Warning: This list contains spoilers for Studio 666.
The Foo Fighters have officially made a horror movie. What makes Studio 666 so fun is that Dave Grohl and company didn’t make it all about their own music. As a matter of fact, outside of a joke where Grohl kept playing cords from old Foo Fighters’ songs, without realizing it was his old music, there weren’t any of the band’s songs in the movie.
With that said, there were a lot of rock and roll references and Easter eggs throughout the movie. Some of these moments were clear, as the band was obviously having fun with jokes surrounding some of their favorite rock bands. However, other Easter eggs were more obscure, offering fans of rock and roll something to smile about.
Pearl Jam High Five
There was one joke that the Foo Fighters threw out twice in Studio 666, and was based on the cover of the Pearl Jam album Ten. The band gives each other a “Pearl Jam high five” and then follows up with a funny quip based on one of their songs.
The first one came when the Foo Fighters were having a meeting with their record producer and said “Pearl Jam high five: Jeremy has spoken,” referring to the song “Jeremy.” Later, at the haunted house, they said “Pearl Jam high five: We’re still alive,” based on the Pearl Jam song “Alive.”
Black Sabbath Recorded In A Castle
There was a comment in the early part of the movie where Dave Grohl was talking about Led Zeppelin taking a break to work on music in a castle rather than in a studio. This was true, as they played in Clearwater Castle. What is interesting is another band from the 1970s used the ancient castle to record their hit album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.
This was Black Sabbath’s fifth album and they suffered from writer’s block. As a result, they went to record the new album in 1973 at the Clearwater Castle in the Forest of Dean. That album ended up going platinum.
Kerry King Was Krug
The first death in the movie, outside of the flashback scene that opened Studio 666, was the tech setting up the band’s instruments. Krug was working on the wiring when he ended up electrocuted and died horribly.
It was not an actor who played Krug, but a rock legend. Kerry King took on the role of Krug, and for those who are not heavy metal fans, King is the founder, guitarist, and songwriter for the thrash metal band Slayer. In another fun cameo, Halloween director John Carpenter played the engineer that arrived later in the movie.
Foo Fighters Vs. Coldplay
While the Foo Fighters were recording the album, they chose to live in the mansion. This meant they needed to either cook or order in. When they ordered in, they got their food from a delivery service, and the driver was an aspiring rock musician played by Will Forte.
The driver was shocked to see he was delivering food to Dave Grohl. While he wanted to give Grohl his demo disc, he made a bad comparison. He said that the Foo Fighters was his second favorite band after Coldplay. This is an old joke, as Grohl has been making fun of Coldplay for over a decade now.
Lionel Richie Cameo
There was one point in the movie where Dave Grohl was still undergoing writer’s block and couldn’t figure out his sound or what music he wanted to write. He kept going back to old Foo Fighters songs and then one scene had him at a keyboard singing the song “Hello.”
This was Lionel Richie’s greatest hit, and it turned out this was a dream scene with Richie showing up and telling Grohl to stop singing his song and write his own music, with lots of improvised profanity.
Spinal Tap Influence
After the demonic spirit possesses Dave Grohl, he begins to finally figure out the song he is trying to write. When he does this, he actually comes up with a new musical cord of L minor. While the band was shocked that Grohl created a new cord, he then demanded everyone learn it.
This is a clear homage to the classic rock mockumentary This is Spinal Tap. In that movie, it wasn’t a new music cord, but a new amplifier that they modified to have 11 levels instead of 10. This somehow made the band the loudest in the world.
Roy Mayorga Scored Studio 666
Interestingly, John Carpenter wrote a song for Studio 666, but he did not score the movie. Instead, the man hired to make the music for the movie was named Roy Mayorga. As a horror movie about a rock and roll band, this played into the idea, as he is not a movie composer.
Mayorga is the drummer of the heavy metal bands Hellyeah and Stone Sour. He is also currently working as the drummer for the industrial metal band Ministry, bringing a headbanger’s ear into the project for the musical score.
Rush’s ‘2112’
When Dave Grohl was pushing the Foo Fighters to create their perfect masterpiece song, it ended up immensely long. The song went over 20 minutes, and then eclipsed 30, and then moved past 40 minutes. Grohl was still struggling to find a way to end the song, which was the point of the curse in Studio 666‘s plot.
Grohl then told the band that the length of the song was what would make it great. He then said it was like “2112 plus 2112.” This was a rock callback as 2112 was a 1976 Rush album. While the second side of the album had six songs on it, the first side had only one song, titled “2112,” that was 20 minutes long.
Jackal’s Chainsaw Song
One of the more gruesome kill scenes in Studio 666 took place when Foo Fighters keyboardist Rami Jaffee was having sex with the spiritualist neighbor, Samantha. The two were about to start when she told him to put on music so no one heard them.
The song he chose was Jackyl’s “The Lumberjack.” This was from the band’s first album in 1992 and is the song they remain best known for because there is a solo in the middle that is a chainsaw playing. Of course, this was a perfect song to accompany the chainsaw deaths in the movie.
“Ask Jimmy Page”
At one point, all the Foo Fighters are getting tired and want to stop and finish the extraordinarily long song. Finally, one of the most docile members gets fed up when Pat Smear tells Grohl that he wants to stop, telling his boss “no.”
Grohl flipped out and said that no one can tell him no because he is a rock star. He goes off on how many perks rock stars get and that no one can say no to anything they want. He said it is just a rule and to talk to Jimmy Page about it. Page is the guitarist for Led Zeppelin and had a major interest in the occult, including Aleister Crowley, who the band also discussed in Studio 666.
