Foo Fighters scream on screen at Studio 666
“There’s no other band stupid enough to do this.” DAVE GROHL
NO STRANGERS to dressing up and capering around in their music videos, Foo Fighters have now broadened their acting ambitions into a full-length feature film. Titled Studio 666 and described as a “horror comedy”, the movie is due for theatrical release in the US in February (with a UK release date still to be confirmed). “There’s no other band stupid enough to do this,” Grohl stresses to MOJO. “It’s absolutely insane.”
Filmed in the same house in Encino, Los Angeles, where the band recorded their latest LP, Medicine At Midnight – in MOJO 318, Dave insisted it was haunted – Studio 666 was directed by BJ McDonnell (responsible for 2013 slasher flick Hatchet III, along with various Slayer videos). While the band are keeping the full plot details under wraps, Grohl says that the basic premise is centred around disturbing goings-on at the house while the Foos are recording, with the hauntings revealed to involve a fictitious group called Dream Window who made a record there decades before. “The singer went nuts,” he elucidates, “and murdered his whole band over creative differences.”
MOJO visited the Encino house/set back in February 2020, and witnessed a hive of cinematic activity, where Grohl was being fitted with demonic, red-eyed contact lenses and false, fang-like teeth. Only days later, however, the production was shut down due to the pandemic.
“We had filmed most of the movie,” Grohl explains now. “All we had to film was basically the few ending scenes. Then months and months went by. We would have meetings to talk about how we could possibly finish this movie with all of the new restrictions and compliance: ‘How are we going to fucking pull it off?’
“So, we came up with a plan. And those six days of shooting turned into about three weeks because of all of the new regulations that really slow things down. We were one of the first productions in Los Angeles back after the Covid thing. We did it safely and we actually pulled it off.”
During lockdown, a trailer was cut together to be screened for distributors, which further emboldened the band to push forward. “We watched that trailer,” says Grohl, “and we were like, ‘Holy fucking shit.’ I mean, honestly, talk about far beyond anyone’s expectations… It’s a movie movie. We all were just like, ‘Oh my god, let’s finish this.’”
The wider cast of Studio 666 features actual, proper actors, including Leslie Grossman (American Horror Story), Will Forte (Saturday Night Live) and Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm). BJ McDonnell, meanwhile, places Studio 666 in the long-lost ’60s and ’70s tradition of bands making daft and ambitious feature films.
“It’s been years since we’ve seen something like The Beatles’ Help!, The Monkees’ Head, or Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park,” the director points out. “Take that old-school band film fun, mix it with horror and Studio 666 is born.”
Audiences can expect a mixture of gore, laughs and high-end special effects, says Grohl. “A couple of scenes, they’re so fucking epic, dude,” he enthuses. “Just when you think we couldn’t come up with anything more ridiculous… It really, really will blow your mind.”
…VASHTI BUNYAN’s memoir Wayward: Just Another Life To Live will be published by White Rabbit in April. It focuses on her 1970 debut LP Just Another
Diamond Day and her creative re-emergence more than 30 years later …coming in May from Omnibus: I’ll Be There, My Life In The Four Tops by DUKE FAKIR with Kathleen McGhee …in spring, Nine Eight Publishing presents The Islander – My Life In Music And Beyond. The autobiography of Island Records boss CHRIS BLACKWELL (out in time for his 85th birthday), Marley, U2 and Roxy will appear alongside Errol Flynn, Miles Davis and Noel Coward, among others …in April, Omnibus publish Rory Sullivan-Burke’s The Light Pours Out Of Me: The Authorised Biography Of JOHN McGEOCH. Within, admirers including Jonny Greenwood and Johnny Marr pay tribute to the late Magazine/Banshees/ PiL guitarist …in April, Picador releases P.J. HARVEY’s (top) self-illustrated, Dorset-dialect magic realist poem
Orlam …written by Richard Morton Jack, NICK DRAKE (above): The Authorised Biography is scheduled for September. Publishers Hodder & Stoughton promise “deeply personal archive material unavailable to previous biographers” …planned for October, Little, Brown will publish Alan Clayson’s Mother Superior: The Saga Of FRANK ZAPPA And The Mothers Of Invention: The Authorised Biography …also from Nine Eight in May: When Does The Mind-Bending Start? Gordon King’s memoir of beloved Manc cults WORLD OF TWIST …in May, Penguin publish Good Pop, Bad Pop: An Inventory by JARVIS COCKER, a narrative prompted by the clearing out of the author’s loft… in July, Omnibus bring us Glam! When Superstars
Ruled The World by Mark Paytress, while David Buckley’s Electric Dreams: THE HUMAN LEAGUE, HEAVEN 17, And The Sound Of The Steel City follows in September…