The prank war between Red Hot Chili Peppers' Chad Smith and the Foo Fighters' Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl ensued while the bands were touring extensively together in 1999.
In an installment of Rolling Stones' "The First Time" series, drummer Smith recalled how the friendly rivalry began.
"As you know, the drummer doesn't move around, he has to sit in one spot...so I decided it would be a good idea to rig up things above [Hawkins]."
The arrangements included "M&M's, popcorn...not like a few, not a bag, a lot. Thousands at the end of one of their songs, it would all come down on him and he couldn't get out of the way. I thought that was funny."
Hawkins would have the last laugh during the last show of the tour, as he confessed to Radio X, "First of all, we dropped a thousand golf balls on their heads, and then pasta."
In 2017, Smith also confirmed the glorious details of the revenge prank, "Down [came] ping-pong balls and glitter, which was kinda weird - it was okay, but kinda weird. Dave and Taylor [were] at the side and [I'm like] 'F***k you!' Anthony [Kiedis] [was] laughing, missing all the words. Then the ping-pong balls and the glitter stopped. I was like 'Okay, cool.' Then like 500 pounds of spaghetti!"
He described the bizarre feeling, "That was like snakes falling on you, for a long time. It did not stop, it was all over the drums... they got me really good. I barely finished the end of the song, then I [ran] off and [tackled] Dave."
Reminiscing on the unique friendship between the two musicians, Smith concluded, "Taylor [is] godfather to one of my kids. Poor kid."
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