THE TAO OF

Grohl executes the flip, as deftly as he might a drum roll or a fret run, and
Violet winds up back on her feet, squealing with glee.

“We have her in this gym class where they teach you all these things,” Grohl says. “Here’s another little thing—oh, wait a second! You’re all wet, Violet. We need to change that diaper.” So it’s off the nursery, where Grohl plunks Violet into a device that allows her to bounce up and down in the door way, while Jordyn and the family dog, a miniature pinscher named Mia, watch from a safe distance.

If Grohl’s enthusiasm for fatherhood feels a bit frantic, consider his dilemma: “It’s that horrible feeling that it’s borrowed time and I’m going to have to split.” Which is why he was up at 5: 30 this morning, cruising around the property with Violet. This is the first tour cycle Grohl has faced with a child, and he’s determined to do it right. He’ll be installing Violet and Jordyn in London for this fall’s U.K. dates, and returning there for visits.

That’s not to say he’s ruled out taking his daughter on the road. “I don’t
know if you’ve seen the new tour buses,” Grohl says, “but they’re pretty gooch.
You can say, ‘I want a bedroom for the family, space for the crib, four bunks.’
Personally, I’m looking forward to the romper room.”
Note: Dave Grohl can change a diaper in seven seconds. I’ve timed him.

A long time ago, someone tipped Grohl off about the secret of a long life in rock’n’roll: It’s not about how many albums you sell; it’s about how many tickets you sell. Ever since, he’s devoted much of his time to transforming the Foos from a solo studio endeavor into a well-oiled stage machine.

“When I joined the band, we sucked live,”
Hawkins recalls. “And we’re still not Rush. We’re sloppy, rough around the
edges. That’s part of our charm. But we’ve gotten really good, and I think on
our best nights, we can take anybody.”

No need to take the Hawk’s word for it. Because the Foos—all eight of them—have at last assembled for the dreaded Wal-Mart shoot. They immediately launch into a blistering rendition of “The Pretender.” Grohl churns at his guitar and growls the lyrics, his face darkening to the hue of a plum tomato. Hawkins pounds his kit, grimacing like an epileptic, while Mendel drubs out a seismic bass line. What makes this performance even more impressive is that their rehearsal space is crammed with stage lights and production assistants and half a dozen cameramen. The Steadicam guy keeps swooping in, like some kind of manic tai chi instructor, to capture the band’s facial expressions. As the song comes to a perfectly calibrated halt, the entire crew looks positively stunned. Then the Foos play the same song again, note for note.

The session runs four hours, give or take a few cigarette breaks. During a
lull, Grohl looks up at the director and deadpans, “Are we getting any free
firearms out of this deal?”
Such mugging is par for the course. The Foos not only nail each song twice,
they continually launch into covers, such as an aborted version of Prince’s “Let’s
Go Crazy,” which Grohl initiates after Jaffee breaks out his electric organ.
Afterward, the Foos are forced to endure questions posed by a Wal-Mart
interviewer. Grohl, clearly exhausted, comes alive only for the ad-libs. “Come on
down to Wal-Mart!” he hollers, in redneckese. “Where anyone can git a gun!”
PRACTICE,
PRACTICE,
PRACTICE

The Prince cover is something of an inside joke. Back in 2003, the Foos recorded “Darling Nikki” for an Australian B-side. The Artist returned the favor in grand style. “I was on vacation in Hawaii,” Grohl recalls. “It was Jordyn and Violet and me sitting around the

pool, and someone came up and said, ‘Hey, man, Prince just played your song
[“Best of You”] at the Super Bowl.’” Grohl raced back to his room to check out
WHAT COMES
AROUND,
GOES AROUND
the clip online. “I got chills. I couldn’t believe that someone I consider a genius
would know my band’s name, much less sing words I wrote.”
Never one to shortchange an idol, Grohl and his colleagues (including Cee-Lo
Green) turn in a funked-up cover of “Darling Nikki” for the VMAs.
BE FOOTFUL
AND MULTIPLY,
REDUX
Shiflett: “Hey, Taylor, did I tell you?
We’re gonna have another kid.”
Hawkins: “Boy or girl?”
Shiflett: “Another boy.”
Hawkins: “Cocks all around!”

“After doing this for 12 years, we’re starting to talk about the long term,” Mendel says. “Which is strange. This should be when we’re winding down as a band—some of us are approaching 40. We’ve done our sixth record.

But now is when we’re laying the
groundwork for doing another six records.”

Shiflett, as close as anyone in the band comes to a realist, offers a more cautious assessment: “There’s no job security in this. We could break up tomorrow or keep playing till we’re all little old men. I hope I’m not doing it at, like, Magic Mountain. I hope I’m not in the Cirque du Soleil house band. But I wouldn’t mind being on a Foo Fighters tour playing the House of Blues.”

As for the Benign Dictator himself, he’s not afraid to use the F-word. Espe-
cially after paying a visit to one of his own heroes, the aging but still artistically
valid and challenging Neil Young. “That was the first time I realized, ‘Oh, you
can do this,’” Grohl says. “You can make it last forever, if you do it right.”
DON’T BE
AFRAID TO USE
THE F-WORD

The song Grohl is proudest of on the new album is “Home,” which he performs mostly solo, at the piano. It’s a plaintive waltz, and the track from which the title of the album derives. He wrote the lyrics in five minutes, sang it once, and immediately knew he’d made a breakthrough.

“And I could give a shit whether our fans like ‘The Pretender’ more than
‘Home,’ because to me, ‘Home’ is the best song I’ve ever written. It might not
be a typical Foo Fighters song or something you expect from the band, but
man, I finally did it. And it gives me hope that maybe I can do it again.”

Grohl tells me this at the end of another long day of rehearsal. He’s standing in his driveway with Violet, gazing at her adoringly while she locks and unlocks a car with a set of keys she’s found. I can’t help but think of his performance of “Home” for the Wal-Mart shoot. It was the last song the band performed, a kind of gentle coda. Grohl’s voice sounded more vulnerable than I’d ever heard, mournful even, as he sang: “People I’ve loved, I have no regrets / Some I remember, some I forget / Some of them living, and some of them dead.”

There was a slight hitch in his voice on that last word, and the rest of band,
instinctively, bowed their heads. The track may not be a hit, but it turned that
room, however briefly, into a church.
There was a long silence when the song ended, broken finally by Hawkins,
who said simply, “Don’t get much better than that.”
Grohl, clearly shaken up, gathered himself for a moment.
“Let’s do one more.”
GIVE THE
PEOPLE WHAT
YOU WANT

MORE AT SPIN.COM To check out video interviews with Dave Grohl and Co. from our cover shoot in Los Angeles, go to spin.com/novembercover