One broken leg, much exhaustion and many whispers of a break up later, Dave Grohl sent his charges to the beach (well, briefly). The Foo Fighters duly returned, recharged and ready to rock again…
On March 2, 2016, Foo Fighters had an important announcement to make. For the past couple of months, fans and media were in a state of panic as rumours circulated that the band were splitting up – spawned by Taylor Hawkins confessing in January that, “I think the world needs a break from us for a little while.”
Now it was time to come clean about their plans. Was this all really coming to an end?
“Maybe it’s time for me to do my own thing…” began a suave, sunglasses and suit-clad Dave Grohl in a video simply titled ‘Official Band Announcement’. Over the course of the documentary-style seven-minute clip uploaded to the band’s YouTube account, the frontman was seen hitting the studio with producer Butch Vig to make a start on his own project, while the remaining bandmates recruited U.S. actor, TV personality and ex-boyband member Nick Lachey to fill the void that Dave had left. It, er, didn’t bode well.
But then came the punchline: “For the millionth time, we’re not breaking up,” emphatically concluded the spoof video. “And nobody’s going fucking solo!”
Thank fuck for that.
The band did need a break, though. Their frontman called for a six-month ban from all things Foo Fighters, utterly knackered after a solid year on the road for the Sonic Highways World Tour. Moreover, he was still on crutches and, well, learning to walk again, having dramatically broken his leg falling off the stage in Sweden the summer prior. Ever the professional, the majority of the tour had still gone ahead despite this hiccup, and was fondly referred to as the Broken Leg Tour.
“When we came home from that last trip, everybody was really exhausted,” Dave told Kerrang! in the summer of 2017. “I was trying to get my body back in shape, and I was so drained from touring. Usually, at the end of a couple of years on the road, you blame the music and the band for all of your problems, so you want to get away from it.”
For the first half of this break, Dave and co. went back to “normal, quiet, domestic life.” He mulled over other professional offers while enjoying family time, but his home studio quietly called. And so, while drumming in small doses as part of his rehabilitation, Dave began “dipping in” to new music.
“I had a feeling it was going to happen,” chuckled keyboardist Rami Jaffee, who was made an official member in 2017. “I was in Ibiza when Dave’s on the group text like, ‘Okay guys, summer’s over!’ Even though he said we needed a long break, I was expecting the text.”
“Dave was saying we would take two years off, which I never believed,” agreed guitarist Chris Shiflett with a knowing smile. “But I did think it would be longer than it in fact was.”
The expansive, experimental music that would make up Foo Fighters’ ninth studio album was flowing so freely it soon became impossible to ignore.
Beginning with the epic lead single Run, Dave and Taylor discovered a newfound sense of excitement from the galloping rhythm of the track – “It was something that we’ve never done,” exclaimed Dave – and it spurred them on to visit new sonic territory. The frontman also sought the help of in-demand super-producer Greg Kurstin (Adele, Sia, Beck) to help realise this bold new sound and vision.
“All of the music that we’ve made over the past 22 years has left us a pretty wide, open playing field,” he considered. “The biggest risk would be to make an album that just wasn’t the band. Doing this, I feel like everybody felt really comfortable where we were the whole time.”
The lyrical jump into Concrete And Gold was harder to comprehend. Having felt the burden lifted off him in telling the stories of others on Sonic Highways, Dave found himself struggling with the spotlight shining brightly back in his direction once more. He took drastic measures to overcome writer’s block, renting an Airbnb on a Californian olive tree farm, and bringing with him the recipe for success: a guitar, a microphone, and a case of wine.
“I spent most of my time just singing things off of the top of my head, which was nice,” he recalled. “I wasn’t really playing the word game in a journal and cutting and pasting, like I had done before, but just singing things unfiltered as I was drunk in my underwear.”
These half-naked musings weren’t always as feel-good as the image presented, however. Observing the political climate in America sparked a lot of Dave’s “early, alienated, freakish punk rock feelings” from when he was a teenager in Virginia.
It manifested in songs like Run and the explosive La Dee Da, though he plotted a “climactic, hopeful finale” in album closer Concrete And Gold, ultimately telling a story of faith and optimism overcoming these otherwise dark undercurrents.
A series of surprise guest features – Justin Timberlake, Sir Paul McCartney and Boyz II Men’s Shawn Stockman – came about as Foos chipped away at Hollywood’s EastWest Studios, resulting in an album Kerrang! went on to praise as “intriguing” in our 4K review of the release. And while Concrete And Gold not only debuted at Number One on both sides of the Atlantic and kicked off another run of touring stadiums and headlining festivals, it also emphatically proved that Foo Fighters were – and still are – a long, long way off breaking up.
“It can be overwhelming at times,” Dave concluded. “Once you get in the groove on the road it’s great. But when you’re making a record and you actually have to think about what you’re doing (laughs)… it can get a bit tiring. But I mean, hey, I don’t have any complaints. It’s fucking awesome!”
