by Martin James
“Why aren’t this band playing the main stage?” asked the Melody Maker in their review. It transpired that the band had been asked many times to upgrade to the main stage as the promoters were predicting an overwhelming demand for them. Foo Fighters insisted on headlining the second stage instead. Again, admirable modesty from Grohl. However, even a down-to-earth rock-legend-in-the-making could not deny the frenzied response and so Foo Fighters subsequently accepted an invitation to headline the main stage the following year.
The following Monday saw the release of the second single from Foo Fighters, the controversial ‘I’ll Stick Around’. Backing the lead track were previously unreleased songs, ‘How I Miss You’ and ‘Ozone’. The former was notable for the appearance of Grohl’s sister Lisa on bass. The song itself echoed Velvet Underground with its discordant acoustic strum and audible fret rattle for the first few verses, before erupting in a distorted ascending power chord finale. ‘Ozone’ on the other hand was a cover version of a track by Kiss’s Ace Frehley, thus reviving Grohl’s connections with the Kiss solo ventures that started with the King Buzzo EP.
‘I’ll Stick Around’ was met with generally favourable reviews, however Kerrang! slated it. “It doesn’t. Stick around, that is. In fact, it goes through you like milk of magnesia. Neither as noisy nor as melodic as the fine first single.” Nonetheless, ‘I’ll Stick Around’ was their second Top 20 UK hit, reaching #18.
On October 16, Foo Fighters headed out on a European tour, opening at Circus in Stockholm, Sweden, where they introduced new track ‘Enough Space’ and a version of ‘Down In The Park’ by Gary Numan’s 1980s electro outfit, Tubeway Army. They chose the tour to introduce a number of new songs, the first they’d written as a band as opposed to Grohl solo. At Parkhus, Copenhagen on October 18 they played ‘My Hero’, while on November 1 they debuted ‘Up In Arms’ at Madrid’s Aqualung.
The Fall 1995 tour pulled in to the UK on November 10 at Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall. The following night took in Glasgow’s Barrowlands, which was followed by Leeds Town and Country. November 14 and 15 found the band playing two shows at London’s Brixton Academy, the second of which was special set filmed for MTV’s I’m OK Eur OK series.
A week later they delivered the third single to be taken from Foo Fighters, ‘For All The Cows’. The B-sides were live versions of the title track and ‘Wattershed’, lifted from the notable debut Reading Festival performance. The single reached #28 in the UK charts. In support of the release, Foo Fighters also recorded a live session for Radio 1 at the Maida Vale Studio, where they played ‘Winnebago’ and ‘Wattershed’.
Bringing the year to a close, Foo Fighters embarked on their first visit to Australia and the Pacific Rim. The tour coincided with a special release of Foo Fighters which boasted additional tracks culled from all of the B-sides to singles released so far. Immediately prior to this however the band performed on Saturday Night Live in New York City. Dave dedicated ‘For All The Cows’ to Mendel. It was his birthday.
December 1995 found the band in triumphant mood delivering stunning shows in Japan and Hawaii. Then following two dates in Los Angeles and a brief Christmas break, Foo Fighters headed off to Australia. Their first date was at Melbourne Showgrounds on December 29 followed by a New Year’s Eve gig in Sydney at the Macquarie University. This was clearly not a band about to rest on its laurels and Grohl’s reputation as a near-workaholic was, it seemed, well deserved.
1995 drew to an end with the band riding on the crest of a wave. Their debut album had been well received, while the live shows were being met with ecstatic responses. Large sections of the media all over the world seemed to love the band, not only because they were immediately radio friendly but also because they were prepared to do interviews and anything they deemed worthwhile to promote the records. In an era when so many rock stars shunned the press and/or treated journalists with disdain, Foo Fighters’ amenable stance was welcomed across the media almost universally.
Grohl was quickly becoming known for his approachable manner and workmanlike dedication to putting in the hours. Not only had he earned himself the tag of ‘nicest man in rock’, he was also now being called ‘the hardest working musician on the planet.’
