The band that Joe Perry was “embarrassed” to play with
There is always some sense of competition regarding rock and roll. Even if artists deny it, there is some element of showmanship between everyone on stage, usually stemming from artists wanting to make something that will cause the rest of the audience to stand up in shock and amazement. That might lead to a few bruised egos, but Joe Perry claimed that Foo Fighters gave him a run for his money on his own hits.
Before Perry had even become the living embodiment of the rock star that we know today, he was already having to play second fiddle to the guitarists that came before him. As much as he loved the sounds of The Rolling Stones, the critics of the time usually lambasted him for his love of Keith Richards, as if pulling from one’s heroes was actually considered a bad thing for him to be doing.
Regardless of what the press had to say, Perry could always throw down when it came to his own lead licks. Compared to artists who tended to return to the same bluesy roots for every one of their guitar breaks, Perry was interested in making the kind of riffs that swung in a much different way, practically making the equivalent of a horn section whenever he played a solo.
Although Perry was just channelling what was in his soul, Grohl was transfixed when he first heard him. Being a fan of all things rock music, Grohl absorbed everything he could from the moment he first heard The Beatles, loving classic rock like Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin before becoming immersed in punk rock.
By the time Aerosmith had gone through their third career renaissance in the 1990s, though, Grohl was giving them competition in Nirvana, bringing the punk rock mentality above ground once again. Since Nirvana wouldn’t last much longer following Kurt Cobain’s tragic passing, Grohl’s way of getting over his grief was to form Foo Fighters, bringing a lot more guts back into rock and roll as well as some lighthearted optimism.
Once Grohl ascended to rock star status in the 2000s, though, he figured that he would work with anyone that he could, eventually finding time to play with everyone from Queens of the Stone Age to having John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin oversee arrangements on the album In Your Honor. While Perry could appreciate from afar, he remembered being put through his paces when working with the band in their rehearsal space.
Coming by just for an innocent jam session, Perry remembered having to brush up on how his own songs went, telling Louder, “They have all the instruments set up so they can go in and jam, and they knew every Aerosmith song cold. I couldn’t believe it, I was embarrassed. They were playing songs that I hadn’t played in thirty years. There was no bullshit, they were fans, but being able to play some of those songs and know those riffs off the top of their heads, it was like: ‘Holy shit!’”.
Grohl knowing every classic song isn’t exactly by accident, either. Onstage, Foo Fighters always made it a habit of breaking up their sets with classic rock staples, jamming on ‘Detroit Rock City’ when bringing out Paul Stanley of KISS and busting out Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ every now and again. Foo Fighters may still be known as one of the most successful bands in the world, but outside of their own material, they are still the same scrappy bar band that they started out as.
