I think my biggest musical hero growing up was probably Ian MacKaye. He set a great example for all of us local musicians. Still, to this day, I see him as the best example of a right-on musician.
When you’re sequencing a record, you want the listener to stick with it from beginning to end, and in order to do that, you really have to map out the journey from the first song to the last.
For every Foo Fighters record, we’ve had two or three beautiful, acoustic-based songs, but they never usually make their way to the record, because we want to make rock records.
I love Black Sabbath. They made an amazing contribution to music today. Almost every band that made it big in the Nineties owed a debt to them.
Being in Nirvana was amazing an experience that will never happen again for me. And I look on them as some of the best and worst times of my life.
Someone curating songs for you through your computer or being able to hold 10,000 songs on your watch – that convenience is pretty incredible, but so is the emotional impact of holding a Beatles record in your hand and listening to Let It Be.
I’m not like a voracious hoarder who has 50,000 albums of vinyl stacked in a storage space in the San Fernando Valley. But I do have albums from the last 40 years of my life.
We’re in this band, the Foo Fighters, making music for the love of music. We all came from bands that had disbanded, and we were drawn to each other because we missed playing.
There’s nothing I’d rather do than make music. It’s the love of my life.
My first instrument was actually the trombone, but that didn’t last long. Soon I was playing guitar in bands from the time I was 11 or 12.
I always loved writing songs – writing for myself and demo-ing songs, really with no intention of ever letting anyone else hear them.
I hate the solo artist aspect of rock-‘n’-roll. I don’t have enough personality or charisma to be a solo star.
To me the most important thing is getting into a studio and making an album that is 12 or 14 amazing songs, getting up onstage, and making people happy by livening the rock.
We only do what feels right. If something feels forced or contrived, then we pull back. We remain the Foo Fighters.
When something good comes your way, you better feel fortunate, because it doesn’t last forever.
When it comes to making an album I take that very seriously. I am meticulous, overworked. That’s my time to put everything under the microscope.
I think I’m scared a lot. I’m scared of almost everything. And I’m constantly trying to work my way through each obstacle, whether it’s a present, past, or future relationship.
I think actually singing the words is more therapeutic than just sitting down to write them, because then you are letting it out, and it’s coming from your gut.
I had long hair since I was 17 years old. It was time for me to let go. I hated being the guy at the wedding in a suit with a ponytail.
It’s nice when people are happy to hear that you’re still alive, rather than feeling like “Oh, finally he’s dead?”
I don’t want to say that most rock bands live these formulaic biography existences – but they kinda do. There’s always a divorce. There’s always an OD. There’s always a bad business manager.