The Foo Fighters frontman takes to Dave's True Stories to tell the tale of his final exchange with the late, great David Bowie.
After the most recent instalment of his True Stories series in which Dave Grohl recalled the mind-blowing time he jammed with Prince, he has now thrown things back to a rather memorable exchange that he had with the Starman himself, David Bowie.
The Foo Fighters frontman has revealed that the two musical legends had actually discussed working together prior David's death in 2016, having exchanged emails after the release of 2013 album The Next Day. That same year, Dave had been asked to pen a song for “a big budget, major motion picture”, and decided to send the track to David's longtime producer Tony Visconti with the mindset that the two Davids could collaborate on it.
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After The Thin White Duke declined the offer but suggested they could work on something else together one day, Dave says, “I immediately responded with a brief note saying, ‘Hey man, thank you for listening to the song. I hope that you’re well, and let me know if you’d ever like to make music together sometime.’
“Short, sweet, to the point. Not wanting to take up any more of his time, I hit send with a smile. Within 60 seconds, my inbox chimed with a new email. It was Bowie responding to the note I had just sent. ‘That was fast,’ I thought. I opened it…
“It read, ‘Well, that’s settled. Now fuck off.’”
Feeling like “a cat having an afternoon nap on a warm afternoon, to the shock and horror of your first prostate exam”, Dave soon learned – after more email exchanges – that it was all in good humour, and the relief washed over him like a “glorious baptism”, he says.
“I could finally breathe knowing that David Bowie did not actually wish for me to ‘fuck off’ – or maybe he did, but in the nicest way possible, and even that was an honour.
“We ended the exchange with pleasantries, hoping to see each other again, and life went on.”
Years later, after David Bowie lost his private, 18-month battle with cancer, Dave now ponders: “The world had no idea that David was ill, and when he passed two days after the release of his final album Blackstar, I looked back on my memories of him with a great sense of fondness and also deep sadness.
“Nothing lasts forever, I know, but the best things always seem to end much too soon…”
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