The “rushed” Foo Fighters album Dave Grohl would love to delete from history
Throughout their career, Foo Fighters have been on a rollercoaster ride, which has made their leader, Dave Grohl, feel every possible emotion possible.
There’s been the downs of departing band members, the ups of playing with Paul McCartney, and myriad things like following on from a Queens of the Stone Age set in between. However, for the most part, Grohl is immensely proud of their back catalogue, apart from one record he could happily live without.
When Foo Fighters were born out of the ashes of Nirvana, they weren’t even a band but merely a vehicle for Grohl to flex his songwriting muscles and deal with the grief of losing Kurt Cobain. He never intended for the group to become one of the biggest in the world, but their rise is a testament to the power of their material.
After a period when he was even “afraid” to listen to music, he came to the realisation, “music is the thing that’s going to rescue me”. Yet, he was swiftly rescued, and soon enough he figured he had fallen into the ‘system’ of the music industry a little bit too swiftly, one Foos album suffering greatly as a result.
Their first three albums, Foo Fighters, The Colour and the Shape, and There is Nothing Left to Lose, placed them at the top of the rock industry by the turn of the millennium. At this stage, they had everything in their hands and looked to have the world in their hands.
However, Grohl felt the pressure bestowed upon the band’s shoulders, which damaged his creativity. Unlike their eponymous debut album, which was recorded in only six days, their fourth record was an elongated process at high financial expense.
The challenges of manufacturing 2002’s One By One could have led to the band’s demise. They spent months trying to make the perfect record before Grohl decided to halt production because it was going nowhere despite it already costing $1million in studio fees.
They had accumulated enough material to release another record, and due to their popularity, it would have sold well regardless. However, Grohl didn’t sign up for a life of rock ‘n’ roll for a paycheque and wasn’t willing to share the project in good conscience.
Dave Grohl’s gripe with One By One
“At the time, we were making an album that wasn’t working. We’d started in October of 2001. After about three-and-a-half months, I realised it didn’t sound familiar,” Grohl later told Billboard. It might have since sold almost four million copies, making it a huge alternative hit, but it still felt uneasy for the Foos frontman.
Grohl continued: “It didn’t sound like the band does live. It didn’t feel right. With our band, the most important thing is that the songs feel right and the recordings feel good. It’s more about the feel than anything. We were so focused on production because our intent was to make this big rock record. But your energy tends to wane after three months. Spontaneity and energy have a lot to do with rock, and rock records shouldn’t take long to make.”
After Foo Fighters were put on ice due to Taylor Hawkins’ health issues, Grohl accepted Josh Homme’s invitation to drum for Queens of the Stone Age on Songs For The Deaf, which proved to be the creative reset he needed.
Eventually, when Grohl returned to the Foo Fighters business, he discarded all of their original material for the record and started afresh. He invited Hawkins to Studio 606 in Virginia to work on the album over a two-week period before the rest of the band added their contributions from Los Angeles.
Upon release, One By One was another hit record for Foo Fighters, featuring the iconic singles ‘Times Like These’ and ‘All My Life’. Nevertheless, despite positive public opinion, Grohl disowned the LP three years later, claiming it contained too much filler.
In 2005, he confessed to Rolling Stone: “I was kinda pissed at myself for the last record. Four of the songs were good, and the other seven I never played again in my life. We rushed into it, and we rushed out of it.” Not many people are that frank about a release so recent, highlighting the extent of Grohl’s issue.
After squandering a fortune on the initial demos, Grohl felt pressured to have an album ready and knew that the strength of the singles would ensure that One By One didn’t flop. However, in a perfect world, it would all have been of a similar standard to ‘Times Like These’, which is an easier task said than done.
When considering Grohl’s opinion, it’s also worth remembering that Hawkins’ traumatic overdose took place during this period. The drummer was in a coma for two weeks, which placed Foo Fighters on the back burner and also represented a dark time in the band’s history. The making of One By One took Foo Fighters to the brink, but they returned stronger than ever with In Your Honor in 2005.
