  Foo
Fighters:
That Fleeting, Thin Sunshine
By Linda
Laban
(1997) A shadow
hangs over Foo
Fighters’ singer and guitarist Dave Grohl, and it’s called Nirvana. In terms of rock music,
Nirvana, the Northwest based
outfit with whom the Washington-DC-bred Grohl played
drums, has proved the most significant
band of the decade, yet the great music that it
left behind after its untimely demise in April
1994, is hung with much pathos because of Nirvana’s leader, Kurt
Cobain’s horrendous suicide.
There are almost
too many questions to ask Dave Grohl about those days. But nearly four years
on and with a new identity leading
his own band, it’s just all too late for
those questions. Besides, Grohl has worked hard to forge
an identity for his new band who released their
brilliant second album The Colour and The
Shape last May.
Since its
inception in 1995, Foo Fighters has continually recorded
and toured and 1997 has been no different.
However, as we hook up with Dave in Kansas City,
the band has a rare day off.
"I think
we're set now," Dave says, referring to this
year's line-up changes that included guitarist
Pat Smear's departure in September and drummer
William Goldsmith's exit last March. Alongside Grohl, Foo Fighters now
comprises Nate Mandel (bass), Taylor Hawkins
(drums), and Franz Stahl (guitar). Though
seemingly sudden, Pat's departure was no surprise
to the band.
"Pat told
us before the album was even released that he was
tired of touring," Dave says. "He stuck
around long enough until Franz was
available." Franz is an old comrade of
Grohl's from his days in Washington DC, hardcore
band Scream. As for the incessant work schedule, Grohl insists that keeping on keeping
on is the only way to go.
"If you sit
down and relax you're less likely to get up and
finish what you started," he theorizes.
"We just didn't feel like we could
stop."
Apart from
headlining shows in Europe, Japan, and the US
this year, a couple of weeks ago the band opened
two shows for the Rolling Stones at New York's
Giants Stadium.
"You walk
into the Giants Stadium and you play to a
half-filled venue which is still like 28,000
people - pretty big," Dave remembers. "You're standing
on their enormous stage but you're pushed up
towards the front of it but still, the front of
that stage is about as big as the stage at the
Paramount Theater anyway. It's just incredible,
it's unlike anything I've ever seen before,"
Dave admits.
Following the US
tour that was underway when we spoke, Foo Fighters took a week off and then
headed back to Europe where the band is very
popular.
"It's a
great feeling to try to make a clean break from
something and start a-new," says Dave. As we speak, it is
sunny in his adopted home-town of Seattle but in
Kansas City it is "VERY windy, and cold, and
raining." And Dave has a day off. Well,
metaphorically at least, Dave Grohl is walking in the
sunshine. Albeit that fleeting, thin sunshine in
which real people walk.
Also in Pandemonium
Online:
Foo Fighters' There's
Nothing Left to Lose
Justin Dylan Renney reviews the
new Foo Fighters disc, with links to classic
photos of the Foo lads and the (almost) Nirvana reunion
Foo Fighters
Photos
Dave Grohl -
Krist Novoselic Reunion Photos
From Nirvana to
Ninth Grade
Former
Nirvana bassist, Krist Novoselic, shocks troubled
teens with frank talk about sex (not), life, and
how to "be real," by Jeff
Burlingame
Len: Stealing
Sunshine, Custom Bitches, and the Anti-Stardom
Vibe
Damien M. Jones talks to Planet Pea
about life and touring in the old-school, good-time lane
Nine Inch Nails' The
Fragile
The
new disc from Trent Reznor is "a glorious,
magnificent, life-affirming, soul-scorching,
wings-giving, head-cleaning statement of art and
ambition," says Reef Valmont in this
in-depth CD Review
Live,
The Distance to Here
"Ed
[Kowalcyzk] is like a pop star version of Jesus,
holding his audience in thrall, as they feel
compelled to compete for his affection,"
says Gail Worley in this CD Review
No Mere Echo of
Their Former Glory
Echo
and the Bunnymen give nostalgia tours a
good name when they perform at the Fenix, by Claude Iosso
Smoke With the
Smokiest
Siouxsie
Sioux and The Creatures
animate the Fenix, in this live review by J. Kim
Greetings From
Graceland
Rockin' Canuck poppers, Sloan,
join Seattle's Severna Park at
the place which used to be the OffRamp, by
Reef Valmont
Moe Unveils
Newest New Kids
Who are they? Only the
"bestest, most hunkiest, most top-notch
dreamy hubba hubba
kickin’-Scott-Baio’s-butt boy
band," says John Moe in Poultry In
Motion
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