In a sign that things are looking up for 2021, rock gods otherwise known as Foo Fighters recently announced that they will release their tenth album Medicine At Midnight, on February 5, 2021. Because new albums normally go hand in hand with tours, the announcement poses the question of why the band is releasing their new album when travelling and live concerts are all but off the cards?
Asked precisely this by New York’s Q104.3 radio station, Foo Fighters shared that they basically just got over waiting until for the whole global pandemic thing to wrap up.
“We started writing this record almost two years ago — a year and a half ago. We were writing it while we were still on tour,” frontman Dave Grohl starts off explaining.
“We moved into this funky old house in my neighborhood; built a studio in the upstairs bedroom; recorded the drums in the living room; the guitars were in the bedroom. I did the vocals in the bathroom next to the toilet. We started [recording] this, I think, in maybe September last year, and we were finished by January, February. We were totally done — mixed, mastered, ready to go. Artwork was done; t-shirts were being made; equipment was on the trucks — we were good to go. And then everything just kind of shut down,” Grohl continues.
“Then it was months and months of trying to decide when we would release it. ‘Okay, do we just put it out now?’ ‘No, let’s wait. Maybe we’ll see what happens.’ A month later, ‘Do we put it out now?’ ‘No, let’s wait.’”
“So, six or seven months went by, and I’m, like, we make this music for people to hear. We don’t just make it so that we can go hit the road. We write these songs so people can enjoy them and sing along, whether it’s in their kitchen by themselves with a bottle of Crown Royal or in a stadium bouncing around, singing the choruses.”
“So, I was, like, right now, more than ever, people need something to lift their spirits, something to give them some feeling of relief or escape. I was, like, ‘We’ve gotta put it out. Let’s put it out right now.’ I don’t know when we’re gonna hit the road, but we need to give the music to the people, ’cause that’s why we make it.”
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Though two months may not seem long to wait in a year that somehow jumped from April to December, Foo Fighters kindly blessed us with their first single, ‘Shame Shame’, from Medicine at Midnight last month. They debuted the song live on Saturday Night Live on November 7, 2020.
“I thought if it were up to me, this would be the first thing that the audience would hear. ‘Cause this album is unlike anything we’ve done before. Though it’s still the band, and it’s still recognizable as the Foo Fighters in some aspects, it’s definitely sonically and tonally different than something we’ve done before,” Grohl said of the choice to release ‘Shame Shame‘ as their first single from the album.
Watch it for yourself below:
