I first listened to Foo Fighters when I was 13. I found them after going down a long Nirvana rabbit hole, and they were the first band I discovered on my own, without my parents or friends introducing me to them, which made them feel more special.

Years later, they came to mean so much more to me because one of my best friends, who has since passed away, had 'My Hero' as their favourite song. Looking back now, that feels especially fitting, and it only made Foo Fighters all the more significant to me.

And now after all these years, their long-awaited arrival in both Bengaluru and Mumbai on 29th January and 31st January, respectively feels almost like a homecoming of sorts.

We spoke to some Indian musicians and listeners about their relationship with the band and the significance it holds in their lives. Here's what they had to say:

There was a period of time not too long ago where I was going through a really rough patch personally. Nothing was really working out and day by day my motivation to do anything or even live, was dwindling. Couple clinical depression with chronic alcoholism and you get quite the disastrous cocktail of self destruction. One of the few things that saved me from that, and myself, was one of their 'Times Like These' performances where he dedicated it to his mom and teachers across the board who struggled during Covid. It reminded me of my own mom, who's a teacher, and how there are enough people who genuinely care not only for me, but the world in general. People who are struggling with challenges they've never had to deal with, just so that a few people have a better future ahead. Day by day, I kept reminding myself that, and brick by brick i rebuilt myself back up. Dave Grohl was my spiritual guru, my inspiration, my therapist, and most importantly, my friend through all that.

Foo Fighters just seem to have written something for every version of falling apart and for everyone, really.

There’s one song I can’t just play in the background. 'Times Like These'! I’d have to actually sit with it and if I got distracted halfway through, I’d get irritated enough to start it all over again. It’s become the thing that gets me upright when everything feels like it's going down; when the ugliness of the situation tries to convince me there’s no way through it. 'Best of You' carried a different kind of daring. It told me to be the version of yourself you keep almost becoming; to treat the day in front of you like it’s not guaranteed and that hit sooooo differently back then. I remember being sixteen, when the rebellion of not fitting into this social system had hit the hardest, that’s when I started slowly falling in love with rock, understanding genres I’d never really listened to before. I still don’t know if it was something I developed, or if I’d just finally found music with enough emotional depth to actually hold what I was feeling.

What pulled me in deeper was the fan communities I became exposed to across different bands, whether on Twitter or YouTube. Watching how a fanbase actually was, how people showed up for the same three minutes of sound over and over, that was the first group of communities I ever felt like I was actively part of. Under all the rebellion was real hope. Looking back, it’s a happy story. Music was the one thing that taught me how to actually listen to myself.

I think over the years, I’ve become a bit ‘jaded’ by some of the bands I used to listen to while growing up. The Foo Fighters are definitely one of them. I have the tendency to be a perpetual contrarian, and I always feel a little uncomfortable by the ‘mainstreamification’ of a band and artist I used to look up to. But make no mistake, the Foo Fighters and Grohl as an individual have an indescribably important influence on my approach to songwriting and performance. The band takes everything we love about live, balls-to-the-wall music and distils it onto their most seminal recordings. Even amidst the over-polished, oversanitized excess of early 2000s rock as a whole, the Foos brought a rawness and a grit to their production that allowed them to stand out. Everything feels ‘alive’ on a Foo Fighters album, and however you feel about their evolution as a band, it's without question that, as a live act, they are truly still at the very top of their game.

For me, there is no song in the world that can replicate the moody, melancholic euphoria of ‘Everlong’; the way it moves from wistful and serene to a crushing wall of harmony and angst and loudness that peaks, cascades, and washes over you. It takes you to those moments that you wish would go on forever; a place, time, or a person that you could live in and with until the earth stops turning. It makes you feel the full weight of love and, tragically, the inevitable loss we all must face because we dared to love someone.

I remember one of the first music videos I was shown as being a really cool video was The Pretender. The whole wall behind the band just explodes into this red liquid. It's a great song. My first real experience with the band was when I was asked to cover that song. It was one of the more challenging tracks I had to learn to play. Around the same time, I was also playing 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', and as a drummer, it was exciting to realise that the same guy who played drums on a song I knew and loved had also gone on to sing and play guitar on another band I knew and loved. That made me want to pick up playing the guitar a little bit more so that was really cool.

Everlong is a one of the most challenging songs to play on the drums not because of its technicality but just because of the stamina it requires. It's usually one of the songs I do to warm up my arms before I start a practice session. 

Foo Fighters are a great band, but on a more serious note: fuck Dave Grohl. Yeah, I can separate the art from the artist. I will appreciate the artist but I don't think I'm gonna be cheering for him when it comes to the concert. I'm gonna go there and listen to some great music that the entire band has contributed to. I love Taylor Hawkins, he's a great drummer.

"Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters epitomise the tenacity of an individual rooted in rhythm. Lost a gig as the drummer of the world’s most popular band and reinvented himself as a rock icon in his own right. Drummers have to have thick skin and be tenacious. Dave Grohl epitomises that.

Dave and his songwriting gave me an understanding of simplicity and energy in a live performance. I also have to add that his partner in crime, Taylor Hawkins, carved a niche for himself that has been ever so hard to replace. It’s hard to tell where Dave’s ideas and Taylor's style on the drums begin and end. But it’s a legacy that India will soon be a part of.

They're not my most favourite or the band that influenced me more than their contemporaries to be quite honest, but I did love Dave Grohl as a person and as a musical innovator. Also the first album is a certified grunge classic.

I definitely I can't look at Dave Grohl the same way anymore after the controversy, even though it's all resolved now. I have intense personal trauma when it comes to cheating and infidelity so anyone who has ever partaken in that for whatsoever reason gets a side eye from me at the least.

So, for some reason, I connected to Foo Fighters on a different level. I grew up with a lot of Beatles and Pink Floyd, and Queen, and classic rock. But it was when I was in, I think, eighth or ninth grade that I got Foo Fighters into my life.

I also grew up hearing "be a man" and "men don't cry", and just a lot of masculinity and aggressive energy from the people around me, friends, family, everyone. I always felt out of place, but then Foo Fighters gave me a spotlight where they were like, "Hey, by the way, I see you, and I acknowledge you, and it's okay. It's alright." So, that feeling Foo Fighters gave me, I’ve been a fan of them ever since."

Get your tickets to both shows here.

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