Dave Grohl Explains Why Foo Fighters Rickrolled Westboro Baptist Church

Over the weekend, Foo Fighters’ Kansas City, Mo., concert became the center of the Westboro Baptist Church’s hate speech-disguised-as-protest, and the Dave Grohl-led crew responded by entering the fray in a pickup truck blasting Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

During the concert that night, while introducing their song, “My Hero,” Grohl explained the band’s motivation for getting involved in the protest. “You can’t just sit there and do nothing," he said. "You got to get out there and say what you wanna say, so we did.”

Without mentioning the WBC by name once, Grohl detailed why the band chose Rickrolling as their mode of counter-protest (apparently, for Grohl and friends, Astley epitomizes love):

Well, tonight we were sitting backstage, and someone said: ‘Guess who is coming tonight?’ And I said: ‘Who?’ They said: ‘Them.’ I said: ‘Why?’ They said: '‘Cause.’ And I said, ‘Cool, let’s go out and f---in’ hang out with them for a bit.’ So we didn’t have enough time to put together the big old show that we put on last time, so we figured, you know what, why don’t we just f---ing RickRoll their ass? ‘Cause nothing says love like a little Rick Astley in your life, you know what I’m saying? Never gonna give his ass up!

Grohl then dedicated “My Hero” to anyone and everyone who bravely airs their convictions:

So I’m going to dedicate this song to all the people who go out and speak their mind, to stand up for what they think is right, because every time we got to stand up in this city in front of them, we do it because we feel like we’re standing up for what we think is right.

Watch his whole speech in the video up above. And if you missed the Foos having a blast, waving their own protest signs in time with "Never Gonna Give You Up," you can see that below: