In 1998, the music festival Ozzfest was arranged in England at the Milton Keynes. The band Korn had been booked to play, but circumstances forced them to cancel. A replacement band was needed and Foo Fighters were contacted to fill the slot.
Dave Grohl recalled the story during an interview with the Australian radio channel Triple M in 2019: “They had the Ozzy-led Sabbath, Slayer, Anthrax, Pantera, and all these crazy heavy bands,” he said, “but they called us! ‘Hey, can you guys fill in for Korn?’ I told them they were crazy, that we were not a metal band. We’d be killed, like, there’s just no way. So… we decided to do it.”
The day arrived, as did the Foo Fighters – a bit concerned about how they’d fit in. The first thing they heard was the sound of Pantera playing. This just seemed to underline their fears, as they were one of the heaviest, most brutally shredding metal bands around at the time. Then they saw 60,000 audience members raising their fists towards the sky simultaneously one minute, before going completely nuts the next. Then it really hit them what type of band they had been asked to follow.
Foo Fighters went on, and contrary to initial fears the band found themselves reasonably warmly welcomed by the crowd. More importantly, though: they noticed other bands watching from the wings, many of them singing along and giving them the thumbs up. The vibe was supportive, and camaraderie and signs of approval obviously made them feel a whole lot better.
Pantera were amongst those showing support, and afterwards they met the guys and became friends. Grohl writes about the encounter in his book The Storyteller (2021): “Anyone who’s had the chance to hang out with Pantera knows that it is not for the faint of heart. First of all, there was never a band more welcoming, more hospitable, more down-to-earth than Pantera. It didn’t matter who you were, what you did, or where you were from. They would welcome you in, stuff a beer in your hand and a shot in your mouth, and make you laugh harder than you’ve ever laughed before. We got along like a house on fire, and as we said our drunken goodbyes, Vinnie [Paul, drummer] gave me a business card. ‘Dude, the next time you’re in Dallas, you gotta come by the Clubhouse.’ I looked at the card, and to my amazement (but not surprise) they had THEIR OWN STRIP CLUB. Some rock stars have expensive cars. Some have castles. Some even have exotic animals. But a fucking strip club? That takes the cake. That’s like me owning a Starbucks. Danger.”
Grohl had been living in Los Angeles up to that point, and this coincided with him moving back to Virginia where he was from. He and Foo drummer Taylor Hawkins had been discussing going to the club to hang with Pantera, and now the bright idea formed that the move could be combined with swinging by the Clubhouse.
“I put all of my stuff in my house on a truck,” Grohl told Triple M radio. “Meanwhile, Taylor and I just jumped into my truck and did this ‘Dumb & Dumber-type drive across America, right? We were so excited. This was in 1998, and we were basically routing our trip around where our friends live and where the strip clubs are.
On the first day they stopped at Barstow (5 hours outside of LA) to get gas. They drove on to Phoenix that night, go to check into the hotel, and Grohl discovers that he had left his wallet on top of this gas tank in Barstow. His heart sank, as that meant he didn’t have cash, credit cards, or ID. The wallet had some personal mementos as well, like the guitar pick Dimebag Darrell [Pantera’s guitarist] had given him.
Grohl phoned his accountant in Seattle and made a plan to have replacement cards sent by FedEx to their next roadside motel. Then they soldiered on. NOTHING was going to stop them from getting to the Clubhouse!
“We kept driving,” Grohl said, “and I’m calling the Pantera guys. I say, ‘alright then, we’re coming to the Clubhouse! We’re going to be there like Tuesday night”’ They say, ‘Hell yeah!’ So it’s going to be great! We’re basically making this 800 mile detour to get to The Club House, to their strip club.”
They eventually hit Texas, first meeting up with some of Taylor’s relatives at an authentic Texas roadside steakhouse, after which they are cleared for take-off. “We jumped in the Tahoe and drove the short distance outside of town to the Clubhouse,” Grohl wrote in The Storyteller. “Actually, we may have floated there on a rainbow wave of cotton candy unicorn glitter, but maybe that’s just my romantic revisionism kicking in. Regardless, it was really happening. Months and months of waking every day, counting the minutes until we walked into the neon/black light of Pantera’s palace, enveloped by the aroma of Coors Light and peach body wash, DJ blasting old-school Scorpions, to find a booth full of Pantera just waiting to greet us with a big, Pearl Jam-style high-five. I had the whole thing dialled into my mind. It was the Goodfellas kitchen scene on acid. And it was about to go down.”
Something certainly was about to go down. “We get there, and we’re like, this could be the best fucking night of our lives!” Grohl told Triple M radio, the anxiety still in his voice after all these years. ”This could be amazing, man! So we get there, and we walk up to the door. Then security guy says ‘ID please?’ And I freeze as I remember – oh. I don’t have my wallet. Which contains my ID. I tell him I lost my wallet on our trip, and he’s like ‘I can’t let you in unless you have ID.’ We get desperate. ‘But we’re friends with Pantera!’ He sighs knowingly, saying ‘dude, everybody’s friends with Pantera!’ So I stand there, like… oh my God. And we’re not getting in! Fuck! No way. I tried my best, saying ‘dude, have you ever heard the song Smells Like Teen Spirit?’ They might have, but were undeterred. ‘I’m sorry dude, I just can’t do it. I can’t do it man.’
While Taylor may have been able to get in, it just would not be the same. They were two for one, and one for all. This was a big anti-climax to their big trip, but there was no way around it. They got back to their hotel, gutted, and had no choice but to just continue the trip to their destination without visiting their self-imagined Shangri-La.
There is a postscript to this story, as told by Dave Grohl in his book The Storyteller:
“Ten years later in Oxnard, California. I was at a local surf shop in the harbour buying some sunglasses with my baby daughter Violet, and as we walked up to the cash register, the nice girl behind the counter greeted me with a hello and began to ring up my purchase. She looked up, paused a moment, and asked, ‘Are you Dave Grohl?’ ‘Yes’ I said with a smile. Still squinting, she said, ‘Did you lose your wallet in Barstow in 1998?’ ‘YES!!!!!’ I replied in amazement. She laughed and said, ‘That was my parent’s gas station. They still have your wallet, dude.’”
Grohl could not believe it. He gave the woman his address, and she went on to send him the wallet, which was completely intact. It contained everything in it from 1998. It was like a time capsule that had been buried for years, still filled with sweet memorabilia from that now distant period of his life – including his old driver’s licence, cards, small photos, and a particularly bittersweet memento in the form of Dimebag Darrell’s guitar pick, who had passed in the interim. This still provided the trip with a positive exclamation mark of sorts, as well as a nice reminder that decent folks can be found anywhere.
RIP Dimebag Darrell, Vinnie Paul, and Taylor Hawkins.
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