Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl revealed that he did a lot of solo work on his own in 2020 collaborating with some big names musicians that you would not expect. One of these quarantine era recordings is Grohl’s Nine Inch Nails cover with St. Vincent.
Grohl told Absolute Radio, “Yeah, well, the first thing I did I thought, ‘Oh my god, I need to have something to do.’ So I started this Instagram page where I was writing short stories about things that have happened to me throughout my life, and I really got into writing. I just started writing tons and tons of short stories. I didn’t really want to make music because we had just finished making the record we worked on for months and months, which I thought was the best thing we have ever done.
So I’m like – I’m not gonna just go in and start writing more songs. But what I’ve found is that in the last six or seven months I started getting emails from these different musicians that are doing the same thing – they are sitting at home and are creatively restless. They’re basically saying, ‘Hey, Dave, I’ve been doing the same thing for years, I’ve been stuck in this one sort of creative lane for a long time. It’s time to get weird, do you want to do a side project?’
People you would never expect and we are like remotely recording with each other – I’m sending drum tracks, and they’re sending guitar tracks, I’m playing in my own studio, sending it back. So, I think that this period of quarantine or lockdown – the result in six or seven months will be a wave of new music that’s just weird. It’s just a bunch of people with nothing else to do.”
The interviewer asked, “Who are those names, can you divulge something to me?”
Grohl responded, “No, I don’t wanna say anything yet. But it’s people you wouldn’t expect me to jam with, so it’s kind of cool. But that’s the thing – as we were waiting to put out the record about once a month we would have a meeting, and we’d say, ‘OK, is it time?’ ‘Nah, it’s not time yet.’ ‘OK, how about now?’ ‘Nah, it’s not time yet.’ And I got to the point where I was like, ‘This music was made to be heard.’ I mean, it was made to be heard in a festival or a stadium so people could dance around and sing along to it.
But the fact that we make this music for people to sing along to – that could be with a bottle of wine in your kitchen on a Saturday night, which what it’s probably going to be for a time being. To me it was like – we gotta bring the joy, bring happiness, and get it out there in the world…I want you to enjoy the record, I want you to sing along with it, and I want it to be in your car, I want it to be on stage, I want it to be at a festival. Ultimately, I just want you to hear this song so that we can connect with our audience through our music, that’s it!”
Ultimate-Guitar transcribed Grohl’s comments. Foo Fighters released a new music video for “Shame Shame” earlier this week, and it features actress Sofia Boutella. Foos wrote about the video, “#ShameShame is a very meaningful song and it’s a very meaningful visual – different than anything we’ve ever done before.”
Foo Fighters added, “SHAME @foofighters. This was one for the memoirs! Its always a pleasure working with my favorite and most fearless beast @sofisia7. Thank you @paolakudacki for including me in your stunning vision and thank you @davestruestories for the opportunity and awesome story time! Director @paolakudacki DP @santiago_g3 @believemedia Producer @matthewshattuck Editor @peterjohnsoneditor @consulatenyc Color @company_3 @tomopoole Production design @mila_ty Stylist @madelineweeks Hair @marandahair Make up @georgisandev @blocla #blocla #ninamcneely.”
