Who was the only person to be fired from the Foo Fighters?
Foo Fighters never had the chance to grow up properly. Since Dave Grohl was already fresh out of Nirvana when his glorified demo tape became their first album, Foo Fighters needed to experience their collective band growing pains in public. That meant a few bruised egos, lots of Nirvana comparisons, and a rotating cast of musicians coming in and out.
Though most of the band’s early gigs were performed by Grohl, Pat Smear, William Goldsmith, and Nate Mendel, it wasn’t long before Goldsmith found himself out of step with the rest of the group. Going into the recording of The Colour and The Shape, Goldsmith remembered the entire studio experience being awful, with producer Gil Norton referring to him and Mendel as “the rhythmless section”.
Instead of sticking by Goldsmith’s performance, Grohl decided to play all of the drums on the record himself, after which Goldsmith left the band to return to Sunny Day Real Estate. While the band found an ideal replacement with Taylor Hawkins, Smear talked to Grohl a few days later, saying that he had to leave. Having been a part of Nirvana and The Germs before the Foos, Smear was sick of the entire tour cycle and wanted to slow down.
No matter for Grohl, though. In his mind, he had the ideal person for the job in Franz Stahl, who he had worked with in his pre-Nirvana punk band, Scream. Stahl remembered it being a whirlwind experience to join the band, telling Back and Forth, “We had talked, and the next thing I knew, I was playing on top of Radio City Music Hall. I love playing with Dave, and there wasn’t a song that I didn’t enjoy. I was really looking forward to writing with them and leaving my mark”.
Hawkins would mention that he thought that the new lineup had a lot of potential, saying, “Franz was a great guy, and I actually got really close with him. It just looked like it would be perfect”.
When the band started woodshedding material on the road, though, Stahl would never fit in. Grohl remembered the songwriting process being a gruelling experience with Stahl, saying, “Me, Taylor and Nate had this thing where we were on the same page, and Franz never figured his way into that. He was just a great friend of mine that, unfortunately, I was asking to leave the band. And that’s not to say that he isn’t a great musician because everyone knows he is”.
Stahl had admitted feeling blindsided by being asked to leave, only getting a casual phone call saying that he was being booted. After regrouping yet again, Grohl figured that the best way to keep the Foos moving was to record the next album as a trio, chilling out in his native Virginia and crafting the album There Is Nothing Left to Lose.
After a few open auditions, Foos Fighters would ultimately pick up Chris Shiftlett from No Use For a Name to be their new guitarist, along with Pat Smear returning in the early 2010s. Although Stahl had mentioned feeling bitter, he doesn’t seem to harbour any ill will towards his old friend, later saying, “I was in the band and for whatever reason I was out of the band. But it was some of the best years of my life”.
