Dave Grohl has recalled the unusual circumstance which brought him face to face with one of his childhood idols, Kiss singer Paul Stanley.
The meeting didn’t happen at a concert, awards show or even some swanky Hollywood party. Instead, the unexpected interaction took place at Grohl’s daughter’s elementary school.
“I’m taking my daughter to school, and who’s there in assembly? Paul Stanley,” the Foo Fighters frontman recalled during an appearance on the BBC’s Reel Stories (as transcribed by Kerrang!).
Despite being an upper echelon rock star in his own right, Grohl couldn’t hide his excitement in the moment. “As much as I tried to seem unfazed and like another dad in assembly as the kids are singing kumbaya, I was standing next to the man whose face was a poster on my wall growing up,” the rocker explained. “If it weren’t for [Stanley], I don’t know if I’d be playing guitar right now.”
Grohl further explained that he’d discovered Kiss thanks to an older cousin. Upon hearing the legendary face painted band for the first time, the head Foo said he immediately thought, “This is rock ‘n’ roll.”
This isn’t the first time Grohl has heaped praise on Kiss. In 2015, the Nirvana drummer presented Stanley and Gene Simmons with the ASCAP Founders Award during the ASCAP Pop Music Awards ceremony.
During that night’s introductory speech, Grohl declared himself a “member of the infamous Kiss army,” again alluding to the band’s posters which lined his childhood bedroom walls. “Every morning, I would wake up in my tiny bedroom and take a good look at my superheroes before walking to school. They got me through those years and ultimately inspired me to follow this unreasonable dream of becoming a professional rock ‘n’ roll musician,” Grohl declared.
During his ACSAP speech, the Foo Fighters frontman also noted his hangouts with Stanley. “These days I still spend every morning before school with Paul Stanley… in the parking lot of our kids’ fuckin’ elementary school, chatting about Zeppelin and Electric Lady and touring and school fundraisers,” Grohl noted. “So I’d say that my unreasonable dream definitely came true.”