Foo Fighters’ “Sonic Highways” Explores America in 8 Songs
The Foo Fighters’ Sonic Highways project is more than a TV show — it’s a TV show about recording an album in eight cities across the United States, with lyrics penned by bandleader Dave Grohl after he conducts interviews with iconic musicians in each city.
The show has already debuted. Now, the album has arrived.
Also titled Sonic Highways, the album sees the band in fine form. And while the record was made in a fresh way, the experience wasn’t tension-free. Bassist Nate Mendel even quit the band for about 12 hours at one point, according to an interview with Rolling Stone Australia.
Even so, the process of making it left him satisfied. “It’s the most challenging but also the most fun thing we’ve done in the 20 years we’ve been a band,” Mendel told the magazine.
Here’s a little bit more about what Sonic Highways is all about:
And then you have to check out this song: “The Feast and the Famine.” It’s inspired by interviews conducted for the show in Washington, D.C., the city where Northern Virginia-raised Grohl’s roots run deep — he started his music career in D.C.’s punk scene.
Sonic Highways is available on CD, vinyl and as a digital download (iTunes and Amazon MP3).
Sonic Highways Track List:
- Something From Nothing
- The Feast and the Famine
- Congregation
- What Did I Do?/God as My Witness
- Outside
- In the Clear
- Subterranean
- I Am a River
I think Dave is doing cool stuff. Seems like a lot of people are really down on him, saying he’s using other people, the Sound City thing – which I also thought was cool – and stuff like that. I thought this was a great idea. Travel, interview, write, record and then do it again 7 times. The band is in the studio together, no one is “mailing in” tracks from their home studio, etc.