30 years of Foo Fighters: the song that saved the life of Dave Grohl
Kurt Cobain’s deathand the consequent dissolution of the Nirvana, left an unbearable void to an entire injection of wounded. After playing a fundamental role in that revolution thanks to his powerful and combative battery style, Dave Grohl chose silence and escape. He left for Ireland, towards the Ring of Kerry, a remote and wild corner of Ireland where to seek peace and responses. But even there, in the midst of nothing, the memory reached him: a self -lace with the face of Kurt printed on the shirt reminded him that You cannot escape from your past. It was then that Grohl understood: he had to go home, write, play, and return to live. Back home, Dave refused the idea of joining another band – Voices of offers received from important names such as Pearl Jam and Tom Petty were chasing each other – preferring “do what nobody expected from me“. The musician then closed in the Robert Lang Studios of Seattle in October 1994 e he quit fifteen songs completely alone written in recent months. In five days engraved an entire albumplaying each instrument and singing each vocal part, with the exception of a single guitar solo signed by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs. Grohl had not initially intended to found a band or give a face to the project, then he chose the pseudonym Foo Fighters – an ironic reference to the UFO sightings of the Second World War – to make believe that behind those songs there was a real group, not a Only man looking for redemption. However, Those songs born in solituderecorded as a private exorcism against pain, they began to need to go out into the open. Dave Grohl therefore decided to enlist musicians and form a real band. The initial idea of involving Krist Novoselic has been archived, so as not to evoke any ghost tied to the Nirvana, Grohl called Nate Mendel and William Goldsmithreturning from the dissolution of the Sunny Day Real Estate, and with them Pat Smearalready at his side as guitarist on Cobain and members’ tours. The foo fighters thus finally took shape. The official baptism arrived on February 23, 1995, with the first concert of the group at the Jambalaya Club in Arcata, California, followed by stages in the small clubs of Portland and Seattle. The June 19, 1995 The Foo Fighters debut single came out, “This is a call“. The song, which arrived as a manifesto of Grohl’s rebirth, anticipated the band’s first eponymous album, released on July 4, 1995 then under the newborn Roswell Records label.
“‘This is a call’ had a different energy“, Dave Grohl had told Apple Music a few years ago about the song that turns thirty today:” It was more positive than the other things I had written so far, and especially after Kurt’s death was like a renewal, a awakening, in which I rediscovered the joy of writing and playing. It is strange, because when you are in a moment of loss, of mourning, of pain … take a tool in hand and what you have inside simply comes out. “‘This is a call’ came out of his own way. Every time I took a pen or guitar in hand and I started writing something, only depressing stuff came out. At one point I asked myself: ‘Is that all, what I have to say?’ Then came ‘This is a call’, something different, and it seemed right to me “.
Explaining how The first single of the Foo Fighters represented a real artistic turning point and how He saved his life after Kurt Cobain’s deathin an interview for “American Songwriter”, Grohl confessed:
“It opened up a new way, a life that could continue. It really saved my life. I didn’t want it to seem a solo project. I didn’t want it to seem ‘this is my backing band’. I wanted the same feeling that I had had in all the previous bands: a collective, a group, something we do together “.
In the year in which Grohl celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of his bandfans of the Foo Fighters are already waiting to find out how the group will decide to celebrate this goal. At the moment it is difficult to say what the formation of “Best of You” has in mind, which so far has simply started sharing happy videos and images on its social channels with the unequivocal hashtag #FF30 and the reference to the official profile on Substack.com. Currently, the materials published on the band of the band all revolve around the songs “I’m stick Around” And “Big me” – respectively second and fourth single extracted from the first Foo Fighters album and published between September 1995 and April 1996.
Waiting to discover i Foo Fighters plans to celebrate their thirty years of careerfor now it is sure that the group has already set the date that will see him return to the stages After the silence in which Dave Grohl had been holed up after becoming again the father of a little girl born out of the wedding and the driving of the drummer Josh Freeserecruited after the death of Taylor Hawkins and whose substitute is not known at the moment.
