The guitarist Dave Grohl forbid from joining Foo Fighters: “Fuck him”
Foo Fighters have always been presented as one big rock and roll family. Even when they had their tense moments in the 2000s and the group decided to break up, Dave Grohl knew that every member of the band worked much better together than to have him fly solo for the rest of his life. Grohl was always more comfortable having musicians to work off of, but he had no time for when this guitarist suggested joining their ranks.
Then again, it was hard enough for any member of the alternative icons to hang on for too long in the mid-1990s. You have to remember that half of the band was still in the development stages when everyone realised the ex-drummer of Nirvana had a group, so that meant a lot of unwanted attention on them when they were still figuring out what they wanted to be.
And while The Colour and the Shape resulted in a monumental second record, it meant losing two key parts of the band. Although William Goldsmith quit the minute that he realised he wasn’t going to be playing on the record, the real blow was when Pat Smear decided to hang things up, thinking that he would be better off retiring from the neverending cycle of touring.
No matter, though. Grohl had friends in every sector of rock and roll, and his old buddy Franz Stahl from Scream seemed like the perfect choice. They had cut their teeth together before Grohl was in Nirvana, but the minute that he played together, Stahl and the rest of the band never had the same chemistry, leaving them as a trio when completing There is Nothing Left to Lose.
While Chris Shiflett was a worthy substitute, there were a few big names who were eyeing the new spot in the group. Outside of having nearly anyone showing up at their local Guitar Center and practising Foo Fighters licks, Tracii Guns of the famed hair metal act LA Guns was said to have asked to join the group, most likely due to the fact that all hair metal bands had been obliterated from the face of the Earth by 1991.
Even with years removed from the grunge wave, Grohl said that he would never entertain the idea of Guns wanting to join the group, saying, “He gave us his phone number. Fuck him. I haven’t talked to him, and I think I’ve lost his number already. Let’s just leave it at that.” Granted, there’s probably more to the story than Grohl lets on.
You have to remember that Guns was also the same person who helped found the first incarnation of Guns N’ Roses before they settled on the classic lineup, and since the ‘World’s Most Dangerous Band’ had a relatively fresh spat with Nirvana in the 1990s, it was going to look incredibly weird for everything to quickly become water under the bridge once the 2000s kicked in.
Now with Foo Fighters being a three-guitar assault with Smear back in the band, though, their guitar sound has struck the perfect balance in recent years. Having three different guitarists onstage might be toeing the line towards Spinal Tap levels of ridiculous, but if Wasting Light is any indication, Grohl knows how to put every one of them to use to create a symphony of sound.
