Trivia / Foo Fighters

• Absurdly Short Production Time:
  • The self-titled album was recorded in just one week.
  • The liner notes of One by One note the post-Troubled Production sessions (see below for more detail) were "recorded May 6-18 (that only seems quick, mind you)".
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Once invited to make a song for a Godzilla movie, Dave couldn't say no, and did "A320" for Godzilla (1998). Dave considers it his favorite Foo Fighters song, and once he actually saw the movie, was relieved to see it was only "at the tail end of the end credits" given Godzilla "was the worst movie we'd ever seen in our lives."
• Black Sheep Hit:
  • "Big Me", an upbeat pop rock song, was their first major hit single.
  • A minor case is "Walking After You", a downtempo love ballad.
  • "Learn to Fly", their first on the Billboard Hot 100, was soon reviled by Dave for not being representative of the band's sound and yet played by him every night.
  • And of course, "Everlong", their most popular song, closer to emo and post-punk than their usual hard rock style and so out of place when they perform it that is usually the show closer.
• Breakaway Pop Hit:
  • Subverted with "The One", written for the movie Orange County, and received great popularity in the UK both from radio airplay and its video, but a physical single was not released, except as a one off competition prize. Singles were released in Australia and New Zealand but remain rare. "The One" did appear as a B Side to the following single "All My Life", which contributed to "All My Life"'s success. However, if "The One" had been a full single in the UK all signs indicated it would have been a huge hit, and many fans were disappointed when it didn't even appear on their Greatest Hits Album.
  • Played straight by the full band version of "Walking After You", from a mostly forgotten The X-Files album. At the time, it was far more popular than the version on The Colour and the Shape, mostly because the X-Files version was issued as a single (although these days, is not as widely heard).
• Breakthrough Hit: The band has been popular from the start in alternative rock circles, but 1999's "Learn to Fly" solidified them as a household name in the mainstream by being their first Hot 100 hit.
• Breakup Breakout: After all this time, it's easy to forget that Dave Grohl was once a member of one of the most important bands in history.
• Bury Your Art: The band seemed to take this approach with "The One", a non-album track that was done for the Orange County soundtrack. Even though it received a lot of radio airplay and its video was often played on music channels, they cancelled its full release as a single (except in Australia) and did not include it on "One By One" (despite the similar title), burying it on the b-side to "All My Life" in the UK and Europe. Also, they passed it up for both their compilations Greatest Hits and The Essential Foo Fighters, and don't play it live. It was a very popular song at the time, and so this is particularly odd to fans.
• Chart Displacement: The band didn't hit the Hot 100 or topped one of Billboard's Rock Charts until "Learn to Fly", meaning the hits from the first two albums ("This Is a Call", "Big Me", "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong"...) weren't that successful chart-wise. Related, the band only had three top 40 singles, "Learn to Fly", "Best of You" and "The Pretender" (which was actually the lowest of those even if it spent months atop the Rock Charts) - "All My Life" barely missed at #43.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Dave is not fond of One by One, saying that 7 of the 11 tracks are sub-par. He has said he never played the seven tracks again in his life, but that's technically incorrect.
  • Dave is also not fond of "Oh George" from the self-titled debut.
  • For a very long time, they refused to play "Big Me" live because whenever they did, they'd be pelted with Mentos mints, since the song's video spoofed Mentos commercials, frequently making Dave chastise their audience. They started playing it again after Weezer covered it with great acclaim during their joint "Foozer" tour in 2005-06.
  • In The Stinger from Back & Forth, Dave mentions that had he would have not picked 'Foo Fighters' had he known this endeavor would go anywhere, saying "it is the worst fucking band name in the world!"
  • Considering their lack of mention of it and Grohl's appearance at an AIDS awareness festival, it's pretty clear the band doesn't want to be reminded of their infamous support of the "AIDS isn't real" movement in their early years (which seems to be only Nate Mendel's business, but he pulled the band along).
• Creator Breakdown:
  • Dave Grohl recorded the Foo Fighters' debut album by himself as a way of coping with Kurt Cobain's death. Follow-up The Colour and the Shape also shows how his divorce and the Troubled Production were affecting him.
