by Martin James
These weren’t the only awards to go the Foo Fighters’ way in the early part of 2001. On February 20, Grohl cemented his multi-instrumental reputation by winning the ‘Gibson Guitar Award’ for Best Rock Guitarist, then a few months later in May, ‘Learn To Fly’ was again honoured, this time at the BMI Awards. The release had been confirmed as the single most-played song on US college radio.
With Foo Fighters scheduled to take a break in the early part of the summer, Grohl predictably took it upon himself to work on other material. Among these would be recording drum tracks for the forthcoming album by Queens of the Stone Age.
Born from the ashes of legendary thrash metal outfit Kyuss, the Queens of the Stone Age duo of Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri took the dark metal pulse of their former life and incorporated contorted soul flavours and psychedelic twists to create a unique take on the rock genre.
Their self-titled 1998 debut album ploughed a territory that was instantly recognisable as belonging to Kyuss. However, it was with their second collection, Rated R that the Californian duo truly staked their claim on a new territory in the rock ’n’ roll landscape. Rated R was an amorphous (con)fusion of Psychedelic Shack-era Temptations, Hawkwind’s heavier moments, Husker Du’s melodies and Metallica’s power. An album without compromises, it lit up an otherwise dull rock arena upon its release.
To support the album, the band toured the world, including a support slot on the US leg of the Foo Fighters’ 2000 tour. The Foos and QOTSA instantly struck up a mutual appreciation society and when they came to record their third album, Song For The Deaf, they approached Grohl to guest.
The mutual admiration between Josh Homme/Nick Oliveri and Grohl stretched back much further than just the Foos or QOTSA. Grohl has admitted that he was a huge fan of Kyuss, playing that band’s album Blues For The Red Sun at least three times a day when it came out. Kyuss on the other hand paid tribute to Nirvana on ‘Day One,’ a secret track on And The Circus Leaves Town, the band’s final album released in 1995.
“I’ve known those guys for a long time,” said Grohl. “I was a huge fan of the first Queens album and jokingly, when asked what was my greatest disappointment of 2001, I said that I hadn’t been asked to play on their record. So they were nice enough to ask when it came time to make another record. One thing we have in common is a love of early Black Flag. In one of the songs that we recorded – I think it’s called ‘Song For The Deaf’ – there’s a nod to an early Black Flag record: the drum riff is me paying tribute to Bill Stevenson.” (4)
“I don’t think he realised how much we liked his band,” added Homme of his band’s feelings towards Grohl. “It was one of those things where he would come out to our shows, it was cool, we kind of like mutually respected him and liked each other’s bands. He was one of the early supporters, it was cool to play with him.”
In the end, Grohl played on all but one of the album’s tracks. It was, he says, the best record he had ever been involved with. “Josh (Homme, Queens’ guitarist) should talk about this because I don’t want him and Nick (Oliveri, Queens’ bassist) to tag-team my ass,” he laughed. “But I’ll just say that it’s my favourite album that I’ve ever played drums on. When I jammed with Nick and Josh, it almost sounded like I was back in 1992 playing on a Kyuss record. It was fucking amazing. They let me go off on this album like never before. It rocks ten times harder than anything they’ve ever done.” (5)
Suitably inspired by the Queens sessions, Grohl immediately went into the studio to mix the fantasy metal band project Probot. What was interesting about both Probot and Queens of the Stone Age was that, despite his own success, Grohl had never lost that fan attitude. In some ways this harked back to his inferiority complex, that he would in some way be surprised that artists he liked, respected him enough to ask him to play drums for them. Grohl seemed almost blind to the idea that these people were his contemporaries and that the respect went both ways.
Respect however was something he was rapidly losing for the Foo Fighters situation. Not only had the touring gone on too long, but also he was growing ever more tired of playing the old songs. Even the thought of recording the next album was starting to feel like a contractual obligation, rather than something he longed to do.
