97 Rock Special ‘Inside Foo Fighters: Wasting Light’
With the new Foo Fighters album, Wasting Light, coming out on April 12, FMQB Productions delves into the release with a one-hour radio special, Inside Foo Fighters: Wasting Light, which will air this Sunday night at 6pm, just before LA Lloyd's Rock 30. During the special, the band talks to host Matt Pinfield about a number of topics, such as the new album and the documentary film Back And Forth, which chronicles their entire career.
One of the first topics addressed was the unique recording process for Wasting Light. After doing so much recording on computers lately, Dave Grohl decided it was time to go back to basics for the new album, so the band recorded it in Grohl's garage with producer Butch Vig, who also produced Nirvana's Nevermind.
"I don't think we wanna use computers, I wanna do just analog, just tape, like we used to," Grohl says of his thought process at the beginning of recording. "It's easy, it sounds better, and it sounds more like the band. Then to take it even further I thought, 'Let's do it in my garage.' I've recorded drums in my garage before and they sound awesome, so why not back out the mini-van, put the drums in the garage, turn the upstairs office into a control room and just go from there? It was really simple, and the more simple the process, the better."
Grohl also worked with Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic again after inviting him to jam in the studio. At first he didn't have a specific song in mind for Novoselic, but he wound up contributing bass and accordion to the track "I Should Have Known."
"It was more about the opportunity of having that personal reunion together," Grohl explained. "I don't know if we'll ever make another record with Butch, so in that moment I thought, 'If we're gonna do this, we gotta hang out right now.' So he flew down and spent a day in the studio and it was great! When he put on the bass and plugged it in, it just sounded like Krist. And with Butch behind the desk, it was a trip. It really did feel and sound like it did 20 years ago."
Continuing the comparison between Nirvana and Foo Fighters, Grohl spoke about how lucky he has been for the last 16 years to work with his current band in their "own little world." "We have our own family and our own world, and because of those things, we have always protected this thing that we have. Even way back in the day, I didn't want any of that outside bulls**t to kill what we have," he said of the Foos. "It's a weird balance you have to walk with. I wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for Nirvana, and I had a lot of fun being in that band. I owe everything to Nirvana. But I have to balance that with the Foo Fighters, because this is what saved my life. I can't let this overshadow this, because this is now. That was then. God bless everything that happened and I have nothing but respect for Nirvana, but there's something about the Foo Fighters that I feel like I have to protect."
Listen Sunday night at 6pm for Inside Foo Fighters: Wasting Light. Additionally, the documentary Back And Forth will premiere on VH1, VH1 Classic and Palladia on Friday night at 10 pm
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