Despite all this blossoming goodwill, the press still seemed unable to mention Grohl without referencing his previous band. Seemingly regardless of their own successes, Foo Fighters would regularly be likened to Nirvana, often in the most unfair ways. In their end of year round up Melody Maker rather uncharitably argued: “There remained the uneasy feeling about Foo Fighters that they were essentially Nirvana minus the angst, minus Kurt’s creative distortion, cranked up but not fucked up, bouncy, meaty beaty grunge for crowd surfers and moshers who never really cared for the vertiginous trauma of Nirvana at their troubling best.”
Regardless of such mean-spirit coverage, with the debut album Foo Fighters, Grohl had successfully managed to lay to rest many of the ghosts of his previous band. Only certain elements of the media still clung to the past. To many, it appeared as if he might have achieved the impossible and successfully thrown off what could have proved to be a terminally suffocating history. However, the journey still ahead of Grohl was to be littered with troubles…
Notes
1. Unknown
2. It’s a band, damn it. (And don’t mention the “N” word), author unknown (Rolling Stone) Oct 1995
3. Foo Fighters Press Biog 1995
4. Foo Fighters Feature, author unknown (NME) 23/30 December, 1995
5. It’s a band, damn it. (And don’t mention the “N” word) author unknown (Rolling Stone) Oct 1995
6. Nirvana Legacy – Foo Fighters Carry the Alt Standard Forward by Alan Sculley (www.aceweekly.com) 1996
7. Foo Fighters Feature, author unknown (NME) 23/30 December, 1995
8. My House is Haunted, no bi-line (Kerrang!) June, 1996
9. Feels Like The First Time, author unknown, (Alternative Press) 1996
10. ibid
11. ibid
12. ibid
13. The Chosen Foo by Everett True (Melody Maker) Nov 1995
14. It’s a band, damn it. (And don’t mention the “N” word), author unknown (Rolling Stone) Oct 1995
15. Triple J Interview (Triple JJJ) December 28, 1995
16. Foo Fighters feature, author unknown, (Raw Magazine) Dec 6-19 1995
17. News item – no bi-line (Kerrang!) 1995
18. The Chosen Foo by Everett True (Melody Maker) Nov 1995
19. ibid
20. ibid
21. ibid
22. ibid
23. Foo Fighters Feature, author unknown (NME) 23/30 December, 1995
24. news item – no bi-line (Kerrang!) 1995.
5
WHAT HAVE WE DONE WITH INNOCENCE
Where can you find a drummer with ambitions to do movie scores? Working behind the counter at Blockbusters.
The Australasia dates went ahead without any problems save for the Singapore gig on January 16 at The Harbour Pavilion when William Goldsmith was taken ill for the show. Grohl opened the set with a solo version of ‘This Is A Call’. The tour came to a close on January 22 at Queen Elizabeth Stadium in Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Upon their return to the US, the band went directly to the Bob Lang’s Studios, where they recorded a new version of the as-yet-unreleased Foo Fighters out-take ‘Butterflies’, and new tracks ‘I’m Alone Again’, ‘Enough Space’ and ‘My Hero’. They also recorded a version of live favourite ‘Down In The Park’. It was the second cover version they were to record, although it would definitely not be the last, as the process had lit up a fascination for cover versions within Grohl. In the years that followed, he would regularly include his interpretations of other people’s songs into Foo Fighters sets.
Of this session ‘Down In The Park’ would turn up later that year on the X-Files soundtrack album Songs In The Key of X, ‘Enough Space’ would appear on the band’s forthcoming second album, The Colour And The Shape. �
��Butterflies’ would again remain unreleased but would become a regular addition to the live sets while ‘I’m Alone Again’ would never be released or played live.
‘I’m Alone Again’ built on sub-metal riffing and a verse that echoed the angular dynamics of UK punk bands like Wire, revolving around guitar and bass picking out octaves over which Grohl delivered his trademark melodic vocals. Lyrically the song was perhaps Grohl’s most transparent song yet, referring to his recent marriage break up. A long way from the love song, ‘Big Me’ which had been pencilled in as the next single from Foo Fighters.
Prior to this recording session, Grohl appeared on the cult Seattle comedy-sketch show Almost Live TV. In the sketch that featured the Foo Fighters’ frontman, comedienne Nancy Guppy would smash up the guitar that had been given to Grohl by Tom Petty. Grohl acted sufficiently alarmed by the act of wanton destruction, but the reality was that the guitar was only a cheap instrument bought from the Trading Musician store on Roosevelt!
