- Courtesy of Wikipedia
- Foo Fighters in 2009
A few minutes into the premiere episode of HBO’s Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways front man Dave Grohl pitches the concept behind the band’s forthcoming eighth album. “This all started with one idea,” he says, “that the environment in which you make a record ultimately influences the end result. Not just the studio, but the people and the history.” Two decades into their career as the Foo Fighters, Grohl and company decided to spice things up by recording each of the eight songs on the forthcoming Sonic Highways in different U.S. cities, with Grohl writing the lyrics for the songs before he sings them for the record—this theoretically allows him to draw upon the distinct history, character, and vibe of each locale. And it all begins in Chicago, the setting of the first episode.
But the first episode of Sonic Highways isn’t so much about Mendel or even Chicago as much as it is a history of Grohl as seen through his band and this particular city. And the show excels when it focuses exclusively on Grohl. When Sonic Highways zeroes in on subjects the appeal is mostly due to Grohl’s unyielding passion for his subjects. When he talks about working with Steve Albini for the first time on Nirvana’s In Utero he still sounds like a fanboy tickled pink at the thought of working with a producer he admires.
