On the February 22nd, 2003 episode of Saturday Night Live, Christopher Walken was the host, and Foo Fighters were the musical guests. When Foo frontman Dave Grohl got the chance to speak to Walken, he just couldn’t pass up a prime trolling opportunity, and when telling the story to Radio X’s Chris Moyles recently, it came to light that even though absolutely everybody has a Walken impression, Grohl’s is more spot-on than most of them.
Grohl said that when Walken asked for help pronouncing the band’s name, the group couldn’t help but lead the actor hilariously astray:
“[Walken] comes up […] and he asks us if the accent is on ‘Foo’ or ‘Fighters.’ And we know who he is, we know how he speaks, and we said, ‘The accent is on ‘Fighters,’ actually.’ […] He goes up [to introduce us] and he’s like, ‘Ladies and gentleman, Foo FIGHters.'”
That’s when Grohl, after some prodding, quickly slipped into his Walken impression, and everything from the voice itself to the vocal inflections are accurate and super funny. Walken really took Grohl’s phonetic advice, as you can see in the video above that he definitely puts the emphasis on the first syllable of “Fighters” while introducing the band’s performance of “Times Like These.”
Check out Grohl’s impression above, and watch a promo for that SNL episode with Walken and Foo Fighters below.
