‘Kiss Guy’ Says His Foo Fighters Stage Moment Was ‘Ride or Die’
The Foo Fighters fan who impressed Dave Grohl after being invited onstage to play “Monkey Wrench” said he originally planned to “chill and just focus” but then decided to indulge himself in the moment.
Yayo Sanchez said he’d been rehearsing the song for weeks before the concert, just in case his plan to perform alongside the band worked out. Sanchez was nicknamed “Kiss Guy” by Grohl during the show in Austin last week, because he was wearing Kiss makeup.
“I’ve been fantasizing about this moment my whole life,” Sanchez told Louder in a new interview, “but you never really think something like that is actually going to happen to you. I am beyond grateful.”
He said he showed up to the concert early and "found a good spot in the audience, and as most know by now, I painted my face and wrote 'Let Me Play Monkey Wrench' on a big piece of yellow poster-board. I held it up at the beginning of the show for a little bit until someone behind me screamed, 'Put the fucking sign down!' … A few songs later, Dave and Chris [Shifflet] started talking to me from the stage. … The entire time the two of them were talking to me, the voice in my head was, like, 'Show them the sign! Show them the sign!' And bam, at the very last second, I said fuck it and flashed my sign up. A few songs later, Dave goes, 'Hey, Kiss Guy ... ' and you know the rest.”
Sanchez said the moment of walking onstage was a “mega jitters” experience. “I had a two-second conversation in my head telling myself to chill and just focus on playing the song right," he noted "The running around came from a last minute 'Ah, fuck it! Ride or die, bitch! Go!"
He also added that his appearance during the show was not a “staged stunt." “I did practice the song leading up to the show with hopes that this one in a million chance would actually happen," he admitted.
Even though Sanchez didn’t get to meet the Foo Fighters after the show, he said “their guitar techs were really cool to me – they gave me FF picks and one of Dave's wristbands. The people enjoying the show from side of the stage were really nice to me, handing me beers and water, and really going out of their way to make it that much more magical.”
The Foo Fighters’ U.S. tour runs periodically until Oct. 18.