Foo Fighters

by Mick Wall

  Despite the effort involved getting his documentary to the screen, Dave’s adventures in filmmaking hadn’t taken him away from his day job. On 20 February 2012 – the day that would have been Kurt’s forty-sixth birthday – Dave appeared at the Brit Awards in London to present an award to The Black Keys. During an interview with the radio station XFM, he was asked when the Foo Fighters would start work on their next album. ‘Well, I’ll tell you, we have been in our studio writing, and in the past few weeks we’ve written an album,’ he said. ‘And we are going to make this album in a way that no one’s ever done before, and we’re pretty excited about it … It’s a little ways off – it’s not ready to happen right now – but I think next year is going to be a really big year for the Foo Fighters, without question.’

  Dave’s promise that his band would make an album ‘in a way that no one’s ever done before’ would eventually prove to be just that. But before that, the Busiest Man in Rock had a full calendar. In April, Dave and Taylor inducted the veteran Canadian prog rock trio Rush into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The young, pre-punk Grohl had his mind blown by Rush’s 1976 concept album, 2112 – not least by the drummer Neil Peart’s hyper-technical approach. ‘It fucking changed the direction of my life,’ he told Rolling Stone. ‘It made me want to become a drummer.’ Of course, he’d said similar things in the past about John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr and Rat Scabies, but that didn’t make it any less true in Dave’s starry eyes.

  His and Taylor’s appearance at the ceremony was characteristically funny. After officially inducting Rush with an effusive, heartfelt and hilarious speech, the pair returned to the stage dressed in white silk kimonos – and, in Dave’s case, a blond wig – in honour of the band photo from the back sleeve of 2112. They then proceeded to blast through that album’s opening track, ‘Overture’, before being joined by the three members of Rush themselves. ‘It’s terrifying to play your favourite band’s song in front of your favourite band,’ Dave gushed afterwards. ‘It’s one thing to sit in the basement and woodshed 2112, and its another to stand in front of Rush in a fucking kimono and a wig and try to use a wah-wah pedal in your platform shoes.’

  Rush weren’t the only band whose orbit the Foo Fighters found themselves in during the summer of 2012. In May, Dave joined the Rolling Stones onstage in Anaheim, California, to add guitar and trade vocal lines with Mick Jagger on their 1971 classic ‘Bitch’. A month later, the whole band appeared as John Fogerty’s backing band on a turbocharged update of his old Creedence Clearwater Revival hit ‘Fortunate Son’, from his album Wrote a Song for Everyone. ‘It was palpable, the air,’ Fogerty said of the sessions. ‘You could tell a band was in there. It was a unique group of people.’ There was also a return appointment with Paul McCartney for Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear, this time at Safeco Field in Nirvana’s hometown of Seattle. As well as playing ‘Cut Me Some Slack’, this time they joined McCartney on the Beatles classics ‘Get Back’, ‘Helter Skelter’ and ‘The End’, plus a romping version of Little Richard’s old rock’n’roll staple ‘Long Tall Sally’.

  Amid all these high-profile hook-ups, Dave didn’t stop writing. He collaborated with Joan Jett on a song for her new album, Any Weather, and produced an EP by a country outfit, the Zac Brown Band, appropriately titled The Dave Grohl Sessions Vol. 1. ‘They’re unbelievable,’ he said. ‘The band is so good … we didn’t fuck with computers, we tracked live, four-part harmonies around one microphone. It’s rocking.’

  There were also tantalising hints of what the Foo Fighters’ eighth album might be about. In August 2013, Butch Vig confirmed that he would be producing the new record. ‘It was a very short hiatus,’ Vig said of the band’s break. ‘We’re going to start recording the new Foo Fighters record at the beginning of next year.’ A few weeks later, Chris Shiflett posted an Instagram photo revealing that the band had already completed 13 new songs. In an interview with Rolling Stone in November, Dave ramped up anticipation about the new record even further. ‘It’s badass,’ he said. ‘We’re doing something that nobody knows about, it’s fucking rad. We begin recording soon, but we’re doing it in a way that no one’s done before and we’re writing the album in a way that I don’t think has been done before.’

