Dave Grohl on Foo Fighters' commercial appeal: “I don’t know if we’ve ever felt cool”

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has spoken on the band’s commercial appeal, saying that he’s not sure they’ve ever felt cool.

Speaking in a new interview, Grohl talked the criticism he and the band received early on and the perception that he shouldn’t have carried on making music following the disbandment of Nirvana.

“I don’t know if we’ve ever felt cool,” Grohl told Rolling Stone, discussing the idea that once a band reaches a certain level of fame they lose cool points.

He went on to say that during the band’s earlier years he felt like he was fighting a perception that the Foos shouldn’t even exist, that it was somehow inappropriate to have another band after Nirvana.

“I was thinking, ‘It’s inevitable: People will not want me to do this.’ And there were people, even friends, that were offended,” Grohl revealed. “And I just thought, ‘How dare they? This is how I’m going to get through life!’

He added: “And then, I would sit in an interview, and they’d say, ‘With all the crashing cymbals and distorted guitars and the screaming, did you intentionally want to sound like Nirvana?’”

As different musical trends prevailed across the course of Foo Fighters’ career, before rock dropped out of mainstream favour, the band responded in different ways. When nu metal was on top, the Foos unleashed their most melodic album, 1999’s ‘There Is Nothing Left To Lose’.

“And then, all of a sudden, everyone’s got fucking skinny ties and listening to fucking Joy Division,” Grohl said. “Where do we fit into that? We don’t! We’re just the fucking dudes who make funny rock videos. Whaddayagonnado?”

Last month, Foo Fighters announced a run of UK stadium shows for next summer. They’ll take to the stage in Manchester, Birmingham and London with rotating supporting acts St. Vincent, Courtney Barnett, Shame and more.

Speaking to NME about the Foos’ return to these shores, Dave Grohl said: “I’ve always loved playing the stadiums in the UK.

“It’s the first place we did a stadium of our own after we played that Live Earth benefit [at London’s Wembley Stadium in 2007] and then came back for a couple of nights at Wembley. That trip was our introduction to playing gigs that large.”

Meanwhile, on Sunday (September 12), Foo Fighters performed a medley of songs at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, where they were also were the recipients of the VMAs’ first Global Icon Award.