Unless you’re allergic to all things Dave Grohl, you’ve probably heard by now that there’s a new Foo Fighters album on the way, complete with an accompanying television series documenting the process of the band’s eighth and latest album.
All in all, the whole project looks to be Foo Fighters’ most ambitious release yet and certainly shaping up to be one of the year’s most anticipated releases, thanks to a steady mounting drip-feed of information from fan sites, social media, and in the last few weeks – from Grohl himself.
Gathering all the facts we already know about the Foos’ latest – mixed in with some noteworthy interviews and a healthy dose of caculated speculation – here’s a definitive look at everything we know about the Foo Fighters as-yet-untitled new album.
UPDATE 12/08: There is now a release date, tracklisting, and other “big news” for Foo Fighters’ new album, officially titled Sonic Highways. View that info here.
Work on the new album began more than 18 months ago
“I’ve been working on this for a year and a half,” Grohl confirms to THR, explaining that the seed for the new Foo Fighters LP was planted by the completion of his 2013 rockumentary. “On the last day of the Sound City tour, my producers, [Jim Rota and John Ramsay] handed me a present: it was a journal with a pen and said, “Congratulations on the success of Sound City, now get to work.”
It’s a spiritual sequel to Sound City
“After making the Sound City movie, I realized that the pairing of music and documentary worked so well because the stories give substance and depth to the song, which makes a stronger emotional connection to it,” Grohl told Billboard. “I thought, ‘I wanna do this again … but instead of just walking into a studio and telling its story, I want to travel across America and tell its story,” he continues.
“So it became a deeper project. And I thought ‘OK, this is going to be the story that will influence the next Foo Fighters record’. We’re coming up on our 20th anniversary, we’re an American band. Each one of these cities have had artists and music that have influenced us directly, so let’s go there. Yeah, and that was the idea. And that was just a matter of actually making it happen.”
The album was recorded in 8 studios across 8 American cities
Thanks to a series of tweets and Facebook images, the confirmed list of the band’s journey of US studios includes legendary producer Steve Albini‘s Electrical Audio studios in Chicago, Don Zientara’s Inner Ear studios in Washington D.C., Ranch De La Luna in California, and United Record Pressing in Nashville. 
(Source: Facebook)
The other four yet-to-be-named locales are in Austin, Seattle, New York, and New Orleans, but there are some clues. Grohl with THR again; “some of [the studios] we have personal connections with – the studio in Washington, D.C., a studio in Seattle, a studio in Los Angeles – these are all places that are part of our band’s history.” Foo Fighters’ self-titled 1995 debut was partially recorded at Robert Lang Studios in Seattle, did Grohl return to the same studio some 20 years later?
Each city inspired a song and TV episode
The new album has been described as “a love letter to the history of American music” and each episode of the accompanying HBO eight-part series, Sonic Highways, corresponds to each of those same eight US cities. Or as the prolific 45-year-old Grohl puts it: “It’s basically the history of American music broken down to the cultural roots of each place: Why did Chicago become a blues capital? Why did country go to Nashville? Why did the first psychedelic band, Thirteenth Floor Elevators, come from Austin? How did the second line rhythm make its way to New Orleans? It’s crazy.” As for the sequencing, Grohl had to “find the theme first and then match it to the music.”
It could be the band’s longest album yet
The tracklist will only span eight tracks, but as Grohl recently told The Hollywood Reporter, “I want to say that it’s only eight songs but I think it might be our longest record because, as I was writing these songs, I had to take a cinematic approach.” The new album would have to break the 83.17 minute running time of 2005 double album In Your Honour in order to take the title of the longest Foo Fighters record, but Grohl emphasises the record’s grand sense of scope and scale rather than length.
“Like I couldn’t just write a three-and-a-half-minute long KROQ jingle and film it for the finale of an episode about the history of music in New Orleans, ya know? We really had to step up what we do.”
The list of collaborators is incredible
In each of the eight US cities Foo Fighters visited, the band recorded one song featuring local music legends as well as interviewing many more for Sonic Highways. The distinction between interviewees and those that actually contribute to the new album is a little unclear, but so far the all-star roster includes KISS singer-guitarist Paul Stanley (New York), guitar prodigy Gary Clark Jnr (Austin), blues legend Buddy Guy (Chicago), Ian MacKaye of Fugazi (Washington, D.C.), plus Heart’s Nancy Wilson and Cheap Trick’s Rick Neilsen (originally from Vacouver and Illinois respectively).
