Dave Grohl has called his Probot side project album a death metal Supernatural, but don’t look for it to dominate the Grammys or the Billboard albums chart.
“It’s not unlike the Santana record in that it really kicks ass, but it’s not the kind of thing that you’d expect,” Grohl said backstage at Saturday’s KROQ Weenie Roast. “There’s a certain kind of person that will like the Probot record, and there aren’t that many of those people…. I mean, it’s not meant to, like, make money.”
Probot’s album – which features Grohl, Zwan guitarist Matt Sweeney and Foo Fighters producer Adam Kasper accompanying Slayer’s Tom Araya, Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister and other singers – has been done for three years and will finally be released in early fall on Southern Lord Recordings.
“After recording a bunch of it, a friend of mine said, ‘Wow, you know what would be really cool is if you could get a different vocalist to sing on each thing.’ And then I picked all of my favorite vocalists from that specific genre of music, underground metal from like ’83 to ’89,” Grohl explained.
The album includes such metal luminaries as King Diamond, Celtic Frost’s Thomas Gabriel Warrior, Voivod’s Snake, Venom’s Cronos, Trouble’s Eric Wagner, Napalm Death’s Lee Dorrian, Corrosion of Conformity’s Mike Dean and Obsessed’s Wino. “It’s pretty awesome,” Grohl said.
“Awesome” is also the word Grohl associates with the latest offering from the Foo Fighters, One by One’s third single, “Low.”
“That’s the kind of song that you pray would be a single, but there’s just no way because it’s, like, the coolest song on the record,” Grohl said. “It’s the one that everybody likes, but there’s just no way ’cause it’s too weird. And we made it a single, so I’m looking forward to it. I love playing it live, and that’s what kind of counts the most.”
For the video, director Jesse Peretz (“Learn to Fly,” “Big Me”) filmed Grohl and friend Jack Black meeting for an unpredictable night in a seedy hotel room. Originally, Grohl wanted to just film Black dancing in drag for four minutes with no edits, but Peretz convinced him otherwise.
“It turned into me and Jack, then it turned into the two of us as rednecks who pull up in our monster trucks who meet at this hotel outside of town and start partying and doing shots and arm wrestling and watching some porn,” Grohl said. “And then I open my suitcase and it’s full of lingerie and he’s like, ‘What the hell?’ Like maybe that’s not cool, but then he opens up his, too, and his is filled with the same deal. And then we have a little fashion show. And then he pukes and passes out and I pass out. It’s great. Video of the year, that’s what I’m thinking.”
And Grohl knows good videos, as he’s directed a few Foo classics himself. He said he’s been too busy to accept other bands’ requests for his services, but he does intend to do more.
“I’m gonna be the highest paid video director of all time,” he joked after ranting about the “scam” of video directing. “I want to do a video for someone, maybe Celine Dion, something so outrageously expensive but so simple, so much that I get all the money. I’ll make a handheld video with Celine in drag with the porn. That’d be awesome.”
His directing aspirations end at videos, though.
“Direct a movie? F– no,” he answered. “That requires, like, concentration and sh-, like the skills and the knowledge. No, I don’t think I could do that.”
Foo Fighters kick off the next leg of their headlining tour June 30 in Milwaukee.