Laundry Room Studios has uploaded an unreleased Sonic Highways clip where Dave Grohl listens to a version of the Foo Fighters song “Exhausted” that was recorded during Nirvana’s In Utero era in 1993, months before Kurt Cobain’s death. Grohl is in the studio with Barrett Jones going through old tapes they recorded. Alternative Nation transcribed Grohl’s comments.
Grohl picks up the tape in the video and says, “This one is ’93. This has [Big Me], and Exhausted on it too. Play that, it was so good.”
He then mentions that Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder debuted the song.
“You know what I remember about this? Do you remember when Eddie Vedder did his Pirate Radio thing? He played this, he played this song. And it was really the first time I think anybody had heard what we had done.
So you and Damon [Stewart] played it on that radio show, and sooner after that, I can’t remember when, but it was before the record, Eddie played this version on the Pirate Radio thing.”
You can watch the video below.
“Exhausted” is a song that dates from Dave Grohl’s time in Nirvana. Grohl would regularly write and demo songs by himself, some of which would be tried out by the band. Kurt Cobain liked the song and was keen to record a version of it, but ultimately shied away since he was uncomfortable replacing Grohl’s lyrics with his own.
Grohl did record a version of the song while still a member of Nirvana with bassist Krist Novoselic. It was among a handful of songs that the two recorded while waiting for Cobain to arrive for the band’s last ever studio session at Robert Lang Studios in Seattle in 1994. That version has yet to surface.
