Foos' Grohl recalls Prince jam

Foo Fighters’ mainman Dave Grohl reveals he jammed with Prince in 2011 at the request of the pop icon.

The offer came during Prince’s run of 21 dates at the LA forum – and the Foos’ man says it took him completely by surprise.

He tells Rolling Stone: “I go to the first show in a party bus with all my friends, boozing it up. I walk into the Forum Club and bump into somebody from a road crew I’d work with before. He says, ‘Prince knows you’re here and he wants to jam.’

“At the end of the night, I’m standing next to this black curtain. I pull it back and there’s Prince with Sheila E. I go, ‘Hey, man, great show.’ He says, ‘When do you want to jam? How about Friday?’

And Grohl says when he returned to The Forum for the jam session, Prince had assembled his whole band specially for the occasion.

He continues: “We start playing – he’s got the whole band up there, throwing chord changes with his fingers, conducting the band as we’re jamming. I can’t believe this is happening – and it’s happening in a completely empty Forum.

“Then he puts on a guitar and starts playing Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love. It’s fuckin’ bad-ass. We do that for 10 minutes. It slays. He says, ‘We should do that, man. What are you doing next Friday?’”

But Grohl was left disappointed as he never got a call. He adds: “I never heard from Prince again. But I swear it happened. I swear. And nobody saw it.”

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.