Foo Fighters are set to return to the road this month, but they’ll be without guitarist Pat Smear, who found himself on the injured list not from rocking out too hard, but what’s apparently the second greatest threat to rock stars everywhere: mishaps in the garden.
The band shared the news on Instagram with a fake tabloid cover featuring a photo of a grinning Smear hoisting a middle finger while being carried away on a stretcher. “Pat Smear Bizarre Gardening Accident!” reads the headline (The issue also promises “Aliens Spotted Warming Up for Spring Training!” and “2026 Fried Chicken and Champagne Diet Tips.”)
“In the classic tradition of rockstars having bizarre gardening accidents, Pat Smear has apparently rung in the new year by smashing the shit out of his left foot,” Foo Fighters wrote in the caption. How exactly Smear smashed his foot remains unclear, though the band said he was left with multiple broken bones.
Smear will miss “a few shows” while he heals, the band continued, adding: “We’ll miss our beloved Pat as much as you will, but we want him fully healed and back on his feet as soon as possible.” Smear’s temporary replacement will be Jason Falkner, who’s played guitar with Beck and St. Vincent.
As goofy as the group’s fake tabloid cover was, there actually is a weird history of “bizarre gardening accidents” in rock music — some fake, some real. On the fake side, there’s the famous Spinal Tap bit where the metal band’s first drummer, John “Stumpy” Pepys, died in a “bizarre gardening accident” that the authorities said was better left “unsolved.”
On the very real side, Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro actually did die while spraying insecticides in his yard in the early Nineties (though the coroner ultimately ruled that he died from a heart attack caused by cocaine use, not an allergic reaction to the pesticides). And in May 2020, Queen guitarist Brian May ripped his gluteus maximums “to shreds” in what he called “a moment of over-enthusiastic gardening.”
The Smear-less Foo Fighters have a handful of shows scheduled this month, including gigs in Mexico, Los Angeles, and Tasmania. It’s possible Smear will be back when the band plays Welcome to Rockville in Daytona Beach, Florida in May, or he may rejoin by the time the band kicks off a European and U.K. tour in June. A North American run is scheduled to start in August.
Foo Fighters appear to be gearing up for a new album after releasing two new tracks, “Today’s Song” and “Asking for a Friend,” last year. The band’s most recent LP, But Here We Are, arrived in 2023.
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