Tag: Foo Fighters (1-10 of 32)

Apr 19 2013 03:40 PM ET

On the scene: Rush embraces cool factor at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction

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Image Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Rush — the Canadian prog icons whose fans have passionately decried their lack of inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for years — finally got their (over)due moment Thursday night when they were inducted to wild applause at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles.

Oprah was chilling with Quincy Jones. Jack Nicholson was wearing red sunglasses. Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith was rocking an orange backwards baseball cap. The Foo Fighters, Don Henley, Jennifer Hudson,  John Mayer, and many more famous faces were all in attendance to celebrate the band and their fellow inductees Public Enemy, Lou Adler, Donna Summer, Randy Newman, Quincy Jones, Albert King, and Heart on Thursday night.

“When did Rush become cool…?” Foo Fighters’ frontman Dave Grohl asked the crowd during his induction speech. “Rush are a band that has balls,” said Grohl. “They’ve always been cool.” He and Taylor Hawkins – who also performed a mock-Rush drum riff while dressed like the band in their ’70s heyday – cheered the trio for building their fame off of fans and fans alone.

(To be eligible for the Hall of Fame, a band must have passed the 25-year milestone since the release of their first album; Rush waited nearly 40 years. For the first time, this year fans were allowed to vote in the induction process, finally clinching the deal for a band powered by fans from the start.) READ FULL STORY »

Mar 15 2013 12:30 PM ET

SXSW: Dave Grohl leads rousing Sound City performance

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Image Credit: WireImage

Coming off his must-read SXSW keynote address earlier that day (he didn’t even change his shirt!), Dave Grohl took to the stage at Stubb’s in Austin to lead his Sound City Players supergroup in an impassioned and largely hard-rocking showcase Thursday night.

The ever-charismatic Foo Fighters frontman declared that this was the group’s final performance together and pledged an “extra long and extra special” night. Sound City is less a band than a showcase for artists who were part of Grohl’s recent documentary (now streaming online) on the famed Sound City recording studio in Van Nuys, where famed artists recorded some of their best-known albums (Nirvana’s Nevermind, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush among them).

The Players were never meant to be a permanent thing, of course; they were put together to play a handful of show to support the venture and its soundtrack (Sound City: Reel to Reel), with Grohl serving as ringleader for the shows and heaping praise upon each of his rock idols (who then gamely return the favor — Masters of Reality’s Chris Goss called him a “national treasure”).

The Citi-sponsored three-hour-plus set featured Stevie Nicks, John Fogerty, Rick Springfield and others from the project taking turns at the lead microphone for roughly five songs each (no Paul McCartney, drat). Grohl repeatedly noted how fortunate the crowd to see all these artists together on one stage, and it was tough to argue. READ FULL STORY »

Dec 4 2012 01:21 PM ET

Dave Grohl's 'Sound City' documentary gets a trailer: Watch it here

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Image Credit: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/GettyImages

Dave Grohl has always been something of a Renaissance man: He played all the instruments on Foo Fighters’ debut album, is chatty enough to host his own talk show, has acted with Muppets, and gets involved politically. And now, his feature directorial debut is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

Sound City, a passion project for Grohl, is a documentary about the notorious Los Angeles recording studio of the same name. Known for its dumpy exterior and legendary sound board, Sound City was the lab in which dozens of massive albums were concocted, including Nirvana’s Nevermind, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ Damn the Torpedoes, Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled debut, and Cheap Trick’s Heaven Tonight.

Though the studio closed in 2011, Grohl purchased the board and moved it into his own studio. To commemorate the amazing albums that came out of Sound City, he got together some of the big-name performers who played there—including Petty, Stevie Nicks, Trent Reznor, and Lars Ulrich—to discuss the studio’s legacy.

Check out the trailer for Sound City below.  READ FULL STORY »

Nov 27 2012 02:42 PM ET

Dave Grohl to host limited-run show on SiriusXM

Image Credit: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/GettyImages

Dave Grohl’s ready to pay tribute to the recording studio that helped launch his career.

