later,”heoffers.“Whenwefirstgottogeth-
er,ourbiggestconcernwasmakingsure
thevandidn’tgetaflattyreonthewayto
the next gig. And that’s changed a little bit.
But you learn as you go, and along the way
we’ve kind of grown into a band.”
“It was such a messed-up band [when
I joined],” ref lects drummer Taylor
Hawkins, calling in from Laguna Beach,
the small coastal Californian city in which
he was raised, and where he’s currently
holidaying with his family. The energetic
sticksman became a Foo Fighter in 1997
afterthebandsplitwithoriginaldrummer
William Goldsmith. “[Guitarist] Pat Smear
quit within the first two weeks I was in the
band.[Hereturnedin2010.]Iwas,like,
tryingtofigureouthowtoplaydrumsfor
thegreatestdrummerintheworld,andI
didn’t enjoy it at first, but I loved Dave. Live
wesucked,wewereshambolic.Davewas
notusedtobeingafrontman,Iwastry-
ing to play drums like Dave but not be like
Dave,Nate[Mendel]wasthisweirdbass
player,andweweregoingthroughaseries
ofguitarplayers.Andthenwegot[gui-
tarist Chris] Shiflett [in 1999] and that
formed a sort of nucleus, and then some-
where in there, aroundThereIsNothing
Left To Lose,One By One,wejuststarted
maybe seeing a bigger picture and think-
ing, well, maybe we could be a real band.
Maybethisisn’tjustaflukethatourbuddy
thatplayeddrumsinNirvanacanwritea
few songs here and there. And it just kept
going. We just never broke up.”
These days, says Grohl, Foo Fighters’ lon-
gevity is such that children born into the
organisation are now old enough to work
for the band. “One of our techs, his daugh-
ter, Mariah, I remember her from when she
was 10 or fucking 12 years
old. A couple of years ago
we were in Toronto and I
saw her backstage, now
she’s in her 20s and I’m
like, ‘Mariah! How are
you?’Wetalkedforamin-
uteandallofasuddenher
walkie talkie went off and
she said, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve
gottorun.’AndIlooked
at her like [incredulous-
ly], wait a minute. She’s
fuckingworking for us
now?! We have two gen-
erationsofroadcrew!”
He laughs. “That’s fuck-
ing insane!”T
he last
time the Foo
Fighters re-
leased an
album, it was
more a multimedia ex-
travaganza than it was a
standard record release.An eight-song LP where each track was
recorded in a different city in America,
2014’sSonic Highways was a companion
piecetoadocumentary series Grohl co-
directed for HBO, exploring the musical
andculturalheritage of each of the cities
in which the band recorded. By that point
he had a compact but acclaimed CV as a
filmmaker, having played an integral role
in theBack and Forth documentary (which
tracked the history of the Foo Fighters
and the making of 2011’s Wasting Light in
Grohl’s garage) and directed and co-pro-
duced 2013’s Sound City, which recount-
ed the history of the legendary recording
studio.Sonic Highways, however, was a
grander beast altogether, with Grohl as-
suming the roles of director, producer, in-
terviewer, songwriter, band leader, musi-
cian and, quite possibly, bartender. Upon
speaking to Rolling Stone about the
project in 2014, he finished the interview
by revealing he already had plans for the
nextrecord. “You think this is fucked up?”
he boasted. “Wait until you see what we’re
doing for the next one.”
Today, speaking from the parking lot of a
grocery store in Los Angeles – “It’s another
beautiful day,” he deadpans. “Enough pol-
lution to kill a horse, and traffic is a dead
stop, and the people’s faces are botoxed
in frozen shapes so you can’t see how un-
happy they are... it’s fucking amazing!” –
Grohl smiles at the memory.
“I got so caught up in the ambition of
Sonic Highways, it was such an ambi-
tious, mammoth project that I was riding
on that high. And I had this idea for the
next record where we’d write and rehearse
an entire album and then book one night
at the Hollywood Bowl, build a record-
ing studio on the stage with
isolation booths and reel to
reel machines and a control
room, invite 20,000 people,
and show them a 45-min-
ute presentation on the writ-
ing of the album before we
walk onstage and record our
album live on HBO in front
of 20,000 people. No one,”
he cackles, “had ever done
that!”
Plans proceeded to the
point where a night at the
venue was put on hold, but
were scuppered when, six
months later, Grohl learned
that PJ Harvey had record-
ed her The Hope Six Demoli-
tion Project album in front of
a live audience as part of an
art installation at London’s
Somerset House. “I don’t
know exactly how she did
it, but it was similar enough
that I thought, ‘Fuck. OK, oh
well, maybe next time.’”ohl was sit-
ting at home watching YouTube with his
eight-year-old daughter, Harper. Their
focuswasheronstageappearancedur-
ing the Foo Fighters’ headline set at Ice-
land’s Secret Solstice festival in June, when
shejumpedbehindthedrumkit–anin-
strumentshe’donlybeenlearningfortwo
weeks–andledthebandthroughatrun-
catedversionofQueen’s“(WeWill)Rock
You”.“IfeltlikefuckingKingTriton!”roars
her beaming father several weeks later.
“[She] must have a little bit of my DNA in
theretohavethefuckingballstojumpon-
stageinfrontof20,000peopleandplay
thefirstsongyoulearnedtwoweeksago.I
wasveryproud.”
Harperisn’tthefirstofGrohl’sthree
daughters – 11-year-old Violet and three-
year-old Ophelia round out the brood – to
showsignsoftakingupthefamilybusi-
ness. Violet, he says, “can sing like Adele
can sing, can sing like Amy Winehouse
cansing”,andthoughshe’sbeendoingthis
since she was six or seven, she only recently
got an invitation to join her first band when
akidinherclass,Spencer,textedherwith
theoffer.TheirfirstshowwasattheRoxy
in West Hollywood. “It was her first gig,
and she fucking walks into the Roxy and
takesalookaround,andshelooksatme
andsays,‘Yeah,thisplaceisalotsmaller
thanIthoughtitwasgonnabe.’”Hechuck-
les. “I was like, ‘Slow down, tiger, you’ve got
alongwaytogo.’”
If anyone should know, it’s surely Dave
Grohl.The48-year-oldhasbeenplaying
inbandsformorethan30years,takinghis
firsttentativestepsasateeninactssuchas
Mission Impossible, Freak Baby and Dain
BramagewhilegrowingupinVirginia.By
17 he’d dropped out of school and was tour-
ingAmericainavanwithDChardcore
band the Scream; by 21 he’d joined Nirva-
na; within 18 months they were the biggest
rock band in the world; and by 25 it was all
over when frontman Kurt Cobain commit-
tedsuicidein1994.Whatfollowedsurely
ranksasoneofrock&roll’sgreatreinven-
tions, as the drummer became a frontman,
wrote and recorded some songs, pulled to-
getherabandhecalledFooFightersand,
upon releasing their debut album in 1995,
hit the road.
“Whenwestartedthebandin1994,we
couldn’t imagine we’d be here 23 years
54 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com October, 2017
Foo Fighters
“When I look
at photos of
us back in
the day I can
see that I
was really
trying to do
this. And I
don’t feel like
I need to try
to be in Foo
Fighters
anymore. It’s
just become
my life.”