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Dave Grohl and Pat Smear tour David Bowie's Los Angeles haunts

The pair talk Bowie, Nirvana and 'The Man Who Sold The World'

Jack Shepherd
Thursday 18 February 2016 09:28 GMT
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Although he may have been born in London, David Bowie’s heart was always in America, spending much of his life living in the country, primarily in New York but also in Los Angeles where he recorded Station to Station in 1976.

Also in LA at the time were the seminal punk band The Germs, a band ex-Nirvana and current Foo Fighter Pat Smear played for. It turns out, Smear and Germs vocalist Darby Crash would stalk Bowie around the city, once even picking up his finished cigarette.

Famously, Nirvana went on to cover ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ for MTV, the surviving members of which regrouped to perform the song a pre-Grammy gala with Beck. Fresh from their performance, Dave Grohl and Smear jumped in a Bowie-styled truck and drove around LA for Playboy.

In it, not only do they discuss picking up cigarettes and putting song lyrics under Bowie’s windshield, but they also call up Joan Jett, reminisce about choosing their MTV cover, and stop off at an ex-Night Club turned Art gallery. Watch below.

Towards the end of the video, Grohl talks about the email exchanges between himself and Bowie. In other Nirvana news, Dave Grohl recently met up with the actress who played the young girl in the band’s ‘Hear Shaped Box’ music video, 23 years later.

Grohl also performed ‘Ace of Spades’ with members of Slayer and Metallica to honour Lemmy.

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