Yesterday news broke that Dave Grohl would be getting his very own TV show, an HBO series tracking the prolific musician’s visits to several iconic American recording studios.
Today, a statement from Grohl and HBO confirms that the new television series is in fact an eight-part series that documents the making of the highly anticipated new Foo Fighters album, with both the TV show and the album coinciding with the band’s 20th Anniversary.
The series is essentially a spiritual sequel to the Sound City rockumentary, with Grohl once again in the director’s chair of the project as well as hosting the chronicles of the band’s travels to various US cities to write and record their as yet-untitled eighth studio album.
Grohl and the band recorded one song in eight separate sound studios across Chicago, Austin, Nashville, Los Angeles, Seattle, New Orleans, Washington DC, and New York, recording with local iconic musicians at each location, with each episode looking at the musical identity of its respective city. Grohl and the band recorded one song in eight separate sound studios across America…
The frontman describes the new Foo Fighters LP as a “love letter to the history of American music” in a press release, as Rolling Stone reports, with Grohl saving writing the lyrics for each song until the last day of recording “in order to be inspired by the experiences, interviews, and personalities that became part of the process.”
That impressive roster of personalities includes Chicago bluesman Buddy Guy, plus (as reported yesterday) Kiss frontman Paul Stanley, Ian MacKaye of Fugazi and Dischord Records, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, and Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh.
The full list of studios is yet to be unveiled, but pieced with the information previously provided by Grohl biographer and filmmaker Brannigan, this is likely what the recording list and potential episodes will look like: Legendary producer Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio in Chicago with Buddy Guy and Don Zientara’s Inner Ear studios in Washington DC with Ian McKaye.
Plus Joe Walsh confirmed he “was a Foo Fighter for two days” for a recording session at Joshua Tree, California’s Ranch De La Luna – the infamous desert studio frequented by Queens Of The Stone Age and frontman Josh Homme’s Desert Sessions and Eagles of Death Metal side-projects, as well as Arctic Monkeys.
According to producer Butch Vig, who’s overseeing the follow-up to 2011’s Wasting Light, the new Foo Fighters album “almost halfway done” while Grohl confirms it will be out “this fall” (that’s Australia’s spring).
“We’ve been recording at some different locations,” confirmed Vig last month. “It sounds different — we’ve thrown a few things into the mix, in the recording process, that are going to give the record a different sound and a different feel. It’s been a challenge, but it’s also been exciting.”
The collaborative nature of the new Foo Fighters album follows in the vein of Grohl’s all-star Sound City project which led to ‘Sirvana‘, his Grammy-winning team-up with Sir Paul McCartney, that in turned sparked the idea for the surviving Nirvana members – Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear – to perform an all-female medley at their Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction and secret afterparty gig.
All in all, further proof that Dave Grohl is the busiest man in rock and roll.
