Don’t be fooled: the Foo Fighters’ “Studio 666” is not some extended music video gimmick put out by Dave Grohl and company. It’s a real horror movie with a legit runtime, a plot and a script. And though they’re amazed the movie actually got finished and exists, Grohl isn’t fooling himself that they’re suddenly real actors either.
“First of all, it wasn’t that much of a stretch to be the Foo Fighters. You throw us backstage in a room, and we are a comedy troupe everywhere we go, that’s just what happens, for the last quarter of a century,” Grohl told TheWrap in an interview, the second part of which will be published Thursday. “And nobody is going for an Oscar here, by the way. It’s very much like, ‘Hey let’s get f—ed up.’ It was nice to be relieved of any of that legitimate responsibility.”
But after the experience of working on “Studio 666,” TheWrap asked Grohl which member of the Foo Fighters would he say is the best actor of the bunch?
“You kinda can’t take your eyes off Pat Smear when he’s on the screen, or Taylor Hawkins,” Grohl said. “Taylor in the movie, that is f—ing Taylor Hawkins. Why? Because he refused to read the lines of the script. He’s like, ‘F— that! I’m going to say what I’m going to say,'” and you watch that and I watch that and I’m like, ‘Yeah that’s Taylor.’ That’s who he is.”
The Foo Fighters were so green when it came to real acting that Grohl said he didn’t even know what a table read was. But sitting through it revealed to him some of his bandmates’ hidden talents.
“We sit around the table and read the script and I thought, ‘Oh my God. Rami Jaffe is the next Pauli Shore,'” Grohl joked. “He is going to take over. He’s going to have a string of hilarious movies.”
“Studio 666” is a horror and comedy film starring the Foo Fighters and with a story by Grohl, and if you ask Dave, the story is quite simply, “rock band moves into haunted house, singer becomes possessed, murders entire band, goes solo.” And he’s not shy about admitting that — Spoiler Alert! — he’s the one who goes crazy killing people.
The film was shot in the same house in Encino where the Foo Fighters recorded their 10th album released last year, “Medicine at Midnight.” But it was inspired by the long lineage of “band movies” that were prevalent in the ’70s and ’80s but are few and far between for rock or pop stars today.
Grohl cited films like The Beatles’ “A Hard Days Night,” “KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park,” The Ramones’ “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” or even the Spice Girls’ movie “Spice World” as touchstones for “Studio 666,” even if the film’s story — not to mention the profanity and the level of gore — is nowhere near any of those films. And he acknowledges that though doing a film like this isn’t exactly in vogue today, he’d love to see acts finding ways like this to put on a show.
“What are some other bands that would have the f—ing stones to try and pull this one off?” he said. “First thing you have to do is relieve yourself of any humility. Or you have to be humble enough to say, ‘OK, I’m willing to put on this devil mask and eat my guitar player Chris.’ There’s not a lot of cool in that, you know,” Grohl said. “Whether it’s ‘Purple Rain’ or ‘8 Mile’ or the Spice Girls movie, it’s just another way to expand on the idea that we’re here to entertain you somehow.”
“Studio 666” opens in theaters on Friday. Check out a clip from TheWrap’s interview with Dave Grohl above.
