I write about random things a lot. I write a lot about random things. One of the most random moments in my life came a very short time ago, when I took a call from the CBC telling me that I was going to go to Los Angeles for a weekend in March.

With George Stroumboulopoulos. To meet the Foo Fighters, in their studio.

From the moment I took the call — shocked and deep in disbelief — the story became one of the biggest of my life. Unfortunately, telling this story requires the telling of a hundred smaller stories; the trip was as unforgettable as it was unbelievable.

I knew that in order to make this trip, I was going to have to face two of my biggest fears: flying, and looking like an idiot when I met Dave Grohl.

To rewind just a bit, I entered the Go Far with George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight and Air Canada contest, which offered people a choice between a few different dream prizes in exchange for entering online. One prize, for example, was to play in a special NHL alumni hockey game with Strombo, and Chris Hatch of Mount Pearl, Newfoundland flew in to Toronto to do just that.

In case anyone doesn't know, George Stroumboulopoulos is a media personality with the CBC, on television and in radio. I first became a fan of his in high school back when he was doing the Live In Toronto segments on 102.1 The Edge, and even then his character was as attention grabbing as his last name. Of course, he's moved on up a bit from there.

Flying out of Toronto meant that my girlfriend Nicole and I would be flying with George and his team; we met producer Paul Templeman and videographer Darby Wheeler first, at the gate at YYZ. Then George came along, and everyone was so cool, so down-to-earth, that I'm going to toss journalistic convention and refer to them by their first names from here on out. Within a short while, people around us started to arrive and realize that George Stroumboulopoulos was in their gate at Pearson International.

Luckily, George is about the coolest person I've ever met in my life. If you've ever tuned in to his radio or television shows, you've probably been struck by how intelligent and engaging he is. People stop him all the time — in Los Angeles just as much as here, it seemed — but he's warm, approachable and very personable.

It's a funny thing to say, and funnier to think about, but driving along La Cienega Boulevard from the airport to the hotel in West Hollywood was probably the most fun I've ever had. Driving with George is a different kind of cool; he and Darby found an old-school rap station on the radio and cranked RUN DMC and Ice Cube as we went.

George drove us through Beverly Hills and along Rodeo Drive, pointing out landmarks and interesting sights — like once when we were driving next to Jason Segal — and of all places, we stopped at a Mexican restaurant and wound up meeting that guy dressed up as Jesus. You know the one.

We checked in, changed and joined the boys again, this time with Jennifer Shin from the CBC and a rep from Sony and went to a members-only club called Soho House for dinner. It's an interesting place; George explained that you have to apply for membership, and then should a spot open some time in the future, they consider you for how they feel you'll add to the vibe. Soho House values how interesting a person is, rather than your celebrity.

And funnily enough, I can't show you what it looks like; the only rule at Soho House is that while you're there, you're not allowed to talk on your phone or take any pictures. It's like Fight Club, if the first rule of Fight Club were that you couldn't talk on your phone or take pictures inside it.

It's located in the penthouse of some building on Sunset Boulevard, and glass on all sides allows you to see the entirety of Hollywood lit up at night. We had dinner and drinks outside on an enclosed sort of terrace and retired back to the hotel bar, the whole while talking about music and buzzing on the time difference.

Los Angeles is a weird place. I don't remember if it was Darby or Paul who pointed it out, but the sidewalks there are always empty — everybody drives everywhere. On Sunday morning, we left the hotel and walked along Sunset Boulevard for breakfast, feeling weirdly like walking through a ghost town.

Soon we met the four from CBC, and began filming for the day — some footage at landmarks, photos on the Walk of Fame at the Kodak Theatre — when it seemed like traffic was going to make us late to make the trip to Studio 606 to meet the Foo Fighters. Luckily George lives in the neighbourhood, because it turns out he has an intimate knowledge of the twisting, winding, narrow roads there and got us through the Hollywood Hills so fast that we showed up early.

Studio 606 is an amazing and masculine place. Imagine entering a room with as many antique arcade games as places to sit, the walls adorned with old Black Flag show posters. The stairs off to the side lead up to the kitchen/living room (where I had to go to get made up later), the main corridor off to the control room, and the one with the sign that says "Them Crooked Vultures Production Office" is the bathroom.