  Aside from a pair of shows of in Mexico in December (announced with a hilarious YouTube video featuring the actor Erik Estrada from the Seventies TV show CHiPs as a leather-clad biker, and a cameo appearance from Dave’s bare buttocks), the Foos were suspiciously quiet as 2013 gave way to 2014. For Dave Grohl, his attentions were at least partly on his imminent second visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This time, though, it wouldn’t be to induct another band – in 2014, it was Nirvana’s turn to be inducted.

  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had been set up in 1983, by the Atlantic Records mogul, Ahmet Ertegün, and a team that included Rolling Stone’s founder, Jann Wenner. With a museum in Cleveland and an annual induction ceremony, it was the closest thing the music world got to the Oscars. The list of stars already inducted read like a Who’s Who of music – everyone from rock’n’roll pioneers such as Elvis Presley and Little Richard to contemporary stars like the Rolling Stones, U2 and Bruce Springsteen. According to the organisation’s rules, artists were only eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. 2014 was the first year Nirvana were eligible – their debut album, Bleach, having been released in 1989 – and, unsurprisingly, they were a shoo-in.

  Although Dave hadn’t played on Bleach, he was still an integral part of the band. ‘For once … I’m speechless,’ he said in a statement. ‘From the basements to the dingy clubs, to the broken-down vans to … the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I’d like to thank the committee not only for this induction, but also for recognising Nirvana for what we were: pure rock’n’roll. Most of all, thank you to all of the fans that have supported rock’n’roll throughout the years, and to Kurt and Krist, without whom I would not be here today.’

  But there was one potential issue lurking in the wings: Courtney Love. The relationship between Kurt’s widow and the two surviving members of the band had gone beyond fractiousness and descended into outright war. In November 2011, onstage at a festival in Brazil, Courtney had publicly accused Dave of ‘[taking] money off my kid’s table’, referring to her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Worse was to come. In 2012, in an increasingly venomous series of Twitter postings, Courtney accused Dave of trying to seduce Frances. Dave immediately shot down the accusations with a statement: ‘Unfortunately, Courtney is on another hateful Twitter rant. These new accusations are upsetting, offensive and absolutely untrue.’

  More tellingly, Frances Bean herself denied her mother’s claims. ‘While I’m generally silent on the affairs of my biological mother, her recent tirade has taken a gross turn,’ she said in a statement. ‘I have never been approached by Dave Grohl in more than a platonic way. I’m in a monogamous relationship and very happy.’ Courtney later withdrew the allegation.

  In the build-up to the show, which was held on 10 April 2014, at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, onlookers began to wonder what the night might hold. Given that both Dave and Courtney wouldn’t just be onstage for the induction but sharing a table as well, there was the strong possibility of some very public fireworks. Incredibly, the exact opposite happened. Nirvana’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was moving, celebratory and, ultimately, a chance for the two warring parties to rebuild bridges. On the night, it was R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe – a longtime admirer of the band, and a friend and mentor’s of Kurt’s – who introduced the band, before Dave, Krist Novoselic and Kurt Cobain’s mother, Wendy O’Connor, gave their own emotional speeches. Dave also paid tribute to the four drummers who preceded him in the band, and talked about the punk rock spirit that inspired them all.

  And then it was Courtney’s turn. Approaching the microphone to a mixture of cheers and boos, she was in uncharacteristically concise mode. ‘I have a big speech,’ she said. ‘But I’m no
t going to say it. This is my family I’m looking at, all of you. Brother Michael, Brother Krist, Grandma Wendy, Mr Grohl … David.’ She then walked over to Dave and gave him a very public and heartfelt hug. ‘That’s it,’ she added. ‘I just wish Kurt was here to see this.’

  For Dave, making up with his old enemy was almost as much of a triumph as the actual induction. ‘You know, the wonderful thing about that night was the personal side of it,’ he told the Hollywood Reporter afterwards. ‘It was the Hall of Fame ceremony, but it meant so much to all of us personally that sometimes you forgot about the other stuff – like the arena and the trophy – and focused on real, personal things. I saw Courtney walking past [earlier in the night], and I just tapped her on the shoulder and we looked each other in the eyes and that was it – we’re just family. We’ve had a rocky road. We’ve had a bumpy past, but at the end of the day we’re a big family and when we hugged each other it was a real hug.’

