How the three Foo Fighters guitarists balance each other out
One of the most important parts of the Foo Fighters sound is the army of guitars that fill out the band’s songs. In the studio, multiple overdubs help create the massive wave of sound that has become the band’s signature. But in the live setting, it was only in the last decade that the Foo Fighters found the perfect balance between their three guitar players.
Throughout most of the band’s existence, the official lineup contained two guitar players. Dave Grohl often held down the rhythm while a rotating cast of players was in the lead spot. Initially, it was Nirvana guitarist Pat Smear, and after he left, the spot was filled with former Screamguitarist Franz Stahl. Around the turn of the new millennium, No Use For a Name guitarist Chris Shiflett was brought in to provide lead guitar.
While the band toured behind 2005’s In Your Honor, Smear was brought back into the fold as a touring member, giving the band its first taste of a three-guitar attack. By 2012’s Wasting Light, Smear was once again a full-time member, requiring the band to figure out how to properly balance three guitars.
“We’ve learned pretty well what our roles should be,” Smear told Rolling Stone Australia in 2014. “We all play really different from each other first of all, and so sometimes we might all be playing different parts, and sometimes we’ll say let’s bang out these few chords or this riff together. We’re just used to the three-guitar thing now and it comes very easily. With Wasting Light we had to get used to it.”
“I’m the guy that plays the rhythm sort of straight up the middle,” Grohl revealed in the documentary Foo Fighters: Back and Forth. “And then you have Chris. And Chris has a really sharp and clean sense of melodic playing. And then over here there’s Pat, and it’s like when Pat puts on a guitar, it just goes WGGGGGSSSHHH.”
“All of those things, if it’s balanced, sounds like the Foo Fighters,” Grohl claimed. The balance had remained solid since Wasted Light, with Grohl taking on more lead guitar duties as Smear has largely taken over the rhythm side of the equation.
Check out the guitar balance on ‘Rope’ down below.