In August however, the band were dealt an almost catastrophic blow. Taylor Hawkins collapsed and was hospitalised only two dates into their UK and Ireland tour. The initial reason was “exhaustion”, however this turned out to be a euphemism for what appeared to be a drugs overdose. Bad memories came flooding back to Grohl.
Foo Fighters were forced to cancel gigs at London’s Kentish Town Forum on August 27, Edinburgh Corn Exchange on August 30, and in September 1, Slane Castle in Dublin. As it turned out Hawkins’ drug abuse wasn’t anything to do with the chemicals usually associated with the rock ’n’ roll life. Malicious rumours had it that he’d taken large amounts of cocaine, endured a heart attack and was rushed to intensive care. It was, apparently touch and go whether or not he would make it through. All nonsense of course. The actual problem was far more innocent.
When confronted with this (unfounded) rumour by journalist Ian Winwood – who wished to clear up all the gossip – Hawkins reactions were a mixture of humour and contempt.
“No, that’s not true.” Hawkins exclaimed. “It wasn’t cocaine, but it was drugs. I don’t want to say what kind.” Hawkins also confirmed that the collapse wasn’t due to heroin before admitting, “I was addicted to painkillers. That was my addiction.”
“What kind of painkillers?”
“Just fucking painkillers, okay? It doesn’t matter what they were; all that matters is that I had a problem with them. It was a situation that had gotten out of control for me. That’s all. And last summer I took too many of them and I went into a coma for two days. It was very serious. I’ve been into rehab and I’ve cleaned up. It’s all in the past. It’s over now and I’ve come through what happened. End of story.
But, believe me, I’m not proud of what happened. I don’t want to celebrate it and I don’t want to dwell on it. I’m happy to clear up what happened but that’s it. It ends there. I can see why you’re asking me about it, because if the roles were reversed I’d ask you about it. It’s something that people want to know about, and in other situations I’d want to know about it too. People love this kind of story. But it’s such a cliché. Member of a rock band – the drummer of a rock band, no less – takes too many drugs, becomes ill, has to go into rehab. If you spell it out like that, it’s just so embarrassing. It’s so obvious.”
The refreshingly honest Hawkins was out of action for a number of weeks, forcing the band to take an unscheduled sabbatical. Their only task during this period was the re-recording of ‘Make A Bet’, an outtake from the sessions for The Colour And The Shape. The new version was called ‘Win Or Lose’, and it was given to the soundtrack for the movie Out Cold. Grohl would also take the opportunity to lay down twenty drum tracks for the Tenacious D album. It took him one and a half days! He would also play a demon in their ‘Tribute’ video in April of the following year.
In December, a fully fit Hawkins returned to the fold for a series of demo sessions at Grohl’s Studio 606. The intention was to lay down the last of the tracks for the next album, before decamping to a larger studio to record them properly. The final task of the year came with the release of ‘The One’ on the soundtrack for the movie Orange County. The track was issued as a single in Australia.
2001 had been a year of extremes for Grohl. On the one hand his Probot and Queens of the Stone Age work had given him a huge boost. On the other, Hawkins’ collapse and the boredom of touring had seen him testing that famed emotional distance.
“What happened (in 2001) didn’t really have anything to do with the band. We just wanted things to happen naturally and not force it. For a band that’s been so glamour and drama free, for something like that to happen was something of a shock. We’re pretty boring people. We don’t lead the rock ’n’ roll life style
that people imagine every band must have.”
In March 2002, the band went into Conway Studios in Los Angeles to start recording their fourth album which had already been demo-ed at Grohl’s place. They had also worked a lot at Hawkins’ own home studio in Topanga Canyon, LA.
“The whole idea of building a home studio is just to be in complete control of everything,” Grohl explained. “I will never work another way again. There’s just no way. There’s no clock on the wall, it’s your fucking house, which also means that you decide who’s allowed to come by the studio and who’s not. Our routine up here (Hawkins’ studio) has been ridiculous. We come out here at ten o’clock in the morning and swim for two hours. Then we play for two hours, then we have a BBQ for two hours, then we jump in the pool again.” (6)
Among the numerous working titles for the album were Attica, Tom Petty, Knucklehead, Spooky Tune, Full Mount, Lonely Is You, and Tears For Beers. The songs were a definite reaction to There Is Nothing Left To Lose, having turned out far heavier than the predecessor’s acoustic-driven mellow numbers which were “written lying on the bed in front of the television with an acoustic guitar.
