit was his new step forward – but he just didn’t anticipate being pelted by Mentos.
Bizarre as it sounds, that was, however, a problem of his own making, since his band were the ones who decided to recreate their music video for ‘Big Me’ in the style of the famous Mentos adverts broadcast in the 1990s. They might have thought it was only a bit of fun, and they did win an MTV Video Music Award for ‘Best Group Video’, but it haunted them in unexpected ways.
As fans are experts at doing, they saw the opportunity of the ‘Big Me’ video as the inspiration for a practical joke – and in further typical fashion, also perhaps took it a little too far. Anytime the Foos would subsequently play the song live, they would be hit by a barrage of incoming small missiles in decidedly minty form.
To be fair, that was bound to hurt. The Mento itself is a hard, pebble-like structure, so being pelted by possibly hundreds at one time could probably only be compared to a grenade attack – or, at least, being caught in a storm of really massive hailstones. Once was maybe enough to tolerate, but when the band started coming off stage looking like the war wounded, something had to give.
Grohl even addressed the rising issue when they won the VMA in ‘96, appealing to the audience: “Stop throwing Mentos at us, at our shows. That’s what I’m trying to say.” But guitarist Pat Smear put it in stronger terms. “We did stop playing that song for a while because, honestly, it’s like being stoned. Those little things are like pebbles – they hurt,” he said in a 2006 interview.
The band hoped that a seven-year hiatus would be enough of a buffer between the fans and their penchant for Mentos, although admittedly, the makers of the sweets may have suffered a decline in sales as a result. After that time, they were slowly lured back to the dangerous heights of ‘Big Me’ after Weezer performed a cover.
You can bet they had their safety goggles and bulletproof vests at the side of the stage just in case things went awry, though. Nowadays, there’s a whole barrage of flying objects thrown at artists on stage, whether that’s phones, bras, or anything in between. A Mento, however, leaves a very spherical indent in the memory.
Anytime one of the Foo Fighters might stop at a garage or shop, looking for some chewing gum or snacks for the road, you couldn’t blame them if a shiver of fear still runs down their spine while they scour the shelves of the confectionery stand. The bruises may have healed, but the impact of those mint missiles never left.