The only solid confirmation thus far is Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh, who says he “was a Foo Fighter for two days” for a Ranch De La Luna recording session, and an unlikely collaboration with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band following a surprise secret show at the New Orleans venue with the horn section, as Billboard reported.
(Source: Facebook)
There’s likely to be more special musical guests that we don’t even know about yet, given the number of interviews Grohl personally conducted for Sonic Highways.
He tells HR he’s done “over 100 interviews”, further teasing; “I am fortunate to be the guy that can send an email to [Public Enemy MC] Chuck D or Gibby [Haynes] from the Butthole Surfers or Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick or [American country singer] Carrie Underwood and say, ‘Hey, can I interview you for a project I’m doing?'” Is that off-the-cuff list also a hint at possible album guest stars, too?
Expect some sonic surprises
With all those guests, you’d be worried that all the cooks could spoil the proverbial Foos broth, but while the band could have made “some crazy, bleak Radiohead record and freak everyone out,” they won’t be going off the deep end. Here’s some choice quotes from Grohl with THR about how they aimed to blend an adventurous new experimental approach with tried-and-tested Foo Fighters hallmarks: “you’ll recognize Foo Fighters in this record but you’ll also be surprised by us. We’re doing things that we’ve never done before.”
“The music is a progression or an evolution for sure, but it’s a Foo Fighters record … Honestly, there are sections of songs that will really take you by surprise. And then there are choruses that you’ll just recognize as Foo Fighters within the first three seconds.”
(Source: Chris Goss’ Instagram)
All the lyrics were written last-minute
Grohl held off putting pen to paper for each song until the very last day of each city session, “or sometimes an hour before,” he tells THR.
“Once the music and the theme of each city was set, we traveled to each place and spent a week there. We’d get there, start recording and I would just run around town filming and interviewing as many people as I can. I did over 100 interviews. At the end of the week, I’d take all of my transcripts, put them on the floor, sit there with a pen and my journal and I reduce all of these stories into a song. I take from peoples’ backgrounds, anecdotes, the environment – it’s like reporting. It’s musical bungee jumping.”
(Source: Facebook)
The whole album was recorded on analogue
Following in the vein of 2011’s Wasting Light, Foo Fighters once again went ‘old skool’; “we’ve been dragging two 24-track tape machines around the country because we still love the sound of tape,” Grohl reveals. Packing a pair of “800-pound two inch tape” recorders around America wasn’t easy, “some of the places [we recorded] are houses and some are stages and some of them are old rooms so we’d have to build a studio in some of these locations.”
Overseeing the entire record’s production is the same guy who manned the decks for Nevermind and Wasting Light, trusty ol’ Butch Vig, who first confirmed his involvement in an excited tweet mid-last year.
In working with Foo’s today. F**k, there are some KILLER new songs! I’m psyched!
— Butch Vig (@butchvig) August 24, 2013
We’ll get to hear it before the end of the year
It might not have a name yet (could it also be Sonic Highways?) but today, the eighth Foo Fighters album has been confirmed for a November release via the band’s own Roswell Records in conjunction with RCA. As for the HBO TV series, it will premiere in America’s fall (Australia’s spring).
There’ll be plenty of touring to go with it
Currently, Foo Fighters’ only confirmed upcoming tour date is a headline slot at the US Firefly Music Festival (on 20th June) but the group recently toured Australian fans with a social media post hinting at forthcoming tour plans.
“Hey AU/NZ pals… It’s been WAYYY too long,” says the teaser, prompting fans to sign up to the newsletter, which was also shared by Frontier Touring – the band’s Australian promoters. In combination with the touted ‘Fall’ release of Sonic Highways and the November release of the new album, Foo fans Down Under might just be getting a visit from the band before year’s end.
Grohl’s already got plans for Foo Fighters LP #9
The prolific musician has been so inspired by the whole process that he’s got plans for the next album. “I already know what we’re doing for the next Foo Fighters record and that’s even fuckin’ crazier!” Grohl tells THR, “I came up with this idea a month and a half ago. The guys were, like, ‘Dude, we have to finish this first.’ I know, fuck!”