Starting on Thursday, the Foo Fighters frontman will host “Dave Grohl Presents Sound City,” a series of shows on SiriusXM that celebrate the output of California’s Sound City Studios. There are nine shows in total, each focusing on a different epoch in the studio’s history from 1970 to 2011.

“I’m grateful to SiriusXM for giving me the opportunity to share all this great music and to let people know what got me excited about Sound City in the first place,” Grohl said in a press release.

READ FULL STORY »

Oct 25 2012 01:41 PM ET

Eddie Vedder, Foo Fighters, No Doubt come together for EB charity auction

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Want to help out a good cause and score some cool rock and roll swag? Then you should check out the auction currently being held to raise funds for Heal EB, an organization that raises funds and awareness for the rare skin disorder Epidermolysis Bullosa, a painful, often debilitating and even life-threatening disease that causes severe blistering with only the most minor contact.

Jill Vedder, wife of Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, is on the board of Heal EB, and she helped bring together a pretty cool collection items available for bid (most of which expire later today). Included in the collection are a ukulele signed by Vedder, an official Foo Fighters motorcycle jacket, an autographed No Doubt poster, and a collection of Heart memorabilia.

The full list of auction items is here. There was also a live auction last week, and Vedder showed up as a special guest to play some songs and meet some kids afflicted with EB. (Vedder has been everywhere lately, having played Neil Young’s annual Bridge School benefit concert last weekend, dropped in on Kings of Leon for a jam earlier in the month, and also found time to raise $1.7 million for the Obama campaign along the way.

If you’re a sports fan, there’s also a healthy collection of those items up for grabs too, including jerseys signed by New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen, and baseballs signed by the likes of Bob Gibson, Andre Dawson, Roberto Alomar, Gaylord Perry, Lou Brock, and A.J. Burnett. And for the foot fetishists in the building, Gisele Bundchen also signed a pair of heels she wore at the Met Ball.

Read More on EW.com:
Eddie Vedder finds Romney’s comments ‘very upsetting’
Cameron Crowe on His Pearl Jam Obsession
Johnny Depp, Peter Jackson, and Eddie Vedder gave millions to help free the West Memphis Three, says ‘Paradise Lost’ director — EXCLUSIVE

Oct 2 2012 12:52 PM ET

Dave Grohl clarifies Foo Fighters' future: 'It's a good thing for all of us to go away for a while'

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Image Credit: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/GettyImages

Over the weekend, Dave Grohl stood on stage in New York’s Central Park and noted that he wasn’t sure when the next Foo Fighters gig would be. That set off a firestorm of social media speculation: Was this the end of the Foo Fighters? Is the band breaking up? Will they do anything for a farewell? Who broke up the band? Is this somehow Courtney Love’s fault? Are you going to finish that corned beef sandwich?

Because he’s always deeply concerned about what his fans are thinking, Grohl sent out a letter this morning via his publicist that explained that current state of the band.

Here’s the headline: They are not breaking up. “I can’t give up this band,” Grohl wrote. “And I never will. Because it’s not just a band to me. It’s my life. It’s my family. It’s my world.”

However, there’s always a rub. “I’m not sure when the Foo Fighters are going to play again,” he wrote. “It feels strange to say that, but it’s a good thing for all of us to go away for a while.”

Take a look at the text of the whole letter below. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 1 2012 11:40 AM ET

Foo Fighters threatening to retire again

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Image Credit: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/GettyImages

Ah, another Foo Fighters festival appearance, another round of break-up rumors.

At the band’s massive Global Citizen Festival show in New York’s Central Park last Saturday, band leader Dave Grohl hinted to the audience that the Foos might be hanging up their hats. “Without making a big deal out of it, we don’t have any shows after this,” he said. “This is it, man.”

