Dave Grohl discussed recording Foo Fighters’ The Colour and the Shape album in a new Louder interview, and why he wasn’t a fan of William Goldsmith’s playing and he had to re-record it.
“We’d finished like 12 songs,” recalls Grohl. “We’d recorded Monkey Wrench, Wind Up, Doll and My Poor Brain and everyone knew that it wasn’t really happening. William, our drummer, wasn’t really gelling. It didn’t sound powerful. It just didn’t sound how I’d imagined it to sound.”
The group took a Christmas break, during which Grohl went into a friend’s studio and started recording new material, playing drums himself. He played the songs to Norton: “He’s like: ‘Those are good. I like those’. So I started recording newer songs, playing the drums, playing the guitar and William was bumming out. That turned into a breakdown and then I realised he wasn’t coming back, so I recorded all the drums on the record myself. It was basically Pat, Nate and I for that album. We did it pretty quickly. We re-recorded the record in about four weeks. When we were done, I knew we had a fucking great album.”
In addition to the personal differences within the group, Grohl was also in the midst of domestic upheaval. “Oh, I was getting a divorce too,” he adds nonchalantly. “You know what’s funny? People come up to me – it’s usually men – and say: ‘Man, that album, it helped me through my divorce’. I’m like: ‘Really? It caused mine.’”
