Most wouldn’t compare Wings to the Foo Fighters — but most aren’t Paul McCartney.
The former Beatle did precisely that when he inducted the Foo Fighters into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Saturday night in a moving speech that drew many parallels between himself and Dave Grohl.
McCartney started out his short speech describing himself as “just an ordinary kid” living in Liverpool “going to school like everybody else,” according to Variety.
But then one day, he “heard some music” and his “world changed.”
“I just fell through a hole in time, and suddenly, I was in rock ‘n’ roll,” he said.
The guitarist then described Dave as “just an ordinary, kind of goofy kid.”
“And the same thing happened. He falls through the same hole, and he’s in rock ‘n’ roll. And it’s gonna be his life. It’s gonna take over everything,” Paul said.
And sure, lots of kids become obsessed with rock ‘n’ roll, but the similarities the 79-year-old musician pointed out next may have caused Paul to raise an eyebrow.
“I fell into rock and roll, I joined a group. My group was the Beatles. Like I say, the world changed. Dave did a similar kind of thing. He joined a group, Nirvana. We had a great time with our groups, but then eventually tragedy happened, and my group broke up,” Paul explained.
“The same happened with Dave: His group broke up under tragic circumstances. And so then the question is, what do you do now? And we both were presented with that question. In my case, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll make an album where I play all the instruments myself.’ So I did that. Dave’s group broke up, what’s he to do? He makes an album where he plays all the instruments himself. Do you think this guy’s stalking me?”
Paul pointed out how he and Grohl both parlayed those albums — McCartney and Foo Fighters’ self-titled debut — to launch successful second careers with Wings and the Foo Fighters.
Considering how much they have in common, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the two musicians have become friends throughout the years. Dave, however, has admitted that he “freaked out” when he first met Paul and that even though they’re now close, that the feeling of awe “never wears off.”
Yet, that didn’t seem to show when the two jammed out together at the ceremony Saturday night. Check out their performance below:
