Will Heath/NBCFoo Fighters have been the Saturday Night Live musical guest seven times, but Dave Grohl has appeared on the show even more than that, thanks to his performances with Nirvana, Tom Petty, Paul McCartney and Them Crooked Vultures. In a new video for SNL, Grohl looks back at over 25 years of playing the iconic sketch show, including Nirvana’s debut performance in 1992.
“When Nirvana played here the first time, we were downstairs in the tiny little dressing room,” Grohl says. “And that’s when ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic called the dressing room to talk to ask if he could parody our song [‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’].”
Nirvana played SNL again in 1993 with NBA legend Charles Barkley as the host — Grohl remembers him being shorter than six-foot-seven Nirvana bass player Krist Novoselic. Grohl returned to the SNL the next year to play drums behind Petty.
“I got the call, and someone said, ‘Hey, Tom Petty wants you to play drums with him on Saturday Night Live.’ I was like, ‘Really? He couldn’t find, like, a good drummer that would do it?'” Grohl recalls. “And so I was like, ‘OK.’ And rehearsed with them, sweetest guy in the world, so much fun. The Heartbreakers were the sweetest band, everyone was so nice.”
Foo Fighters then made their SNL debut in 1995. In addition to their seven musical guest spots, the most recent of which was last December, the Foos also served as Mick Jagger‘s backing band in 2012, which was a very busy night for the band.
“We had a show that night in New Jersey,” Grohl remembers. “We can’t get rid of the show, it’s already sold out. We sound checked here [at NBC], took a helicopter to the show, played the gig — two-and-a-half hours. Then flew back here, did [SNL].”
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