80pts: I love Dave Grohl. There, I said it. I don’t regret it. It needed to be said.
I’ve seen enough “real” interviews to know he is a real dude and can be as big-hearted as an asshole as any of us. But he says stuff all the time about his love of music and down-to-earthiness to inspire my agape (shout out to freshman year religion class at St. X for the definitions of different types of love!).
Quick aside: my favorite interview with him include two gems.
- “I don’t understand music snobs. It seems like a stupid reason to limit the kind of music you’re willing to ‘let’ move you. Why is the word ‘let’ in any kind of sentence about loving music. Anybody who tells me they don’t like ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears because she’s too pop is fucking moron. That thing drives.” — D Grohl
- “We spend a lot of time in the studio mixing the perfect album. A couple of weeks ago I was in my 11 year old daughters room and she was listening to some music and I noticed that she had a pretty shitty music setup (it was really just some speakers plugged into her iPod). The more I thought about it I realized that most people listen to Foo Fighters on the radio, through pretty crappy speakers, in a fucking padded box with the wind blowing through it. Not only is our master-mixing lost on these fans, there’s a good chance we’re not recording the best way for them to listen to it. I want to record an album that sounds best playing through the radio.” — D Grohl
The MTV VMAs are on tonight. The last time I went was 2007 (I got another offer this year, but had a kid conflict). We were in Vegas on a weekend that coincided with a bachelor party, Kendrick Lamar was the big performer, Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry were only topped by Pink, and Chris Brown did some insane Michael Jackson dancing. It was also the year that gave us the storyline about “Fat Britney”. She’s made it back.
Even back in 2007 I was “old”, which meant I was at the Viacom after-party, not the more rockin’ and drug-fueled MTV-sponsored parties, and as the post-awards jam was starting up pool-side, I was waiting in line to kiss the ring of then CEO Philippee Dauman. I’m waiting in line, it’s moving slowly, my ears are still a little ringy from Flo-rida’s “Spin Me Round” and the dude in line next to me says, “I’m going to get a beer”, can I get you one?” It was Dave Grohl. He came back with a Sam Adams, handed it to me and then got ushered to the front. Amo amas agrohlus (shout out to four years of Catholic High School Latin).