72 AMERICANWAY
NOVEMBER 1 2007
Music
Unlikefinewines,mostbands
donot getbetterwithage.
So
maybe it’ssurprising that the
FooFighters’ sixthandnewest
album,
Echoes, Silence, Patience
&Grace
, is theirbestworksince
1997’s
TheColourand theShape
.
Ormaybe it’s not so surprising. After all, the
band tapped
Colour
producerGil Norton to
helm this album. Andheand frontman (and
Nirvanaalum) DaveGrohl havefilled the
workwith raucous rockand roll. That’s re-
allyno surprise, either, given theFooFight-
ers’ 12-year historyofmaking that styleof
music.What is surprising is that thealbum
also includesfiddles and stringquartets,
and that on itGrohl plays pianoand sings
a song called “Balladof theBeaconsfield
Miners.” ¶ If youdidn’t know thatGrohl had
anaptitude for softer songs, then youmight
not know these four things either.
FourThingsYouShould
KnowaboutDaveGrohl
The
FooFighters
frontman has a new albumbut has kept the same
old rock sound—well, sort of.
ByKevinRaub
He’s a grillmaster.
“I’ve always been a backyard-barbecue kind of
guy,” saysGrohl, who in 1999moved toAlexandria,
Virginia— not far from the suburbanWashington,
D.C., neighborhood he grew up in— and stayed
there until he returned to LosAngeles in2005. “I
spentmost ofmy time hanging outwith people I
have known since fifth grade.”
He’s not intodeep contemplation.
“This sounds terrible,” Grohl says, “but I don’t
put thatmuch thought into anything I do. Inmak-
ing albums, you don’t necessarily think about the
follow-up towhat you’ve just done. You just start
writing songs.We don’t have a lot of time to sit
around and reflect.”
He rocks hard. Heworks hard.
The FooFighters “haven’t takenmore than
twomonths away from the band in 13 years,” Grohl
says. “So at this point, the focus is entirelymusical.
There’s not awhole lot of career direction. For the
longest time, I kept these parameters around the
band, like: ‘We’re a four-piece rock band. I don’t
want it to sound like
Sgt. Pepper’s
. Let’s justmake
a rock record.’ Eventually, you have to punch your
way out of that anddo somethingmore exciting
musically—melodically and lyrically deeper— so
thatwas the intention.”
He keeps his promises tominers
.
“Amine collapsed inTasmania,” Grohl says of
a collapse inBeaconsfield, Australia, last year that
killed oneminer and trapped two others for two
weeks. “Andwhen the rescuers first contacted the
miners, they couldn’t pull them out, but they could
get them things to help until theywere rescued. The
first thing one of theminers asked forwas an iPod
with the FooFighters on it. Iwas genuinelymoved.
That’s heavy. Itmademe feel like something I have
done is truly legitimate. ¶ “Later, wewent down to
do an acoustic show at theSydneyOperaHouse,
and the night before, Iwrote ‘Beaconsfield’ [which
is on the new album] to not only pay tribute to the
guy but to give somethingback to him since he
gaveme a gift that nobody else could have. I played
it for him that night. Afterward, wewent out and
got trashed at a bar, and I told him I’dput it on a
record. So I did.”