Added Grohl, “Honestly, I don’t know when we’re gonna do it again.” READ FULL STORY »

Aug 11 2012 12:11 PM ET

Neil Young, Foo Fighters rock S.F.'s Outside Lands festival: On the scene

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Image Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

The Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is unlike any other festival in America, and that’s partially because it reflects its location: San Francisco.

The event, held in Golden Gate Park, is fully greened-up, and the city’s foodie culture is represented in the 65 on-site restaurants, 49 wineries, and 19 breweries.  This year, there was even fog.

But for all of that, what Outside Lands is mostly about is the music – more than 60 bands over the course of 3 days — and on Day 1, the music was all about Neil Young.

You could hear Neil’s influence in Two Gallants, a powerful two piece who played early on Friday (and even though there’s no Neil in L.A.’s Fitz and the Tantrums, it was hard not to think the latter were booked to provide angst-free modern-soul diversity).  Beck covered “After The Gold Rush” mid-way through a typically brilliant set, and Dave Grohl started talking about Neil three songs into the Foos show. “We’ve got a lot of songs to play, and the quicker we play them, the faster I get to see Neil fu*king Young,” he said.  The crowd cheered, which was slightly surprising – for a lot of people at the festival, Grohl & Co. were the big ticket, and an abbreviated set wasn’t what they were looking for. READ FULL STORY »

May 2 2012 01:53 PM ET

Dave Grohl to memorialize 'dumpy' studio Sound City in new documentary

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Image Credit: Noel Vasquez/Getty Images

As reported in Entertainment Weekly’s special music issue last month, Foo Fighters frontman and erstwhile Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl is working on a documentary about the legendary L.A. recording studio Sound City. The film, titled Sound City, does not have an official release date yet.

The recently shuttered facility was ground zero for iconic rock albums from Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled 1975 classic to Nirvana’s Nevermind. But as Grohl told EW last fall, Sound City was hardly a palace worthy of rock stars.

“I thought we were coming down to some fancy-ass Hollywood studio,” Grohl said during a conversation about the 20th anniversary of the release of Nevermind last September. “But Sound City was not a fancy studio at all. It was this dumpy place in Van Nuys. It was just a f—ing incredible board with an incredible drum room.”

The board in question was built by Neve specifically for Sound City, and just before the studio closed last year, Grohl bought the board and had it moved to his own facility in Northridge. It was sitting in the middle of the floor of the room we were in during the interview, an ancient hulking piece of analogue metal with cords sticking out of it.

Grohl said he planned to install it in his studio, hoping to harness the same magic that went into Nevermind as well as classics like Tom Petty’s Damn the Torpedoes and Cheap Trick’s Heaven Tonight (both of which he mentioned during the interview).

What do you think of the idea of Dave Grohl: Filmmaker? And what’s your favorite Sound City album?

Read more on EW.com:
30 Greatest Music Artists Right Now: Foo Fighters
Dave Grohl clarifies Grammy acceptance speech, is totally cool with Skrillex
Nirvana celebrate 20 years of ‘Nevermind’: Read the extended roundtable interview and backstory — booze! corn dogs! transvestite karaoke! — here!

Feb 17 2012 02:07 PM ET

Dave Grohl clarifies Grammy acceptance speech, is totally cool with Skrillex

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Image Credit: Cliff Lipson/CBS

When Foo Fighters won the prize for Best Rock Performance on Sunday night, Dave Grohl grabbed the microphone and went to bat for music done the old-fashioned way. “Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that’s the most important thing for people to do,” he told the audience (before, ironically, being cut off by an LMFAO song). “It’s not about being perfect, it’s not about sounding absolutely correct, it’s not about what goes on in a computer.”

That last statement struck a lot of people as disingenuous, considering that later in the broadcast, Grohl shared performance space with deadmau5, a guy whose primary instrument is a computer. The disconnect was enough to rankle members of both the rock and dance communities, so Grohl sent out a statement today to clarify his stance. Check it out below. READ FULL STORY »

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