Forget all that talk of a hiatus. The Foo Fighters are getting ready to head back into the studio, Dave Grohl revealed at the Independent Spirit Awards on Friday night. Swigging from a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey, the Foos frontman and Them Crooked Vultures drummer, who had just introduced a performance by Best Documentary subjects Anvil, said his band will work with Butch Vig on their seventh album, in part to mark the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s Nevermind, which Vig produced in 1991. “Me and [Foos drummer] Taylor [Hawkins] have already started demoing songs,” Grohl told Rolling Stone.
But unlike the Foos’ previous two efforts, which were recorded at Studio 606 (a cutting edge recording complex/rehearsal space/party den that the band owns in Northridge, California), this forthcoming album will be recorded entirely in analog — and out of Grohl’s garage. “We’re doing a test on Monday,” he said when asked about potential noise complaints from his Encino neighbors (and the missus). Indeed, the father of two added, “I think this could be our heaviest album yet.”
With no firm timeline for release (though the month September was bandied about), the follow-up to 2007’s Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace will also be accompanied by a documentary film, said Grohl, that will celebrate the Foos’ 16 years together and chronicle the making of the album. No doubt he was inspired by the movie Anvil! The Story of Anvil. For his Independent Spirit introduction, Grohl went off script and urged not just all musicians, but every person in the room to watch the movie that made him cry.
Nervous that his ad-libbing didn’t come out as well as he’d hoped, afterwards, Grohl clutched his bottle like a security blanket, while waiting for his wife Jordyn to peruse the tent-adjacent Elle Lounge. “If I stay another minute, I’m gonna get so fucking drunk, I’ll barf all over myself,” he cracked.