Moments after I came back down from the lounge area, I met the man himself. "Hi! I'm Dave," he said, extending his hand. Unfortunately, I was so busy trying not to say, "I know," that I barely got out, "Hi, Dave. I'm Bobby." But he immediately offered to make me a coffee and took Nicole upstairs with him to do so while I met Pat Smear and Chris Shiflett, the other guitarists in the band.

When he came back and handed me a coffee, he began to tell us about the story of finding their studio. I wish I could remember every word exactly, but he said something like, "We wanted to find a warehouse kind of place that we could use as a studio and as storage, but every place we saw was either like, porn or a meth lab or something," at which point the crew gently told him that we needed to start filming.

"Hi! I'm Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters," is what he likely said, seconds later when the camera started rolling. "And we're at Studio 606. Originally we wanted to find a warehouse kind of place..." and launched into the exact same story. "Every place that we saw was either like, porn or a meth lab or something. I mean, we were looking to get a place that was used, but everything was just really... used."

We got a tour through the entire building; the first hallway is covered in awards and platinum records from the Foo Fighters' career, punctuated by unbelievable photos. The master control room is the first, and where we met Nate Mendel and Taylor Hawkins. It's a huge circular room, the free-standing speaker columns stand off of the wood-paneled walls, and above the couch hangs an enormous painting of Dave in a leather chair, wearing a smoking jacket and clutching a snifter of brandy ... a piece hung one day without Dave knowing.

The band then took us through the building. There are two recording/ rehearsal rooms — one is massive, larger than many apartments, with ceilings as high as a high school gymnasium, and the other (the one that the band actually plays in) is as small as a regular bedroom. They say that they prefer it because it helps them stay tight as a band... and also that they're not hearing each other as well as they used to. This is the room that inspired the video they recently shot for Rope, their latest single.

Beyond this space is a massive warehouse, concrete floors and metal racks. Stage banners adorn the walls and racks in here with fan-made paintings and a set of personalized surfboards above the door. They said that the warehouse represents about a third of their equipment — it's cheaper to store equipment on other continents than to constantly transport it — and easily 60 per cent of the gear there is drums.

Back in the control room, I got to preview a few songs from the new record. Dave first put on Bridge Burning, the first 30 seconds of which was released as a teaser a few months ago. Then we heard Arlandria and I Should Have Known, the track that features Krist Novoselic from Nirvana.

"This is where Krist comes in," Dave whispered to me on the couch, halfway through the song.

Afterwards he jumped up and led us to the room with the tape reels, the walk-in closet in which are shelves full of thin boxes, as tall as you can reach. Dave grabbed and opened a box, pulling a spool out and handing it to me. "Here," he said. "That's the master tape of Monkey Wrench." I gave it to Nicole and fumbled to put the cover back around it while he grabbed another and handed it to me.

"This one's Everlong," he said, and then I was holding the physical song in my hands. The song that Bob Dylan asked Dave to teach him to play so that he could cover it.

The band had to leave soon after, following a few photos and filming a couple of video spots. We slowly packed up all our gear as well, and I stood outside and thought of the enormity of the day. Another tour through the Hollywood Hills — past a few celebrities' homes, thanks to an amazing guide — and we made our way back to the hotel.

We managed some shopping at an outdoor mall while the sun set, but passed out back at the hotel from a mixture of exhaustion and overstimulation. The next morning reluctantly came, and we headed back to LAX. The whole way back to Toronto, it still seemed like the trip was some unlikely dream. We filmed so much footage, made so many memories in such a short time, it seems so impossible that it happened.

There will be a highlight video of the trip on the show's website, which you can see at Strombo.com. I know that you likely already know all about his show, George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, in which case some night soon you might see a mention of it. There's a fair chance he might mention it on his Twitter, @strombo soon, too.

My favourite Foo Fighters record has always been The Colour And The Shape, but the music that is coming on Wasting Light, the band's seventh studio record, is the most dynamic and explosive of their career. The songs are brilliantly written, and it's as if Pat's return to play guitars in the band has restored a passion and aggression in them, and I believe it's their best work yet.

This is the 50th music column I've gotten to write, and I'm glad that I got to share such a cool story with you. And I'm glad I had a cool story to share. Thanks for reading, I'm out of words.