All of those songs on the last album were written on acoustic guitars, even ‘Breakout’ and ‘Stacked Actors’. A lot of this stuff that we’ve been writing now has been written with everything on 11! We have guitar leads on our songs now!” Grohl laughed. “And that’s Shifflett, not me! We have this new fast song that we decided to give to Shifflett for a lead break. We were recording live in the room down there, and I can’t really hear Shifflett’s amp. When I went back and listened, he was shredding this fucking ‘Yngwie’ lead! I was like, ‘Oh my God! Who are you? I didn’t know you could do that!” (7)
Such was the positivity that surrounded the demos that Grohl said he could see the album hitting the stores later in the year. “Now we’ve done the demo-ing, I really don’t think it’s going to take long. The eighteen or nineteen songs we have are so close to being finished. Hopefully (we’ll) have it finished by the beginning of November.”
It wasn’t to be that easy though. When the band listened to the unmixed album they hated it. It was, they thought, just Foo Fighters by numbers, with no development or contrast. They immediately binned the album. It has since come to be known as the Million Dollar Demo.
“When we were making the first version of the record, it felt like we were making an album for the sake of making another album, not necessarily making another record because we were dying to do it,” he later explained. “It was a little too forced because the motivation was unclear, it wasn’t as pure as having these songs we couldn’t wait to get out – it was a little blurry, a little more scattered than that. If we had felt trapped in that position for our second or third album we might not be around to make the fourth record.
It was the absolute correct thing to [bin it]. It just didn’t have that attitude and energy the band thrive on – it had songs that sounded like singles and that’s not necessarily what keeps a band alive forever.
We realised we wanted to be in this band for a long time to come and two years ago we didn’t necessarily feel that way, it seemed it would be okay if we just stopped. And after Taylor went down in London we realised we didn’t want it to end ever. Yeah, because you get to the point where you realise rock music isn’t the most important thing in the world. To me at least. Playing the game, doing interviews and such is just playing the game. And making music is bigger than that but even bigger and more important than that is health and happiness and family, the bigger picture. (Laughs) We’re getting old.”
With so much dissatisfaction in the Foo’s camp, Grohl decided he needed to do something that would help him clear his head. Then the opportunity came for him to tour with Queens of the Stone Age. He agreed to do it.
“It was the best thing I could have done. Back home, there was tension between Taylor and I, between Nate and I. This gave us all a rest. Our album had turned into a responsibility, an obligation. You could hear in the music that we didn’t feel lucky to be in the band,” stated Dave. Getting behind the drums again was an obvious escape. “That’s where I feel most comfortable. I love singing and playing the guitar – but playing the drums, I never have to think or concentrate on what I’m doing. All the pressures were taken away.
I’d recorded ‘Songs For The Deaf’ last summer and I was helping them to find another drummer. I thought I’d found one for them but I just had to play one show. I had to prove to myself that I could do it after eight years, that I hadn’t lost that part of myself. We played in Los Angeles and it was amazing. The connection that Josh (Homme) and Nick (Oliveri) and I have is really incredible. We don’t have to speak, we look in each other’s eyes and we know what happens.”
Grohl initially only agreed to play a one-off gig at LA’s Troubadour Club. It was the first time that he had played drums on stage for eight years. “That show was so important to me because it was the first time I’d played drums in a band since Nirvana. Because of the way that band ended, anything to do with Nirvana has now become somehow legendary… But everything becomes spoken in these hushed tones. Like Kurt. Kurt’s become a legend, but he was just a man… because I was the drummer in Nirvana people seem to consider me a legendary drummer. Let me tell you, I am not a great drummer, not by a long way.
