During the introduction to the most recent episode of First We Feast’s Hot Ones, the show where celebrities sit down to answer interview questions while wiping tears and snot from their hot sauce-ravaged faces, host Sean Evans calls Dave Grohl one of “the most requested guests we’ve ever had on the show” next to Gordon Ramsay.
We understand this level of popularity because, up until today, we’d always assumed that the omnipresent Grohl had visited the show to slam chicken wings at least three or four times in the past.
It seemed impossible that he had escaped the beady, hot sauce-fired chicken eye of Sauron for so long, but, as it turns out, Evans’ ring of torment has only just now welcomed Grohl into its high Scoville embrace.
Despite it being his first visit, Grohl does a great job as both spicy poultry devourer and interviewee. As he and Evans climb their way up the pain ladder, Grohl answers questions about all sorts of topics.
When asked to discuss great drummers, he defines some of his picks by talking about the feel of their playing, defining an outstanding player as someone who you can identify within “about 15 seconds” of hearing them. He also talks about the power of live music, his interest in UFOs, the time he electrocuted himself by stepping on a guitar pedal after jumping into a pool during “some corporate gig,” and punctuates everything with huge burps.
Along the way, Grohl enlists Evans into a competition of his own, getting him to drink shots of Crown Royal and Coke (created by Pantera and called a “Black-Tooth Grin” apparently) between rounds of wings and promising that the booze is “gonna help ... or not.”
Grohl holds up remarkably well to the hot sauces, keeping the majority of his mucous inside his face, maintaining his composure, and telling Evans that he’s long-awaited an opportunity to come on the show, comparing it to his first time on Saturday Night Live and Letterman after years of watching them at home.
Somehow, despite talking for a full half hour, though, Evans fails to ask Grohl the most pressing question: Whether he prefers drums or flats. We suppose this is understandable, given that the beginning of his career might make the answer to that question too obvious to get into.
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