Rock legend Dave Grohl celebrated his 51st birthday today and to add to the celebrations his band, Foo Fighters, began their 25th year celebrations by releasing a tantalising instrumental short on their social media accounts, along with the following statement, “Holy Shit!!! 25 years?! Thank you guys for being with us year after year…for singing along & making every show the best night of our lives.We’re JUST getting started, so Buckle up, 2020… it’s going to be an INSANE year full of some seriously crazy shit…#FF25 #FF2020“
After starting his band almost half his lifetime ago, it has transformed from its meagre beginnings as a one man band – Grohl recording the self-titled Foo Fighters record in 1994 in the space of just one week, at Robert Lang Studios with the assistance of producer Barrett Jones – to the multi award-winning six-man ensemble the band are today.
After recording the first album almost single-handedly, Grohl began to recruit a full band to tour with, Nate Mendel being his first recruit, followed by Mendel’s Sunny Day Real Estate bandmate William Goldsmith joining on drums.
Nirvana’s touring guitarist and former Germs man Pat Smear rounded out the line-up. The quartet embarked on their first tour of the USA in the Spring of 1995, supporting Mike Watt.
The debut album Foo Fighters was then released July 4th of the same year and while the album was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the 1996 Grammy Awards ceremony, it lost to Nirvana’s seminal MTV Unplugged In New York.
25 years on and the lineup has changed dramatically with Goldsmith being replaced in ’97 by Alanis Morissette’s touring drummer Taylor Hawkins, Pat departing shortly after that to then return as an official member in 2011.
Chris Shiflett joined the band in 1999 following the release of their third album There Is Nothing Left To Lose, which leads to the most recent recruit keyboardist Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers fame, who joined in 2017 after touring with the band since 2005.
A quarter of a decade on Foo Fighters have gone from one man racing between studios, recording each instrument himself to a six piece outfit (with backing singers) who rock out in some of the biggest fields and stadiums in the world, with their 10th studio album on the horizon and on the cusp of yet another world tour.
I am not sure back in 1994 where 26 year old Dave may have imagined he’d be 25 years on from that studio in Shoreline, Washington, but I would bet he never imagined his band would have achieved such amazing accolades as they have to date and still be picking up new fans along the way.