  As was tradition, the surviving members of Nirvana – including Pat Smear – played a brief set for the crowd. Just as Kurt Cobain had rejected the macho stereotypes of rock 25 years before, so his band mates chose to do the same by recruiting a quartet of female singers to take his place at the Hall of Fame: Grohl’s sometime collaborator Joan Jett came on to sing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth tackled ‘Aneurysm’, the indie rock singer-guitarist St Vincent covered ‘Lithium’, and most startling of all, the 17-year-old New Zealander Lorde – who wasn’t even born when Kurt Cobain died – turned in a spine-tingling performance of ‘All Apologies’, with Krist on accordion.

  ‘We thought, “Wait, it has to be all women,”’ Dave told Rolling Stone. ‘“Don’t even ask anyone else. If we can fill the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance with these incredible women singing Nirvana songs, then we’ll have achieved our own revolution.” It also added a whole other dimension to the show. It added substance and depth, so it didn’t turn into a eulogy. It was more about the future. I haven’t played those drum parts since I was twenty-five,’ he continued. ‘I’m forty-five now. We played for ten fucking hours each day. After the first night of rehearsals, I limped home, had two glasses of wine, three Advil, took a hot shower and slept for ten fucking hours. That’s a coma for me, because I never sleep.’

  There was a second, unpublicised show later that same night at the 250-capacity St Vitus club in Brooklyn. As well as Joan Jett and St Vincent, Dave and Krist also recruited Dinosaur Jr’s mainman, J Mascis, and John McCauley, singer with the indie rock outfit Deertick, a band that sometimes play sets of Nirvana covers under the name Deervana. McCauley had received an email from Dave asking if he wanted to sing on ‘Serve the Servants’ and ‘Scentless Apprentice’ at the show. McCauley initially thought it was an April Fool’s joke by one of his friends. It was only when Dave’s manager, John Silva, followed it up that he realised the offer was serious.

  ‘It felt like when you’re a kid and you sleep over at a friend’s house and you become part of your friend’s family for the night,’ McCauley said. ‘When I got up onstage, it was a lull, because we were trying to figure out what song to do next and there was just feedback and us yelling at each other and Dave was like, “Wow, this is like a real Nirvana show!” I’m having a hard time believing it ever happened.’

  Dave’s high-profile presence at the Hall of Fame ceremony momentarily drew attention away from the new Foo Fighters record. His claim that this would be a revolutionary new record, one done ‘in a way that no one’s ever done before’ was a huge promise to try and keep. But the mystery was soon resolved when it was announced that he was making a TV series for the US channel HBO that would pick up where Sound City left off. It would see the frontman visiting eight studios around America: Chicago’s Electrical Audio, Rancho De La Luna in California and Inner Ear in Washington, as well as similarly legendary facilities in New York, Austin and New Orleans. As with Sound City, Grohl would speak to artists who had worked in each studio and, with the Foo Fighters, record a new song in each. There would be the series and an accompanying album, both to be called Sonic Highways.

  The album would feature songs from each episode, each with a different guest musician. This would be ‘a love letter to American music’, said Dave. ‘We’ve been recording at some different locations, but we’re almost halfway done with the recording and it’s going well,’ said Butch Vig, who had been enlisted once again to produce the album. ‘It sounds different – we’ve thrown a few things into the mix, in the recording process, that are going to give the record a different sound and a different feel. It’s been a challenge, but it’s also been exciting.’

  In May alone, Grohl and the Foos appeared in two different cities as part of the ongoing recording-sessions-cum-musical-travelogue. There was a surprise Foo Fighters gig at the legendary Washington, DC venue the 9.30 Club. Ostensibly a birthday party for Big Tony Fisher, bassist with local ‘go-go’ heroes Trouble Funk, it found Dave teaming up with members of Bad Brains and his old band Scream – including Franz Stahl – before capping out the night with an unannounced Foo Fighters set. A few days later, the band appeared at New Orleans’ prestigious Preservation Hall, where they were joined by local musicians, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. By mid-August, both the Sonic Highways album and the TV series were finished. The title reflected the Foo Fighters’ sense of musical wanderlust and their attempt to document the indigenous American music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

  Yet, as Dave revealed, it could all have been very different. ‘At one point I thought, “You know what would be really funny? To re-record the first Foo Fighters record as the band we are now,”’ he told the NME. ‘Cos the first record isn’t the Foo Fighters; it’s just me. So what if, for the twentieth anniversary, we went in and re-recorded the first record – same songs, same arrangements, in sequence – but as the Foo Fighters 2014? Taylor was like, “Are you out of your fucking mind?! That’s the worst idea ever! People would fucking hate it!” And Pat said, “That’s exactly why we should do it!”’

