Dispute: Dave Grohl calls for Oasis to reunite and Noel Gallagher for Foo Fighters to part ways
"Dad, are we really going to get into a war?"
When Dave Grohl listened to his 11-year-old daughter, he remembered himself at her age, in the early 1980s, when every day on television there was talk of the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The image of Donald Trump's supporters' assault on the Capitol in Washington DC, near
where he lived as a teenager
, confirmed his worst fears. "These last four years have been really weird, we have all felt
Anxiety and tension, we have become used to seeing how the problems were growing without anyone doing anything, to hearing inappropriate statements from important people.
So much so that in the end we got used to it!
"laments the musician in a telephone conversation from Los Angeles." I have been waiting for a war since I was little, since I was a child with a toy gun, "he sings in
Waiting on a war
, the exciting single from his new album with Foo Fighters that comes out this Friday 5,
Medicine at midnight
(Sony Music), inspired by that foreboding conversation with his daughter he had in 2019, before reality took a turn for the past few months.
"It is very sad that children have to grow up with fear, that's why I composed this song, to launch
a message of optimism and confidence
in the future. "At 52, Dave Grohl is one of the last great heroes of a time when rock was a factory of global icons. He survived the tragic goodbye of Kurt Cobain and the dissolution of Nirvana and founded 25 years ago Foo Fighters, reinventing themselves as a singer and mass idol. Today, rock has disappeared from the charts but is still the only genre to fill stadiums. To go on tour with this album, for the moment, you will have to wait.
These are rare times.
It was the first time in half a century that we have stopped with the group, we are not used to staying at home.
It has been a very difficult year, when the pandemic broke out we made the decision to focus on more important things, on taking care of our people.
In a way it has been positive, when you get older any change is exciting.
Let's see, this is not the best situation, I am dying to play live again, but in the meantime you have to stay active.
How is your new life?
When things you used to do disappear, you find other stimuli.
I am a normal person when it comes to being a father or being part of a family: I get up in the morning, prepare breakfast with my three daughters, help them with school homework on the computer, then I try to have fun with something, do things .
It's a super simple life at home.
And do you know?
It is reconfortable.
I wanted to make a record to celebrate ...
It's our 25th anniversary, the group's 10th album.
In all this time we have recorded from punk-rock to orchestral hot springs, but we had never made an album to dance and enjoy.
These songs have been ready since the beginning of 2020. Our idea was to do a beastly tour for two years and fill stadiums.
And suddenly everything stopped.
Now we have to make do with the fans being able to dance to these songs in their kitchens at night.
There came a time when we accepted that we were not going to return to normal;
even though we can't play live, we want the world to hear them.
The spirit of old rock & roll
Dave Grohl cites classics like Little Richard, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Sly & The Family Stone among the influences when recording this album, "those rock & roll bands with a spirit that makes you want to dance," he says .
"We have grown up listening to that music but we had never done anything like it, this time we wanted to do something new, after 25 years we have to keep the sense of surprise alive."
The album reflects that tone designed to devastate live, like a funny and noisy locomotive that is impossible not to get on.
Waiting on a war
It is an anomaly in such a direct album, with that melancholic and relaxed atmosphere, but it has ended up being the one that best captures the current state of mind.
It's funny, because I wrote it almost two years ago but it really works for everything we are experiencing.
I remember that day my daughter heard something on TV about a possible war between the United States and North Korea, or Russia, or Ukraine, something like that.
When you are little, you can feel trapped by that fear, it is an age in which the imagination is fired.
The song is a message for my daughter but also for all those who need to hear a few words of hope.
Right now there is a feeling that we are making progress, that positive change is possible.
It is a message of hope for future generations.
My oldest daughter is 14 years old and I remember when she was born how suddenly the world changed, I began to see reality with different eyes.
That changes everything, you become more empathetic, you try to understand others from that most naive look.
When you get older you become more cowardly and cynical, but having a child is a great inspiration if you dedicate yourself to writing, because it changes your understanding of the world.
When I observe my three daughters, each with their own personality, and they are discovering new music, they remind me of when I was a child, it is the same as 40 years ago: they sit near the player, they read the lyrics of the songs, they look at the cover of the songs. records ... It's not always easy, but I love being a father.
"No son of mine will ever do the work of the villains, the wishes of the idiots," he sings in
They are not of mine.
That song really talks about the hypocrisy that we have seen these last four years, and that is still going on.
We have all been able to hear these powerful people lecturing on love, peace, law and order, while then turning around and doing just the opposite.
All those highly respected institutions that tell us that we should care about our neighbor and that is precisely what they do not do.
Who are you talking about, are you talking about the last four years of Donald Trump's government in the United States?
I mean ... I don't really want to talk about politics, I prefer to talk about the emotional side of politics.
I think ... please better ask me another question, I really don't want to talk about this.
Is there a meaning behind this album?
One of the great things about writing rock songs is that you don't have to be specific.
If you listen carefully to the lyrics of one of the new songs called
Shame, shame
[shame, shame].
Do you know what he's talking about?
About shame (laughs).
What generates that feeling for you, how do you react?
I am not the only person who has felt shame at least once in life.
What I enjoy the most about playing my songs live is that on stage I am singing something that has a meaning for me, but at the same time there are another 15,000 people who are singing that same thing with another 15,000 different senses.
That's exciting.
However, there is an obvious political message in releasing songs like
Waiting on a war
.
In the early 80's punk bands were unmistakably political, in their lyrics you could see the reasons why they wrote those songs.
But when I write topics that people consider political, they actually have more to do with emotions, they come from my heart and not so much from my brain.
This album talks about universal emotions with which anyone can feel identified.
Throughout my career I have been asked what the meaning of my lyrics is but I have never told anyone.
Do you know why?
Because I would lose the grace, that would prevent each one from using my songs for what their emotions tell them.
After 25 years with Foo Fighters, and more than three decades in music, do you regret any mistakes?
And what are you most proud of?
I am proud to be able to admit my mistakes (laughs).
We all look back on our lives and there is some situation in which we would have liked to act differently.
But that's not really how I live it, I don't spend too much time on it, because it is useless.
Life is like a game of poker, you have the hand that has been dealt to you and you can only play those cards to the best of your ability.
I've done the best I could, damn, I'm a human, I make mistakes and shit, but I prefer to look forward.
There are some of my works that when I listen to them I don't like, but it is part of the progression, thanks to feeling bad, the next time I tried harder.
It is the fight of each day.
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