Before Kansas’ gig at Chicago Theater for their 50th-anniversary ‘Another Fork in the Road’ Tour, bassist Billy Greer sat down with MeTV for an interview. During this chat, he touched on the band’s history and dropped hints about his relationship with Dave Grohl after the ’80s grunge scene.
When the interviewer remarked on how Seattle’s music in 1988 kept Kansas’ ‘In the Spirit of Things’ album ‘from getting a lot of commercial play,’ Greer touched on grunge bands’ effect on his band’s success by saying:
“It did more than kept it– it killed it! The grunge scene came on with Nirvana, and Stone Temple Pilots, and all those other bands out of the Seattle area, and we were dropped like a hot potato, man.”
He went on to explain the fallout:
“The record company dropped us, and the promoter said, ‘We’re sorry, we can’t book you anymore.’ Our manager quit– he actually went to a much better job, though. He started working for Oliver Stone as his musical director. So we couldn’t actually hold any grudges against Bud for doing that! Phil took over as our manager.”
Then, the bassist recalled the support Kansas received from its fanbase despite the change in the music scene at the time. Upon this, the interviewer pointed out that most of the grunge bands were not around anymore, unlike his band. So, he started talking about Dave Grohl and touched on his relationship with the singer:
“Dave’s still around. Dave Grohl. We ran into those guys in Salt Lake City in one of those SkyClubs there. I guess we both fly Delta a lot. But we were traveling and just happened to end up in the same SkyClub there. We were talking to those guys.”
And he added:
“My son went to see them at one of the– Bonnaroo Festival, I think it was? He was so excited to tell me that during their set, they did ‘Carry On, Wayward Son,’ or part of it.”
The bassist delved more into Foo Fighters’ covers as follows:
“They were playing around with a couple different things. ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ they played a snippet of this and that… Of other popular songs. Then Dave [Grohl] says, ‘We’re no effing cover band! But if we were, this is what we’d play!’ and then they go into ‘Carry On..’ with the [hums guitar riff]. So I guess he must’ve been a fan, or he likes that particular song or something.”
Grohl’s band played Kansas’ 1976 track at a few of their shows in the past, including their gig during the 1997 Summerfest at Henry W. Maier Festival Park. You can listen to a recording of the cover here.