  In the event, Dave ditched the idea and instead focused on Sonic Highways. Picking up where Sound City left off, it would be the most ambitious project he’d ever put his name to – musically and personally. Pulling it together had taken 18 months – the majority of which had taken place in secret. ‘After making the Sound City movie, I realised that the pairing of music and documentary worked so well because the stories give substance and depth to the song, which makes a stronger emotional connection to it,’ he told the Hollywood Reporter. ‘If you know the story behind the artist, or the story behind the studio, or the song, it widens your appreciation for the music. The four-minute-long video is a blessed thing but sometimes it can be just an image. And these stories and these people give so much more depth to the music.’

  For Dave, the Sonic Highways project was both ‘the history of American music broken down to the cultural roots of each place’ and a look at the Foo Fighters’ own place in it all, as they approached their twentieth anniversary. His original plan had been to visit studios all over the world. Logistics prevented that, so they focused instead on eight studios in the US, some of which he had a personal connection with. Inner Ear Studio in Arlington, Virginia, where Dave recorded with Scream, was the cradle of Washington, DC’s hardcore punk scene, though arguably the place with the most personal connection for him was Robert Lang Studios in Seattle, where he had recorded his last tracks with Nirvana a few months before Kurt Cobain’s death – and all of the first Foos album.

  Other studios, such as New Orleans’ Preservation Hall, Austin’s Studio 6A and The Magic Shop in New York, were chosen purely on account of Dave’s curiosity for his subject. ‘We get to spend a week in each city, and by the time we leave each place, I feel like I know the people, I know the food, the music,’ he explained. ‘Seven days is enough to get a little bit of each city under your skin. And New Orleans is just so deep – there’s not only a musical community but it’s a community of famil
ies where generations of musicians have been playing music in the city for hundreds of years … It was just fuckin’ magical.’

  In each city, Dave spent time interviewing the key players who had helped shape its music scene – and by extension, the music of America. In the episode centred on Washington he spoke to Big Tony Fisher of Trouble Funk and Fugazi’s singer and DC hardcore punk linchpin Ian MacKaye, whom Dave knew from his days on the city’s punk scene. In Nashville, his interviewees spanned several generations of country icons, from Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson to latter-day stars such as Zac Brown. In New York he bridged the worlds of rock, avant-garde and hip hop with help from Kiss’s Paul Stanley, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and LL Cool J.

  One of the most insightful interviewees was Steve Albini, owner of Chicago’s Electrical Audio studio and the guy who had produced In Utero. Speaking now, two decades after they last worked together, Albini notes that Grohl is ‘still basically the same dude – way more money and obviously comfortable with his station in life, but still goofy and gregarious, still sick with talent’. Albini’s work with everyone from the Pixies to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant has seen him build a reputation as the most no-nonsense producer operating today. Not for him the extravagance or egos of the modern music industry – Albini famously views major labels as an unnecessary evil, and the bands who sign for them as little more than puppets. Foo Fighters, however, he says, are one of the few exceptions.

  ‘It’s pretty clear the Foo Fighters as a project is Dave Grohl expressing himself rather than anybody else pushing him around,’ says Albini. ‘His music may or may not be to your tastes, but it’s genuinely his, he’s going to pursue it his way and he doesn’t seem to care if other people get it. I don’t know what more you can ask of an artist.’

  For Dave, pulling together the Sonic Highways project involved a superhuman effort of will. This was more than just roping in a few mates to play a gig. By taking on the role of TV producer, Dave stepped far outside his own comfort zone. ‘I was on the phone conferencing with agencies and corporations, trying to round up money to do this,’ he told Rolling Stone. ‘Part of me felt sick inside. But I justified it: “I’m doing something good. I’m doing something people will appreciate.”’