March 1996 found Foo Fighters once again out on the road. To promote the shows, the band played an acoustic set for Rockline Radio. The set included an exclusive version of ‘Wattershed’ featuring Grohl’s remarkably accurate imitation of Fred Schneider of B-52’s fame. The song was renamed ‘Watter-Fred’ for the session. That the band had decided to do an acoustic version of one of the debut album’s most hardcore moments was strange enough, but to hear Grohl delivering a story over the top in his best ‘Rock Lobster’ voice was almost surreal!
“Oh man, that was perfection!” exclaimed the DJ after the song had finished. If not perfection, exactly, it did provide an insight into Grohl’s comedy talents. Even as a child he had used his ability to make people laugh as a way of becoming the centre of attention during family gatherings.
The first date of the band’s spring 1996 tour with The Amps and That Dog opened in Denver with two nights at the Ogden Theatre on March 22 and 23. Following these shows the band would travel throughout the USA on a tour which took in thirty two dates, culminating with a free show at Whiskey A Go Go in Los Angeles.
The tour was in support of the release of ‘Big Me’ as a single, which arrived on March 3. Backing the lead song were three tracks recorded live for a Radio 1 Session in November 1995: ‘Floaty’, ‘Gas Chamber’ and ‘Alone + Easy Target’.
On 15 June, Foo Fighters would play at the Beastie Boys’ Tibetan Freedom Festival in San Francisco. Among the acts scheduled to play the festival were The Beastie Boys themselves, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Yoko Ono, Smashing Pumpkins, Fugees, Rage Against The Machine, Beck, Pavement and Sonic Youth among many others. The two-day concert, at the Polo Fields in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, had the aim of highlighting China’s human rights abuses in Tibet. Proceeds from the event went to the Milarepa Fund, a San Francisco-based non-profit organisation co-founded by the Beastie Boys in1994. Milarepa organized the concert along with Bill Graham Presents.
Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys had become aware of the Tibetans’ plight in 1992 during a trip to Nepal. Grohl, along with a litany of superstars on the bill, was drawn to support the cause almost without hesitation.
“The main point of the concert,” explained Yauch, “really is to not just educate people about what’s happening in Tibet, but to also let people feel more aware of how much we affect what goes on in the rest of the world. When you go into (a store) and buy a pair of pants, you don’t really think about the fact that you might be putting on a pair of pants that some seven-year-old kid just made in a forced-labour camp.” Statements such as this made Grohl’s decision to play all the more understandable.
Foo Fighters played a short set comprising of mainly singles and live favourites. They proved to be one of the highlights of the festival’s two days with their no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point songs proving to be the perfect boost to the afternoon malaise that at one point had threatened to set in.
Throughout July the band would take their live show on another tour of Europe’s festival circuit. The tour would take in Poland’s Sopot Rock & Pop Festival, Quart Festival in Kristiansand, Norway, Torhout Festival and Werchter Festival in Belgium (the former being a rain-soaked affair with a dismally disinterested crowd who seemed more intent on fighting than watching Foo Fighters), Eurokennes Festival in France, Ireland’s Feile Festival and Scotland’s T In The Park Festival. They also played club shows in France, Spain and Holland.
The tour came to an end with a triumphant set at The Phoenix Festival in Stratford, England. The festival that year had faced huge problems because people were unable to get to the site due to huge traffic delays. At some points, the jams would be greeted by the sight of an overhead helicopter flying a band in, or worse, bands speeding up the hard shoulder in their tour busses, accompanied by the police. Among the latter was the Prodigy, who would play twice that year. They would also strike up a lasting friendship with Grohl and Foo Fighters.
On many of the festivals the Foos had played that year, two acts were frequent headliners: David Bowie, doing the rounds in support of his Earthling album, and the rejuvenated and reformed Sex Pistols, out on their ‘Filthy Lucre’ tour. Both must have represented a dream come true for Grohl, especially the latter as he had been a Pistols fan since he first discovered punk. He had been into Bowie’s music even longer. During the Festival tour, Grohl struck up a friendship with Bowie which would culminate in the two musicians working together, both live and in the studio.
