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photo credit: Nicola Rudenberg
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-foo-fighters-album-dave-grohl-created-to-make-lemmy-proud/
The Foo Fighters album Dave Grohl created to make Lemmy proud
Written by Tim Coffman
Published Tue 23 January 2024 15:30, UK
Every artist wants to make something timeless whenever they go into the studio. While it might be hard to conjure up inspiration every time they walk behind the glass, the goal is always to make music they can be proud of years after the fact, either through the dense lyrical content or by making the most outlandish musical pieces of their career. Dave Grohl may have already proven himself to be one of the greatest songwriters in rock history, but one of Foo Fighters’ later releases had a specific person in mind.
By the time Grohl’s band reached the 2010s, they had already begun toying with the customary way of making records. Ever since 2005’s In Your Honour, Grohl had been interested in taking the band out of their comfort zone, combining the electric and acoustic side of their sound on Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace and eventually recording their 2011 album Wasting Light on analogue tape in his garage.
Once Grohl had the idea of travelling to different studios across the US for their album Sonic Highways, the best way to get the band out of their comfort zone was to put them in a customary studio again. While the band had found a musical soulmate in producer Butch Vig, Concrete and Gold would be the first album in the band’s discography produced by pop superstar Greg Kursin.
First coming onto Grohl’s radar thanks to his work with the duo The Bird and the Bee, Kurstin quickly became one of the biggest names in the production world, lending his skills to artists as varied as Sia and Adele. While the group were perplexed that Grohl wanted to have him produce their record, they eventually landed on a sound that blended their brand of stadium rock with their punk roots on tracks like ‘La Dee Da’.
While the album would feature guests like Justin Timberlake singing backup vocals and Paul McCartney playing drums on the track ‘Sunday Rain’, the title track was the turning point for Grohl when working on the album. Being one of the longest tracks on the record, the song is split in half, sounding like a dirty punk song, a la Black Flag, in the intro before exploding into an angelic finish with multiple harmonies stacked on top of each other.
Grohl also called in the big guns to create the complex harmonies, running into Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men in the studio’s parking lot and convincing him to lend his voice to the track. Even though the track sounds magnificent in the back half, Grohl was looking to get Lemmy’s approval when working on the beginning track.
Being a lifelong Motörhead fan, Grohl wanted to make something that would have done his fallen idol proud, saying, “[The song is like] The Beatles colliding with Motörhead. I just wanna make Lemmy proud. He’d understand, like on the 50 guitars on ‘Make It Right’. I think we pulled it off”.
There’s a good chance that Lemmy would have never been caught singing choral harmonies in his songs, but it’s easy to see where Grohl is coming from. Rather than rely on the same rock guitars on every song, Grohl was still pushing rock and roll into different places much like his idol did back in the late 1970s.
ON DECK FROM MOTÖRHEAD:
MOTÖRHEAD‘THE LÖST TAPES’ SERIES
RELEASED AS CD COLLECTION INCLUDING NEW SET FROM THE
HALLOWED TURF OF DONINGTON, DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL 2008
RELEASE DATE FEBRUARY 23, 2024
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