  • But Here We Are was recorded following the deaths of both drummer Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl's mother, and the aftermath of both tragedies is reflected in the album's bleak tone.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: For Dave Grohl, "A320", recorded for the Godzilla (1998) movie. Unfortunately, all rights to the song are currently owned by Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
• Cut Song:
  • Dave's independent cassette release of the first album included "Winnebago" as part of its tracklisting, with three extra tracks consisting of "Wattershed", "Podunk" and "Butterflies". Ultimately the record company preferred "Wattershed" to "Winnebago" so it appeared on the official album with "Winnebago" becoming a b-side to the first single "This Is A Call" along with "Podunk". The two tracks were reinstated on the Japanese release and the US and Australian tour editions, as well as the 00959525 EP released about 25 years after the album. "Butterflies", however, remains exclusive to the cassette.
  • From The Colour And The Shape, we have a fair few: an unreleased original "I'm Alone Again", a re-recorded version of "Butterflies", "The Colour And The Shape" (in spite of being the Title Track!), "Dear Lover" (which was a foreign b-side for "My Hero") and "Make A Bet" (which the band later re-recorded as "Win or Lose" for a soundtrack), as well as a fair few covers. In fact, the group reportedly recorded twice as many songs as appear on the album, though a selection were picked. Some group members preferred tracks that were left off the album.
  • After Taylor Hawkins was hospitalised with an overdose, the group had grown tired of their initial Adam Kasper produced version of One By One. As a result they kept the original "Tired Of You", rerecorded the remaining tracks they liked, discarded around 5 or 6 tracks they felt were sub-par and wrote new ones to replace them. Three of the tracks dropped from the initial LP were released, "The One" (a non-LP single), "Walking A Line" (released on the Special Edition) and "Normal" which ended up as a B-Side to "Times Like These". Like the eventually leaked original version of the LP, nicknamed "Million Dollar Demos", they have a slicker production sound than One By One.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • Dave Grohl's original Foo Fighters tape consists of the entire first album plus "Winnebago" and "Podunk", and a song called "Butterflies". When the record company decided to remix it and release on CD as the first Foo Fighters album, "Winnebago" and "Podunk" were left off for use as B Sides. "Butterflies" was also left off, but has deliberately never been released on CD, so the only way to get it is through transfers of the tape. This hasn't stopped Grohl playing it live.
  • An earlier example is Dave Grohl's album Pocketwatch which he released under the name Late!. He released this as a mail-order only cassette. He was asked if they could do a CD version but he decided not to to keep the tape special. Supposedly, the master tapes have now been lost.
  • Even if between 2019 and 2020 the "Foo Files" put up most of the band's B-sides on streaming services, a few of the songs relegated to support tracks in singles are still only available in rare sources and Youtube uploads, such as the reverse to "The Pretender" vinyl single, "Bangin'".
  • The above mentioned "A320" has never been made available outside Godzilla the Album and Youtube.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: Being their most well-known one, The Colour and the Shape is usually considered to be the band's best work. However, the band members are critical of it, feeling they've got a lot better since then, but critics take no notice of that. This is illustrated in Nate Mendel's comments in the liner notes of the album's 10th Anniversary Edition.
• No Export for You:
  • "The One" wasn't sold anywhere but the US and Australia, and a very limited UK run.
  • Inverted with the various Australian exclusives:
    • "Generator" is extremely popular in Australia due to the fact it was released widely only in Australia as a single. The UK had a short one-week release, although the single is widely available thanks to the band's popularity.
    • Stacked Actors, was also an Australian exclusive. Both songs still get played live often and both go down extremely well.
    • "The Sign" (on In Your Honor), "Once & for All [Demo]" (on Echoes Silence Patience & Grace) on the UK versions of the respective albums. (The latter appears as an iTunes bonus track.)