The Phoenix Festival show found Foo Fighters at their very best, with Grohl’s huge grinning antics playing counterpoint to Smear’s lounging angst. Goldsmith’s energy infused the set with a vibrancy that was unusual for a festival show, while Mendel sloped around the stage, occasionally bouncing on the spot, but lost in concentration.
The band may have played an amazing tally of over forty shows in two months, but they seemed like they could have gone on to do another forty. However they decided that the time was right to take a break from the relentless live schedule.
The routine of gigging brought out an interesting aspect of Grohl’s personality: that he is less interested in the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle than the actual physical process of touring. He enjoys the sense of the well-oiled machine moving through city after city. Not for him the rock star excesses of life on tour as a way of alleviating the boredom. He finds his pleasure from getting into the rhythm of the machine.
“I have fun. But I’m boring on the road,” he told Kerrang!. “I don’t fucking do shit man. To me, getting on the bus and going for a ride is my favourite thing. I love being on the bus! I love getting in my bunk and closing my curtain. And I hear people laughing in the front lounge, or I smell the popcorn in the microwave, and I get all excited. I jump out and I’m like, ‘Hey! What are you guys doing?” (1)
As for aftershow parties or tour bus antics, Grohl insists there is very little of this too. “If we’re on a two month tour, then there’d be probably two or three nights on the whole tour where I’ll get fucking obliterated. I don’t smoke pot, I don’t do coke, I don’t do anything.” (2)
Foo Fighters had two very important reasons for taking a break from touring. On the one hand, the band were itching to get into the studio to record their second album, and on the other, they were very much in need of a well-earned holiday.
Grohl however, doesn’t take holidays. He hates them. His hyperactive nature means he finds it impossible to rest for too long. It had been the same way when he was at school. “I once went back to my mom’s and looked through loads of old photos and shit. So, I started finding my old report cards! They were concerned with my hyperactivity. They all said: ‘David could be a very good student if he could just fucking stay in one place and sit still.’ There were lots of requests for my mom to come in and talk about it. But I did OK in school though, got good grades. Until I discovered pot and then I kinda just stopped going to lessons.”
So rather than take a holiday like the rest of the band, Grohl instead decided he would get to work recor
ding yet another solo album. Not for Foo Fighters this time, but a soundtrack to the movie Touch.
Touch was Paul Scrader’s adaptation of Elmore Get Shorty, Leonard’s bizarre satire about faith-healers in which an ex-monk uses his new found position as a faith-healer to explore all manner of un-Godly situations. The movie starred Bridget Fonda (who the one-time monk gets to seduce), Skeet Ulrich and Christopher Walken.
Next up, Grohl teamed up once more with old sparring partner Barrett Jones and went into Bob Lang’s studios and, in only three weeks in October 1996, he delivered a series of musical vignettes to support the short film rushes he had been provided with. He didn’t get to see the completed film until long after he had delivered his tracks.
The crossover from manic rock frontman to sensitive soundtrack composer was an important step for Grohl. In this album he could be seen to be finally leaving the ghosts of his past behind. Far from the creative straightjacket of grunge and all of the baggage that came with the style, and miles away from the dysfunctional trauma of those final days in Nirvana, he was now taking his music in any way that he fancied. He had graduated from the Seattle school and was now ready to move into a far wider market.
There was another aspect to the almost cathartic process of recording by himself again (with Jones at the controls). Laying down his own music had long been a valued pressure valve for Grohl. During his days with Scream he was able to explore new ideas and with Nirvana he could let off the frustration he was feeling. And now, with Foo Fighters, he was able to use these sessions to unburden himself of the weight of being the band’s leader. He may have argued constantly that he was just another member of the band, but he was the singer, songwriter, arranger, guitarist (and everything else on Foo Fighters). He chose the name of the band and the label. He decided on the image for the album cover and his (now-former) wife took the photos. To all intents and purposes, Grohl was still Foo Fighters. The main pressure he felt came from the constant need to state that he was only one of four band members. Now back in the studio alone with no band, no one could accuse him of being coy in his denial of the band leader position he took, no one could accuse him of being egotistic in the way that he put together a band to play his songs, but refused to take responsibility for being the band leader.