Foo Fighters' debut self-titled album turned 25 on Saturday (July 4), and the band's founder Dave Grohl has been reflecting on the past two-and-a-half decades. During a recent interview (via SPIN), the frontman recalled how he didn't even want to listen to music, let alone play in a band, after Kurt Cobain died.
āSo after Kurt passed away, there was a period of everyone just hiding from the world and our whole world was turned upside down. So there was grief, there was mourning. We all rallied together. I remember hanging out with Krist Novoselic and the two of us making sure that we were okay,ā he explained. āAnd then I did a little bit of traveling. I remember goingā¦ I took a trip to the UK. I donāt know, I just did a lot of driving around and thinking. And eventually, I started getting calls from people to ask if I wanted to play drums with them or join another band, and I just didnāt see that happening at the time. And Iād always come home from tours and recorded songs by myself, but that feeling was gone. I didnāt really want to write or even listen to music, much less join a band and play in one.ā
However, as time passed Grohl decided to bring Foo Fighters into the world. That came with its own struggles, as he remembered receiving criticism for playing music after Nirvana. āThereās some journalists that are just like, āHow dare you played music after Nirvana.ā Iām like, āWhat am I supposed to do?āĀ We tried really hard to do it right. Instead of jumping on a tour opening up for some massive arena band at the time, we thought, āOkay, well letās get in the van and letās do it like weāve always done it. Letās start the way we always started,ā and that felt comfortable to us,ā he said. āAnd in doing any promotion or press, we didnāt make a video right out of the gate, we tried to temper all of that stuff because it was scary in a way. I knew that I was walking the plank on this. I knew that I was going to be scrutinized and I knew that there was going to be comparisons and things like that. And yeah, I mean it was tough. But it wasnāt that tough. I mean it was like if someone gave you s**t, you just say, āF**k you motherf**ker.'ā
The Foos should be on their Van Tour to celebrate the anniversary, but like so many other artists his plans were thwarted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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