    • "Better Off" was a bonus track for Wasting Light in Japan and was also on a bonus disc with the US Best Buy release of the album, but wasn't released anywhere else (not even as a B-Side). Both Japanese and the US Best Buy releases sold heavily on import, the Best Buy release selling out quickly thanks to their website allowing worldwide sales and only a few copies being available in US stores. This is a reversal of the above trope, because the UK usually got the bonus tracks. The US Best Buy release also included "Rope (Deadmaus Mix)" which at least was made available as a download and 12", but was not on CD otherwise.
• The Pete Best: William Goldsmith and Franz Stahl, as they only played live but not in albums^note the former's drum tracks in The Colour and the Shape were mostly replaced with ones by Dave except for "Doll" and the first half of "Up In Arms"; the latter did the rerecording of "Walking After You" and "A320". The latter still says his tenure with the band were the best 2 years of his life.
• Rarely Performed Song:
  • As mentioned above, Dave is disappointed at most of One by One. Only "All My Life" and "Times Like These" became concert mainstays, with "Low", "Have It All" and "Tired of You" appearing for most of the album's tour but rarely showed up afterwards, four others seldomly being performed ("Come Back" only being played once!) and "Burn Away" and "Halo" never being played at all.
  • "Big Me" was mostly retired from setlists for a while as backlash for the Mentos-inspired video inspiring people to throw the candy at the band, which they described as akin to a stoning. Took a tour with Weezer in 2005 for it to reemerge.
  • Many tracks have less than 15 plays, with some like "Hell", "Erase/Replace", "Concrete and Gold" and "Subterranean" having only been performed once. (these rare tracks sadly include all but three songs off Medicine at Midnight given Taylor Hawkins died early in the album's tour)
• Real-Life Relative: Dave's daughter Violet had performed backing vocals in some concerts before recording them in Medicine at Midnight, as well as additional vocals on the song "Show Me How" off But Here We Are. Also, B-side "How I Miss You" has his sister Lisa on bass. The tribute concert to Taylor had his son Shane taking his place on the drums during "My Hero".
• Similarly Named Works: Dave made sure to correct a radio presenter who called "Learn to Fly" as "Learning to Fly", "so Pink Floyd doesn't sue us". (there's also tracks that share names with that of other musicians, such as "These Days" - R.E.M., Joy Division, Bon Jovi - and "Times Like These" - Jack Johnson)
• Troubled Production:
  • The Colour and the Shape. It was the first album as a full band, as the self-titled Foo Fighters album was recorded almost entirely by Dave, who found it hard to direct the other band members. In particular, drummer William Goldsmith could not reproduce the parts Dave wanted, and there were also clashes with the album's producer Gil Norton. During a hiatus, he recorded the drums himself and forced Goldsmith to quit the band in a manner Grohl later regretted. Pat Smear found it all a bit much and decided to leave too, though he stayed on until Franz Stahl was confirmed as his replacement. Smear would officially return years later after the Skin & Bones tour.
    • The recording sessions involved a number of songs that weren't featured on the album, such as "Alone Again", an electric version of "Butterflies", two distinctly different 'fast' and 'slow' versions of "Up In Arms".
  • One by One, as the band was exhausted and pissed off. They also later felt they rushed into production, as they wanted to get back into it after Taylor OD'd. Not helping matters was Dave's side gig with the Queens of the Stone Age being resented by the others. The experience made everyone involved so miserable that they weren't even talking to each other at a Coachella rehearsal until Chris accidentaly started an argument that almost broke the band up. Thankfully they liked the performance enough to keep on, and then Dave decided to re-record from scratch (aside from one track) in just two weeks as no one liked what had been done before. Scrapping an entire finished album (nicknamed "Million Dollar Demos", which eventually leaked in 2015) also meant One by One became one of the most expensive albums in rock history.
• Throw It In!:
  • Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs was sitting in on the Foo Fighters sessions and watching Dave record everything with producer Barrett Jones (the album was recorded in a week), and when Dave got to "X-Static", he asked Dulli if he wanted to play and handed him a guitar.
  • When Dave was practising drum tracks for But Here We Are, he unintentionally played "Nothing At All" with one hand because he'd just got out of bed, but found he preferred how it sounded when he wasn't hitting the snare and hi-hat at the same time.

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