Taylor Hawkins believed one musician made Foo Fighters look inferior: “She’s really talented”
There are several reasons why Foo Fighters have managed to stay at the top of their game for so long. One of them is that alongside Dave Grohl’s aptitude as a songwriter, they are essentially a supergroup comprised of members who have all had ample experience outside their confines. Together, they continually look for ways of improving.
This wide berth of experience means that collectively, the group pushes their boundaries and tries its hand at various genres outside of its typical alternative rock. Given their name’s pull, they’ve also drawn upon the skill of an array of notable names to bolster their sound, including Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, and many others, including Justin Timberlake, of all people.
Despite being known for their anthemic, shouty songs such as ‘Everlong’, ‘Monkey Wrench’, and ‘All My Life’, the group have a tender side centred on the power of Grohl’s delivery, his lyrics and acoustic guitars. This first emerged with what is undoubtedly one of their best tracks to date in ‘Walking After You’ from 1997’s The Colour and the Shape. It has since cropped up more prominently across their career, with it particularly apparent on 2007’s Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace in ‘Come Alive’ and ‘Stranger Things Have Happened’.
However, the moment that Foo Fighters truly embraced their sentimental, acoustic side was on the 2005 effort In Your Honor. A double album that saw the group increase their mainstream success even further with classics such as ‘Best Of You’, ‘DOA’, and ‘Resolve’, it marked a tremendous step forward for them. The first disc contained the heavy rock they were known for, and the second comprised acoustic tracks.
After being in the band for a decade, Grohl felt they had to do something new. He explained: “I look at this album as kind of the end of one chapter and the beginning of something new…with the rock record, we finally got the aggressive, anthemic thing down. With the acoustic album, it offers some kind of look into the future of things we’re capable of doing and the direction we could move if we wanted to.”
As they had done previously, the group also looked to bring in some outside help. On their earlier album, 2002’s One By One, they worked with Queen’s Brian May, Gregg Bissonette, and most significantly, Grohl’s former Nirvana bandmate, Krist Novoselic. On the follow-up, they continued to broaden their scope by welcoming more famous faces into the studio. This brought its own surprises.
This included Grohl’s old friend and former Queens of the Stone Age leader Josh Homme, Led Zeppelin’s multi-instrumentalist whizz John Paul Jones, and Petra Haden. Perhaps the most surprising of them all was Norah Jones on ‘Virginia Moon’, an acoustic, jazzy number, one of the highlights of side two, and one of their finest emotive numbers. Imbuing her warm, soulful delivery and piano playing deep into the song, her and Grohl’s convergence might have been unlikely, but the way they dovetail is highly effective. Cuts like this helped set Foo Fighters up for a future where tenderness was openly accepted as a crucial part of their craft.
According to the band’s late drummer, Taylor Hawkins, when speaking to Rolling Stone in 2006, Jones was such a force in the studio she made his band look like complete amateurs. He recalled: “She’s really talented. She came into the studio, bro, and made us all look like we’re not even musicians. Like, she’s a musician, and we’re people who can just kind of move our hands around a little bit on guitars and drums.”
Despite Jones showing the band up, Foo Fighters’ intrepid collective spirit has played a key role in them remaining one of the world’s biggest acts and continuing to grow their fanbase years after they first formed as Grohl’s post-Nirvana project, enveloped in tragedy.
