Dave Grohl has likely heard numerous covers of his music over the years, and likely his patience has been tried with some of them. But any of those may pale in comparison to what went down with the musician was a guest this week on The Late Late Show With James Corden.
If uncomfortable comedy is your thing, then you’ll love the cringy segment in which Corden played songs on keyboard for his guests that they had to guess. But the catch of “James That Tune” is that Corden has zero idea how to play the keyboard, leaving Grohl and fellow guest Hilary Duff to suffer through the uneasy segment.
To start the segment, Corden tests out several keys trying to figure out how to present the song he’s going to play until Grohl can no longer take the noodling around, shouting down the host to “Just play the fucking song, man.”
As Corden fumbles around the keys, Grohl rubs his forehead unamused guessing “Everlong,” before Corden revealed it to be “Learn to Fly.”
As Duff and Grohl waited for the next song, she let out a sigh and a bored stare while Grohl remained non-plussed. After an initial pass at the song, Corden told Grohl, “You …. should know it,” then decided it was probably too hard without the drums so he started thumping on drum pad option. “Can we phone a friend,” asked Duff, before Corden revealed the song to be “My Hero.”
“This is the last one,” Corden offered, with Grohl responding, “Promise?” But as Corden prepared his final song, Duff and Grohl blew him off discussing finding a SmashBurger franchise in the Valley.
Eventually garnering his guests attention, Corden tried to ensure Grohl would get one of the songs by mouthing the lyrics. “His face makes it worse,” countered Grohl, then explaining, “I know what song it is but I’m afraid to say it for fear that people will think it sounds like that.” “Best of You” was the song, the best of performances it was not, as the segment mercifully ended with Grohl still looking annoyed as they cut away for a commercial.
Grohl has been making the rounds promoting his Studio 666 movie with his band Foo Fighters. See more of the chat with Grohl and Duff with Corden (it’s much lighter, trust us), below the “James That Tune” segment.
“James That Tune” With Dave Grohl + Hilary Duff
The Late Late Show With James Corden Interview With Dave Grohl + Hilary Duff
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