"I don't know what we're doing," Dave Grohl says, staring with a serious expression into the camera. "Because I don't know what I'm doing!"
Grohl probably really did know what he was doing as he directed the new Foo Fighters music video, "Rope," which premieres on MTV at 7:54 p.m. ET/PT on Thursday (March 10), but he played up the modesty while giving a behind-the-scenes sneak peek at his work.
"Dave's paying attention to what's happening and watching the monitors, tweaking things here and there," explains the Foo Fighters bassist, Nate Mendel. "He comes up with the idea and maps it out and then you've got people to actually run the cameras that know what to do [with] all the technical stuff and getting in there and making sure it's something that's going to look good."
Grohl has already directed the band's videos for "My Hero," "Monkey Wrench" and "All My Life," so it is no big surprise that he has stepped up to helm "Rope," the first single off of the Foo Fighters' seventh studio album, Wasting Light.
This time around, fans can expect a performance-based video. "It's easy for me to come up with a treatment or direct the band because I know what we're like," Dave told recently. "I know what we look like when we play, so most of the Foo Fighters videos that I've done have at least a little bit of performance in them."
The entire video was shot on VHS tape to give it an edgier look, and as Dave recently explained, "We had to build this cube out of fabric and wood for the band to play within, and it's lit from outside," he explained. "And then, there's a part in the video where it's actually revealed that we're inside this weird white cube. At first it just seems like we're in this glowing white room from within, and then towards the end, the big reveal is we're in this room, which is within a massive room."
That concept might be confusing, but Dave makes one thing about the video very clear. "I'm not getting paid for this," he smirks. "It's a freebie. You're welcome, band!"
The Foo Fighters' "Rope" video premieres live at 7:54 p.m. ET/PT tonight on MTV and MTV.com, followed by an exclusive Q&A session from one lucky Foo fan's house to be live-streamed on MTV.com. Fans can submit questions via Twitter (@MTVNews using hashtag #askfoos).