The other day on a MySpace group dedicated to the Foo Fighters, a fan posted a complaint about the band’s Grammy defeat to Amy Winehouse for Album of the Year. Several other fans quickly replied that yes, they would have preferred that their beloved band took the prize, but that Amy is a deserving talent and, anyway, the fact that the Foo Fighters won a couple of other awards indicated that good music was not yet dead.

The original poster then apologized for using vulgar language.

This is the Internet? That contentious realm of partisan ranting, misspelled testimonials to the perfection of one’s favorite and F-bomb-laden declarations of the utter rankness of all others? Such unusual amiability says something about the good-guy vibe conveyed by Foo frontman Dave Grohl, often described by writers as “chirpy” and “the nicest man in rock.”

A 39-year-old Ohio native, Grohl indeed comes off like a regular guy who enjoys a Parliament and a sip of Crown Royal whiskey as he marvels over his grand success. It’s unlikely that he resents Winehouse’s Grammy win, as the Foo Fighters have nabbed six of them by now (including last week’s yield of Best Hard Rock Performance for the chart-topping song “The Pretender” and Best Rock Album, for the recent “Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace”).

In fact, as he told MTV’s Kurt Loder, “My bedroom door won’t stay open for some reason, so I keep it open with my Grammy. I think it’s kind of kick-ass that I have a Grammy holding up my bedroom door.”

With a baffled record industry sputtering toward the junkyard, Grammy awards seem about as relevant as “Best Soviet Blacksmith” honors. But if Grohl’s irreverent household use of the coveted Victrola statuette indicates his own modest perspective on the achievement, it also reveals a cockiness earned by remaining one of music’s most consistent and impressive success stories since the Foo Fighters’ 1995 debut album hit big right out of the box.

Grohl can afford to flip a bird to an industry grateful for the kind of unit-shifting band it seldom encounters anymore. All six Foo Fighters albums have been massive sellers, propelled by often goofball videos like a 1996 promo clip for the single “Big Me,” which brilliantly parodied the Euro-kitsch ad campaign for Mentos candies.

This clip was so popular it inspired Foo fans to pelt the band with Mentos, forcing them to drop the song from their set. “We did stop playing that song for a while because, honestly, it’s like being stoned,” Grohl says. “Those little things are like pebbles – they hurt.”

Familiar as the public may be with Grohl and company clowning in stewardess drag on MTV, besotted as it’s been with their brand of powerful, punk-based pop, it’s still a fair amazement that the Foo Fighters have sold out tomorrow night’s Madison Square Garden performance. It was a feat common in the days of Grohl’s beloved Led Zeppelin but lately rare for rockers outside of the Springsteen/ U2/ “interviewed-by-60-Minutes” league of icons.

This would have been hard to predict back in ’94, when Grohl and Krist Novoselic found themselves odd men out upon the suicide of their Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain. Cobain’s songwriting and dark charisma so dominated the public perception of Nirvana that his death seemed to leave the other two in a position like that of the surviving Doors after the death of Jim Morrison: up the proverbial career creek without the p.r. paddle.

But Grohl had other plans, and in his short – less than four years – stint as Nirvana’s drummer, he’d already begun recording his own very different work.

As he later recalled in a Rolling Stone interview, his feelings at the time were mixed. “The band had a life of its own before I joined them. When I think of Nirvana, I think of ‘Bleach.’ I think of how much I listened to the record before I was asked to join the band. I thought they were great before I joined them. Being in the band ruined it.”

Grohl’s first tentative sortie out of the Nirvana fold was issued as a low-profile cassette titled “Pocketwatch,” and as Cobain’s personal problems left Krist and Dave more and more idle, they began recording some of the tunes that eventually wound up as Foo fodder. After Cobain’s death, Grohl took up this path in earnest.

Certai Grohl’s happy-go-lucky image.

For “Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace,” Grohl drew inspiration from the birth of his daughter, Violet Maye. “I can’t be scared of writing things that I really feel -there are a lot of things that I kept myself from saying over the years,” he says. Violet Maye’s arrival prompted him to brave a more introspective lyricalret of nice-guy Grohl’s longevity. Motivated and self-sufficient as he has proven to be, he thrives on the mojo of collaboration. His brief turn as drummer in Queens of the Stone Age immeasurably boosted that band’s profile, just as his sting as replacement drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers provided the veteran act with a welcome shot of musical Geritol.

Grohl’s unaccountable devotion to assisting Jack Black’s Tenacious D drumming on their debut albse as the bad guys of rock now? Looking miserable and dangerous and holding some ridiculous poses? That’s not our thing.”

And if Grohl has any ax to grind with Amy Winehouse, it probably has less to do with her Grammy win and more to do with little Violet Maye Grohl’s affection for her music. As Dave told the BBC: “It’s a little unnerving when your 2-year-old sings ‘Rehab’ all day long. “