N°105 FOO FIGHTERS - ROPE

Rope is the key word and Rope is one of the latest Foo Fighters hit singles from last year release Wasting Light. The band released seven studio albums between its foundation in 1995 and last year. The first one carried the name of the band itself and contained songs written by Dave Grohl himself during his Nirvana period. Dave Grohl himself is a great musician and plays besides the drums (Nirvana, Queens Of The Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, Tenacious D, Scream) but he also plays lead guitar and bass guitar which he proves on that same first album. Dave played all the lines on every song all by himself and released the first Foo Fighters album. That same year he’d seek the companionship of his old Nirvana buddy Pat Smear, Nate Mendell and drummer William Goldsmith. The Foo Fighters album still had a lot of the grunge sound and tasted a lot like Nirvana. Not so at the second album The Colour And The Shape.

Since Dave Grohl carried on on his own after the death of Kurt Cobain with a complete new band he was used to do it all by himself and being an exquisite drummer himself he found it difficult to find a drummer who’d live up to his high expectations. This lead to many discussions during the recording period and shortly after the release of the second album, drummer William Goldsmith was replaced by Taylor Hawkins. Goldsmith couldn’t handle the fact that Grohl re-recorded his drum tracks because Dave thought that Goldsmith’s drum didn’t sound exactly the way Dave Grohl wanted it to sound. Goldsmith was replaced by Taylor Hawkins who convinced Dave that he’s the best drummer for the band and he could sound whatever Grohl wanted him to sound. Pat Smear also leaves the band before they start recording a third album called There Is Nothing Left To Lose which is a fitting title for the hard times the band is going through. Two problems keep appearing. Although already created a few strong songs like Monkey Wrench and Hero, Grohl found it hard to live up to the Nirvana legacy. On the other hand Grohl is such a perfectionist that he keeps writing the songs all on his own and asks the band to play the way he wants it to be. Later the band would admit this was the darkest period the band would have known.

Dave admits his mistakes with the band members and decides to do it differently for the 2002 album One By One. On this album Chris Shiftlett joins Foo Fighters. He was already a loose part of the band since he toured with them before. From this moment on Foo Fighters found its original line up. The only thing that changed ever since is that Pat Smear returned in 2010 for live performances and recording the Wasting Light album in 2011. One By One got followed up in 2005 with a fantastic double album called In Your Honour. Some say It’s a little tribute to Kurt Cobain since the first part of that album contains rock songs such as Best Of You and The Last Song. The other side contains acoustic songs which could relate to the famous MTV unplugged session by Nirvana in 1994. At the album In Your Honour the band is helped by great artists such as John Paul Jones, Josh Homme and Norah Jones. I promise you the first two names will appear shortly again in this musical link.

In this period Dave and Josh became close friends which led to many mutual projects. Sometimes Josh pops up with the Foo’s, sometimes Dave helps out with Queens Of The Stone Age. Both have started a mutual project as well but as said you’ll hear more of that in a few days or weeks. This is also the period when I found out about all these bands and started to create a huge love for grunge, rock, metal etc. …. But hey back to the facts.

In 2007 a sixth studio album appeared in the charts and this Echoes, Silence, Patience, Grace album is yet another highlight in the life of the fans. The first single, called The Pretender is so hard it almost kicks your brains out and to be honest the video clip is mighty great.  Let It Die, Come Alive and Home are also huge songs on that same album. From that moment on I wanted to see them live and a good friend of mine did so at the O2 Arena in London. I was jealous as hell and pretty much relieved to hear that they’d perform on last year’s Pukkelpop festival. You might not have heard but a few hours gone in the first days of the festival a huge storm ran over the complete festival site destroying everything. Five people died, many got hurt and the festival, and thus the Foo Fighters gig got cancelled. Bummer but understandable. But Dave Grohl wouldn’t be Dave Grohl if he wouldn’t be back this year and so he’ll be back in August and finally I’ll get to see my first (and hopefully not last) Foo Fighters concert. Already looking forward to it.

Did they silence up after Echoes, ….? No they didn’t. As many other bands did before them they released a Greatest Hits album in 2009. As you’ve read before the disputes with Pat Smear got resolved and he joined the band giving them some extra power on stage. February 2011 was the release date for wasting Light which again is a stronger album than the ones before. ‘Rope’ and ‘walk’ are the first two singles released. While recording the Foo’s were captured on camera for the documentary Foo Fighters: Back And Forth. A great documentary about the history of the band. In this documentary Dave Grohl is pretty open and honest about the dark periods and the mistakes the band made during the years and he also says there might not have been Foo Fighters as you know them now if Nirvana still would have existed.

Oh yeah, Foo Fighters is a common name for the different aerial phenomena spotted as UFO’s during World War II. I also forgot to mention the won various awards but for a huge band like this you could have guessed yourselves. Last year Foo Fighters also made international showbiz news when he stopped playing in the middle of a song, turned to a fighting spectator, and kicked him out with the words: “Who's fighting? Let me see him. Hey you in the striped shirt, look at me... Get the fuck out of my show right now. Get the fuck out." You gotta love him.