And so the gig with Queens was the most pressure I’ve felt in a long time. It was like I was playing in a great rock band with the weight of having been the drummer in another great band weighing on my shoulders.
You know, the reason I didn’t just join another band after Nirvana ended was because of the feeling I had playing in Queens of the Stone Age, which was just the greatest feeling. And that’s the feeling I needed. All of that bullshit that has to do with the urban myth of Nirvana – the band that imploded, the band that broke down, the band that ended in tragedy and despair. After going through all that chaos and misery and pain as it happened, having to go into a miserable situation again would have been a bad idea.” (8)
Queens of the Stone Age played dates on that year’s Coechella Festival in the US before decamping to Europe. The solidarity between Grohl and the guys from QOTSA was obvious.
“We’re like, ‘You can have as many bands as you want. I have three bands, why shouldn’t you?’” explained Oliveri. “If he’s into it, which he is, I hope he stays. He’s one of my favourite drummers of all time. He’s got a signature beat, and I don’t know many drummers that have that, you know, the ‘Teen Spirit’ beat. That’s Dave Grohl’s beat as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never heard that beat before. I’ve heard it after he did it, but I never heard it before he did it. So I’d say it’s his. It’s amazing, dude. He’s from one of my favourite bands of all time and I’m fucking counting my blessings. I haven’t taken my bass home to practice in years, but I’ve been taking my bass home – trying to stay strong with my fucking chops and shit.” (9)
With Foo Fighters’ fourth album languishing in the trash and Grohl out on a tour of the US, Japan and the UK with Queens of the Stone Age, the future of Grohl’s band seemed to be in genuine doubt. NME actually ran a news story headlined, ‘Are the Foos about to split?’ One thing was for certain – Grohl was having a great time rediscovering the joy of playing drums live. However he was also using the gigs to run away from the tension between the members of Foo Fighters and muse on whether or not they had the will to continue. With QOTSA, he didn’t have to think about writing songs, signing cheques or doing interviews. All he was there to do was play drums.
“He’s a great songwriter,” argued Oliveri. “He’s a great singer and a guitar player, but he’s a better drummer as far as I’m concerned. I tell him that to his face, so it’s not anything I’m just talking shit about. He’s one of the best rock drummers. He should be behind the kit. He should be hitting the skins. He’s a madman.” (10)
“I was worried – for about a week,” confirmed Hawkins at the start of Grohl’s tenure with QOTSA, “and I think
Dave’s made that new Queens album a hundred times better than it would have been.”
At the time, Grohl was having such a good time with Queens of the Stone Age that he was close to joining full-time. In his role as a drummer he was able to enjoy playing for the sake of the music, and being as good as he could be. There were no pressures of entertaining the crowd, none of the stress of being a reluctant frontman.
“Behind a drum kit is where he fuckin’ should be,” Josh Homme said at the time, emphasising the points already made by Oliveri. “Dave’s an amazing player; he played his fuckin’ ass off. I think that he is a drummer first, and people have sort of forgotten that.”
On the subject of Grohl becoming a full time Queen, Homme and Oliveri confirmed that it wasn’t a part of their game plan, let alone his. “You know there is so much finality, people are saying that we are Yoko-ing Foo Fighters,” argued Homme. “It’s so much more casual than that. You can be in this band and do that band as well. It doesn’t have the finality of the Bible.”
“We have set up Queens where there are a bunch of different members, one in and out,” added Oliveri. “Dave isn’t going to stay forever, but there is an open door for him to come and jam with us, because he is one of our favourite drummers. He’s an honorary member.” “He has the badge and the patch and the sweatshirt,” concluded Homme.
“It was a split hair decision,” suggested Grohl. “I’m not so career-minded that I have a plan… I mean, if Linkin Park called me up and asked me to record with them I’d probably say ‘no’. But while we were recording with Foo Fighters and we were getting stuck trying to deliver this thing to a schedule, I just said, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to go off and play with Queens of the Stone Age for a while and see how I feel when I get back.’ The thing is that I don’t have to do this career thing. I’m free to do what I want to do.