Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl says one of the best-known songs from his previous band has a surprising similarity to a very unlikely tune.
Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Grohl told Rolling Stone, has a lot in common with Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
He had the epiphany when Foo Fighters were working on a cover of “Never Gonna Give You Up” for a 2017 festival in Japan, where Astley was also on the bill.
“We started kind of learning it true to the original,” Grohl told the magazine.
“And then I start to realize that the arrangement is exactly the same as ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’” Grohl added. “The chord progression has an uncanny resemblance. It’s true. There’s a riff and then the drums kick in, and then there’s a verse … there’s a lot. I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ So we start joking around playing it in that same style, and it was so funny that we did it ten times in a row.”
When the Foos took the stage, Astley was standing nearby ― and on the shortest notice possible, he agreed to join the band for their “Smells Like Teen Spirit”-flavored version of “Never Gonna Give You Up,” essentially rickrolling the entire festival:
Grohl is about to become a two-time member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was inducted with Nirvana in 2014, and will enter again with Foo Fighters on Oct. 30.
He spoke to Rolling Stone for a cover story ahead of the release of his memoir, “The Storyteller,” which hits shelves next week.