Sunny Day Real Estate drummer – and former Foo Fighter – William Goldsmith has taken to Facebook to claim that Dave Grohl ‘buried’ an unheard album by the band.
Back in the early ’90s, Sunny Day Real Estate made a name for themselves as one of the pioneers of the emo genre. Fronted by Jeremy Enigk, their 1994 debut – Diary – was a landmark of the era and spawned alt-rock classics like ‘Seven’ and ‘In Circles’.
Sadly, the band would break up for the first time just a year later, with bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith going on to join the Foo Fighters.
While Goldsmith’s tenure with the band would last only until 1997, the drummer hasn’t exactly minced his words about his time in the Foo Fighters, calling Dave Grohl a “bully”, and saying the band is a “dictatorship”.
Now, William Goldsmith has alleged that there’s an unreleased Sunny Day Real Estate album out there, and Dave Grohl is the reason you’ve not heard it.
Check out Sunny Day Real Estate’s ‘In Circles’:
Taking to Facebook yesterday to post a (since-deleted) video featuring an unknown instrumental, Goldsmith captioned the post with a lengthy explanation of how his music has been “taken away” from him.
“Recently by way of objective ears I have been reminded of the fact that the greatest Sunny Day Real Estate record ever made remains silenced, abandoned and buried within the murkiest depths of David Grohls sock drawer,” he wrote.
“It’s both a shocking slap of reality and a swift kick in the balls. Gets harder to handle each time. Somehow someday – something has to be done. The tragedy of it is literally manifesting into physical pain. It honestly feels like someone has taken a part of me as a human being and locked it in a closet.”
“My wife looked at me this evening and said ‘I am starting to understand what’s been haunting you for the past 6 years because it’s starting to haunt me as well’,” he continued. “This is not the first time I’ve had my voice taken from me. But now This music hasn’t just been taken away from me anymore – now it’s been taken away from my children. Unforgivable.”
Check out Sunny Day Real Estate’s ‘Pillars’:
William Goldsmith’s former bandmate Nate Mendel later responded to these claims, releasing a statement to Spin that simply said “There is no truth to this story.”
Likewise, William Goldsmith later took to Facebook to clarify his original post, explaining that “Dave’s sock drawer was meant to figuratively represent studio 606.”
“To clarify – there are many ingredients that resulted in the abandonment of LP5,” Goldsmith explained in a since-deleted Facebook post.
“One of the unfortunate elements being that Jeremy [Enigk] did not receive the moral support as well as engineering that he deserved and I hold myself accountable just as much as everyone else involved for that mistake,” he continued. “The reference to Dave’s sock drawer meant studio 606 which was where it was essentially left.”
“If I come across as being a little bit outraged it’s simply because I’ve had the unfortunate experience of hard work being disregarded with no communication or explanation as to why. Trust me it would eat at you as well. I doubt many of these issues would become issues at all if there was a bit more communication as opposed to none at all.”
“Anyone who claims that there is no unfinished Sunny day record collecting dust I would have to agree to disagree. But that’s my opinion about it – I heard it objectively and it hit me like a ton of bricks.”
“So no I was not meaning to claim Dave single handedly prevented the record from being finished,” Goldsmith clarified. “He just owns the place where it was abandoned. However he wasn’t too thrilled when Nate played with the fire theft so I doubt he thought about making it so Nate had the time to see it through.”
“But it’s misunderstandings like this that arise because people don’t communicate.”
Dave Grohl has not responded to the claims made by William Goldsmith.
Check out Sunny Day Real Estate’s ‘Seven’:
