STACK NZ Nov #57

MUSIC

FEATURE

visit www.stack.net.nz

Foos hit sonic highs

saw CheapTrick’s Rick Nielson join them for a live rendition of Stiff Competition. “I loved CheapTrick as a kid, so getting Rick Nielson was amazing,” says Smear. While there are several guests on the album (New Orleans’ legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band on one track, JoeWalsh on another), Smear says it was much vaunted blues guitarist Gary Clarke Jr. that pulled out all the stops, playing on What Did I Do? a paean to the Southern Rock of The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd et al . “Gary Clarke Jr. played a different solo every take he played! None of them sounded the same; he sounded like Mick Ronson (late former Bowie/ Dylan side man), one of the most underrated players ever, so we bonded over Mick Ronson”. It seems that Sonic Highways the series, like the album – while truly a sum of its parts – is also about driving deep down into the core of the music’s influence. Episode two, for example, looks at the Go-Go scene inWashington DC. “Go- Go was a uniquelyWashington thing,” says Smear. “I remember driving for hours

to find a punk club in LA – we had our own local, hard to find version of it – but Go-Go just didn’t exist outside DC at all.” Smear says the project made him think about the band differently. “Everyone in Foo Fighters comes from different parts of the US; this project couldn’t work if we came from the same city.”

It’s given me an appreciation of amazing music I never liked before!

Foo Fighters

Rather than holing up and getting a studio tan, Foo Fighters visited Austin, New York, LA, Nashville,Washington DC, New Orleans, Nashville and Chicago for one week each, with

F oo Fighters guitarist Pat Smear is an old punk. Formerly of hardcore legendsThe Germs, he was a bit-part actor for years (he’s in Blade Runner! ), joined the final incarnation of Nirvana, and the first line-up of Foo Fighters. So you’d think he would’ve seen much of his native land, right? Not so. According to Smear, his years visiting America’s great cities in music have been “hotel, load in, soundcheck, play, load out, back in the bus.” But the new Foo Fighters album Sonic Highways has finally afforded a remedy. Recorded in eight American cities, the band chronicled the recording sessions – intercut with luminaries associated with each city – for a new HBO series of the same name. After rejoining Foo Fighters full time for Wasting Light , he’s loved working on the new album/series. “Being involved in Sonic Highways has given me all this appreciation of amazing music I never liked before. I had a passionate but limited taste before this; it’s opened my eyes to so much,” he tells STACK from his home inWest LA.

Dave Grohl heading out evenings to interview a local music luminary. Grohl would add lyrics last minute, often cutting and pasting phrases from his interview transcriptions.ThusWillie Nelson, famed producer Steve Albini, Dolly Parton, ex- Beastie Boy Mike D, Fugazi/Dischord records’ Ian MacKaye, and even US President Barack Obama appear in Sonic Highways , talking about the heritage of American music, and the nuances of its regional history. “There are reasons blues made it to Chicago, why Nashville became the country capital,” Grohl told David Letterman. “New Orleans is such a beautiful city with hundreds of years of history. The humidity in the air knocks the pianos and the horns out of tune!” Another highlight of the Foos’ recent week-long sojourn on Letterman

Sonic Highways by Foo Fighters is out November 10 on Sony Music.

Foos ON TOUR! Band hits NZ FEBRUARY 2015 WED 18 FEB Christchurch AMI Stadium SAT 21 FEB Auckland Mt Smart Stadium www.frontiertouring.com/foofighters

For more reviews, interviews and overviews by Graham Reid: www.elsewhere.co.nz

fingerprint – and it was appropriate to their position. It’s a stadium-sized album from a band that didn’t exist when the Foo Fighters’ debut was released.

The Colour and the Shape (1997) The first actual Foo Fighters band album – works a classic American rock sound and codified what Foo Fighters could be. It was enormously popular but hasn’t aged quite as well.

ONE BY ONE (2002) Had a troubled birth – Grohl didn’t like the early sessions, drummer Taylor Hawkins had drug issues -- and the resulting album is a real heavyweight, full of roundhouse hard rock punches. It’s the neighbour-baiting FF album In Your Honor (2005): Was a double – acoustic and rock on separate discs – and far too long. If you like one disc you’re probably ho-hum about the other. Nominated for many Grammys, won none.

Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace (2007): Solid but, despite it winning awards, sounded like a band hitting a creative wall. Wasting Light (2011): Came after Grohl had exercised his chops with side projects is the band back on track again. It had all the hallmarks of great FF/Grohl songs – passionate intensity, hooks that could haul in a great white, producer Butch Vig’s quiet-LOUD

There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999)

Closed what had started as the grunge decade and Grohl wanted to push in new directions, power pop being one of them. The songwriting was strong. It deservedly won a Grammy.

NOVEMBER 2014 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.co.nz

38