Dave Grohl Talks Meeting Bowie, Staying Grounded
Dave Grohl has spoken about meeting David Bowie in a new interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation show, 7.30.
Grohl remembered seeing Bowie in the flesh for the first time, when the Foo Fighters were lower down on a festival bill that Bowie was headlining, “You know, it was like seeing a UFO for the first time, like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s real’. That’s something I’ve never seen before.”
He went on to recall the time he actually met Bowie, “And then getting to meet him, “all of that feeling coming down to Earth, realizing, ‘Oh, my God, what a gentleman! What a brilliant, sweet, kind, outrageously funny person.’ And then I recorded a song with him. This [was] years ago, and watching him step in front of a microphone and begin to sing and you realize, ‘Wow, that voice – that’s real, that just comes out of his mouth, that iconic voice.’
“The great thing about it is that it really humanizes everything. We’re like, ‘Wow, that’s a real person.’ It’s reassuring, but at the same time, you’re like, ‘That’s a hero.’ That’s not just another person. That’s David Bowie.”
Dave Grohl also had some words of wisdom for young musicians about staying grounded while being successful, “All of that other stuff is kind of an illusion, the television stuff, the platinum records. They’re flattering rewards, but ultimately the real stuff is over here. And as long as you can keep the real stuff over here, then whenever that becomes too much, you just go that way. One of the biggest lessons in all of this, for any young artist, if they come to the point where their life is complicated by that other stuff …you just say ‘no.’ It’s all you have to do. It’s one of the best lessons I ever learned. When someone asks you to do something and you don’t feel comfortable doing it, just say no. It’s easy.”