Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl joined Jimmy Fallon on Monday night to help co-host The Tonight Show which also saw real-live guests and a limited audience make its return to the broadcast.
“You know Dave, if things go well here, this could be the big break you’ve been waiting for,” Fallon joked during the show -- and we'd say things went very well for Mr. Grohl.
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Not only did the pair share monologue duties and provide the world with a an IRL Dave G'Roll -- the Foo Fighters frontman also shared stories and cracked tons of jokes, and even spoke about that one time he caught his mother Virginia, a respected school teacher, throwing back a few with Bay Area punks Green Day.
It all began with Dave and Jimmy speaking about the excitement they were both feeling regarding having actual audience members in attendance, although there were only 100 people allowed to sit in the risers. Jimmy wondered when the last time Dave had played in front of such a small audience, to which he replied, "Like, 1987 maybe? Something like that... a long time ago."
"When I first started out, I started in neighborhood bands and stuff like that, and then I joined a band, a punk rock band," Dave says, "that actually toured the country and Europe when I was like 17-years-old." Touring in vans and performing at small venues for likely much less than a hundred punks is where he "cut his teeth" in music he explained. The same could be said for the beginnings of what would become the global force of Nirvana, which also began in a van playing tiny clubs for almost no one. In essence, a continuation of the stories told in his Amazon Video documentary What Drives Us, which describes through interviews the many different vehicles prominent bands and musicians have used during their careers, Dave explained that squeezing your equipment, band, and friends into a car to take your music to the masses was something that even The Beatles had done.
Another of Dave's many projects over the past year is the Paramount+ series From the Cradle To The Stage which is based on his mother Virginia's From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars, a book filled with stories about herself and similar mothers who raised kids who were meant to rock. When Virginia decided to retire after 35 years as a public school teacher, Dave told Jimmy he was concerned that she would get into the retiree cruise ship scene. So, he offered a solution: "I was like, 'I got a cruise ship -- It's a tour bus, let's go,'" he told her. "And she started going on tour with me."
Dave continues, "I gave her a laminate and she would just go hang out. I'd get off stage and go, 'where's my mom, where's my mom?' And she'd be like, you know, drinking beers with Green Day upstairs hanging out. She's very cool. But when she was on tour she was like, 'where's all the other moms?' So, she went to go find these mothers to interview them and talk to them about what it's like to raise a musician. In the book she talked to Dr. Dre, she talked to Mike D., and she talked to Pharrell's mom... and then she made this great book. Then we did a documentary series, and that's the thing that's on TV now."
With the global success of Nirvana, Foo Fighters, and more side projects to count; two documentaries, and a second induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year now in his back pocket -- just like Jimmy said, we think you did quite a fine job raising Dave, Virginia. Crush another beer -- it's on us!
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