DAVE, THIS YEAR HAS BEEN ALL ABOUT SONIC HIGHWAYS, AS FAR AS THE FOOS ARE CONCERNED. HOW DID IT ALL COME ABOUT?
"Well, after the last Foo Fighters record [2011's Wasting Light], my next project was the Sound City movie, which originally was just going to be this short film about the history of the board [a Neve 8028 recording console from late LA recording studio Sound City, which was used to record the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, Metallica, et al]. But the more I learned about the history of the studio and the board, I realised it's not a short story, it's a big story. And so I reached out to all these different people to interview them, and they all agreed to sit down and talk with me; Neil Young and Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty.. That's when I realised that, 'Okay this is a film, and I'm gonna direct it.'" AND THAT EXPERIENCE INSPIRED YOU TO MAKE SONIC HIGHWAYS?
"Well, then after I was finished with that, I thought, 'Okay, Foo Fighters can't just make another album like everybody else does. Now I have the opportunity and the resources to do something special, something much bigger than just making an album; and so I put the concept of the last record, which we did in my garage, together with Sound City - the concept of making a documentary - and just expanded the whole thing into a TV series in eight different studios all over the country. But at this point in our career, it's [almost] 20 years for the Foos, [and] you have to kind of keep reinventing the process, just to make you excited to do another 20 years!" HOW ARE YOU GOING TO CELEBRATE THAT MILESTONE NEXT YEAR?
"We're actually kind of doing our own thing. Years ago, I thought, 'You know what I wanna do? I wanna play the stadium in the town where I grew up - RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.. That's where we have to celebrate our 20th anniversary, on the Fourth of July, because that was the day the first record came out.' So we fucking put together this insane bill that's, like, Buddy Guy, LL Cool J, and Joan Jett, and Trombone Shorty, there's fucking fireworks and I'm leading a fucking motorcycle rally into the stadium - the whole deal! It's completely insane, and so we put the whole thing together and it sold 40,000 tickets in a day or whatever, and I thought - Well fuck, I should have my own festival! We could just do it every year. you know? Sounds fun!"
"Well, after the last Foo Fighters record [2011's Wasting Light], my next project was the Sound City movie, which originally was just going to be this short film about the history of the board [a Neve 8028 recording console from late LA recording studio Sound City, which was used to record the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, Metallica, et al]. But the more I learned about the history of the studio and the board, I realised it's not a short story, it's a big story. And so I reached out to all these different people to interview them, and they all agreed to sit down and talk with me; Neil Young and Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty.. That's when I realised that, 'Okay this is a film, and I'm gonna direct it.'" AND THAT EXPERIENCE INSPIRED YOU TO MAKE SONIC HIGHWAYS?
"Well, then after I was finished with that, I thought, 'Okay, Foo Fighters can't just make another album like everybody else does. Now I have the opportunity and the resources to do something special, something much bigger than just making an album; and so I put the concept of the last record, which we did in my garage, together with Sound City - the concept of making a documentary - and just expanded the whole thing into a TV series in eight different studios all over the country. But at this point in our career, it's [almost] 20 years for the Foos, [and] you have to kind of keep reinventing the process, just to make you excited to do another 20 years!" HOW ARE YOU GOING TO CELEBRATE THAT MILESTONE NEXT YEAR?
"We're actually kind of doing our own thing. Years ago, I thought, 'You know what I wanna do? I wanna play the stadium in the town where I grew up - RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.. That's where we have to celebrate our 20th anniversary, on the Fourth of July, because that was the day the first record came out.' So we fucking put together this insane bill that's, like, Buddy Guy, LL Cool J, and Joan Jett, and Trombone Shorty, there's fucking fireworks and I'm leading a fucking motorcycle rally into the stadium - the whole deal! It's completely insane, and so we put the whole thing together and it sold 40,000 tickets in a day or whatever, and I thought - Well fuck, I should have my own festival! We could just do it every year. you know? Sounds fun!"