They say all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But when you’re actor and musician Jack Black, all work feels like play and there never seems to be a dull moment. Case in point: a co-starring appearance with frontman Dave Grohl in the Foo Fighters video for “Low,” which was banned from MTV back in 2003.
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A More Aggressive Turn
This dissonant third single from their 2002 album One By One was a more aggressive turn for the Foos. It should not be that surprising given that Grohl had recently done the Probot metal side project featuring many luminaries of that genre. Some Foos fans think “Low” featured Taylor Hawkins’ best drumming with the band.
“That’s the kind of song that you pray would be a single, but there’s just no way because it’s, like, the coolest song on the record,” Grohl told MTV News in 2003. “It’s the one that everybody likes, but there’s just no way ’cause it’s too weird. And we made it a single, so I’m looking forward to it. I love playing it live, and that’s what kind of counts the most.”
A Quirky Video
The off-kilter song produced a quirky video. Grohl’s original plan was to have Black dance in drag for the entire four minutes, all captured in one take. But director Jesse Peretz, who also helmed the funny Foos videos for “Learn to Fly” and “Big Me,” convinced him to take a different approach.
The video for “Low” turned into a more visually chaotic event. It starred Grohl and Black as two redneck friends who pulled up in their large vehicles to an out-of-the-way rural motel. They got out and brought along metal suitcases.
Black: “What’s up, Lester?”
Grohl: “What’s up, Cole? You ready to do this?”
Black: “You know I am.”
Grohl (shouting): “Let’s get it on!”
Black: “Put the hammer down.”
Grohl: “Let’s do this.”
They went into their room.
“It turned into me and Jack, then it turned into the two of us as rednecks who pull up in our monster trucks who meet at this hotel outside of town and start partying and doing shots and arm wrestling and watching some porn,” Grohl recollected to MTV News. “And then I open my suitcase and it’s full of lingerie and he’s like, ‘What the hell?’ Like maybe that’s not cool, but then he opens up his, too, and his is filled with the same deal. And then we have a little fashion show. And then he pukes and passes out and I pass out. It’s great. Video of the year, that’s what I’m thinking.”
MTV Says No
That was said before MTV decided to ban the video for its content. In other words, two repressed good ‘ol boys dressing in women’s clothes and probably wanting things to go further between them, but unable to cross that line. Even amid all the drinking, dancing, gyrating in lingerie, and dry humping, the guys still displayed that bro-ish tendency towards aggressive hugging and back slapping. The video was mostly shot from the point-of-view of a handheld camcorder. In the morning, the two guys get dressed and leave like nothing happened.
It was very clear the video was digging beneath the macho exterior of the stereotypical red-blooded American male to expose something underneath, such as repressed homosexuality or differing feelings about masculinity within certain people.
Grohl and the band have never been shy about gender bending. In the “Learn to Fly” video (which also featured Black), the frontman appeared as a flamboyantly gay steward, a starstruck schoolgirl in pigtails, and an overweight and hungry female passenger while the late drummer Hawkins showed up as a sassy stewardess. Further, Grohl and Hawkins flirted with their female personas. More recently in the clip “Love Dies Young,” Hawkins’ last with the band, they appeared as vivacious synchronized swimmers with their faces digitally inserted over female athletes’ bodies.
The Foo Fighters have also trolled the homophobic members of the Westboro Baptist Church congregation who frequently picket concerts or events that they feel promote a “sinful” gay agenda. Outside of a venue they were going to play in Kansas City in 2015, the band blasted Rick Astley at them and also dressed up as scruffy-looking country musicians and serenaded them with the song “Keepin’ It Clean” that included a pro-diversity monologue about how “it take all kinds” to make up a society.
In a 2011 video called “Hot Buns,” the Foos appeared as country dudes (in the same disguises from that aforementioned serenade) who go to a truck-stop shower. They got naked, shared teasing glances, posed provocatively, showed off their bare butts, and tossed in a little spanking and scrubbing each other down for good measure. Pat Smear played the shocked janitor who walked in on them. The whole scenario was set to the synthy tune “Body Language” by Queen, the video for which was banned from MTV in 1982 for its provocative and seemingly homoerotic vibes. The Queen album the track came from was called Hot Space.
As weird as “Low” might have seemed to have some fans—and it’s certainly off-the-wall—it fits in with a broader perspective of a band who like to play hard-hitting rock ‘n’ roll but who also don’t take themselves, and traditional attitudes about male behavior, too seriously. Perhaps some of the older video portrayals feel like caricatures now, but the intentions were in the right place.
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Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images
